Very interesting, I didn't know this bit of scifi history!
I'm an absolute fan of PKD, and he was definitely at his best when exploring the surreal and unexplainable, the paradoxes, the philosophical, and also the minutiae of the "uninteresting" parts of people's lives. Like someone said in the intro of his collected stories, PKD's characters themselves are often cardboard thin, and his props likewise. Taken at face value, the "pure" scifi bits of his stories aren't particularly interesting; but it's fascinating how he cares about what a time-traveler does for a living, and when a service call from the future goes horribly wrong, it's the minutiae about the repairman's life that matters, not the "tech". When someone is stuck in a parallel universe, their possible savior might only be interested in what's in it for her as profit. When someone is stuck in a Nazi-ruled world, we still learn he sells fake antiques for a living.
If someone lives in a backwards time-travelling stream ("Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday") this is never really explained. PKD doesn't care about this, he cares about how it affects his characters. And the story is never fully resolved, not in a tidy way -- it often ends up more confusing than it started!
So I guess I find myself in agreement with Stalislaw Lem here.
I'm an absolute fan of PKD, and he was definitely at his best when exploring the surreal and unexplainable, the paradoxes, the philosophical, and also the minutiae of the "uninteresting" parts of people's lives. Like someone said in the intro of his collected stories, PKD's characters themselves are often cardboard thin, and his props likewise. Taken at face value, the "pure" scifi bits of his stories aren't particularly interesting; but it's fascinating how he cares about what a time-traveler does for a living, and when a service call from the future goes horribly wrong, it's the minutiae about the repairman's life that matters, not the "tech". When someone is stuck in a parallel universe, their possible savior might only be interested in what's in it for her as profit. When someone is stuck in a Nazi-ruled world, we still learn he sells fake antiques for a living.
If someone lives in a backwards time-travelling stream ("Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday") this is never really explained. PKD doesn't care about this, he cares about how it affects his characters. And the story is never fully resolved, not in a tidy way -- it often ends up more confusing than it started!
So I guess I find myself in agreement with Stalislaw Lem here.