Book Review: Encounter with Realities: Critical Reflections on the Novels and Short Stories of Philip K. Dick by Frank C. Bertrand, David Hyde (Editor), Lord Running Clam (Introduction)

 

 Encounter with Realities: Critical Reflections on the Novels and Short Stories of Philip K. Dick by  Frank C. Bertrand, David Hyde (Editor), Lord Running Clam (Introduction)

185 pages, Hardcover

Published June 13, 2026 by Wide Books

 

They say only Nixon could’ve gone to China. If I were more petty or held a bigger grudge, I would not have bought this book at PKD Fest, read it, or reviewed it. Since I started the podcast, one person in the PKD community has been rude and dismissive of my efforts, and that would be the author of this book. It is not just me; his negative comments across the PKD community is legendary, and that type of stuff comes with consequences. Despite the fact that his name personally causes intense eye-rolling on my part, I gave this book a fair shot. 

The reality is…and I honestly hate to say this…Damn, this is a fine piece of PKD scholarship that should be in the collection of anyone seriously interested in understanding the work of Philip K. Dick. This collection of shorter works about PKD written over several decades is valuable for many reasons.

The book's strength comes from two elements. It draws on essays written over decades, and Bertrand makes observations no one else could. The book opens with various essays on A Scanner Darkly, and these alone are worth getting the book. The essays on The Man Who Japed and Eye in the Sky have their strengths. 

These types of essays and commentary that dig deep into the meaning of the stories and novels and take advantage of multiple points of view help to expand PKD studies in a way that is very important. Wide Books does a wonderful job of putting out deep-dive books that maybe we didn’t know we needed. 

The first essay that I really thought was unique was a 1999 essay about A Scanner Darkly that points to how the universe of ASD was different; the exploration of those details was very important. However, the best essay about that novel was “Kant’s Noumenal Self and Doppelganger in PK Dick’s A Scanner Darkly,” which is worth the entire book. The interview with Phil on Philosophy is great; of course, it is available in many places online.

Bertrand might not like me, but this book is an important document of all the work he has done. The most important thing is it is useful information on PKD. Therefore, I recommend it.