The Lucky Strike

as the obvious next step, it gets a lot more complicated. Things on Earth don’t look so science fictional. And yet the whole world in a sense is in a science fiction novel that we write together. So it’s all very confusing. My response is to say “just keep writing, one novel at a time” and hope for the best.

Do you think there is life on other planets? Intelligence? Do you think we will even “make contact?”

I do think there is life on other planets, and also intelligence, but what kind of intelligence I think is very mysterious, and making contact will be a serious problem, maybe too much a problem to ever really happen, partly because of the size of the universe (bigger than we think) and also the potentially inexplicable nature of alien intelligence, so that we won’t be able to communicate with it (the Solaris problem, after Lem’s great novel).

How come there is no space travel in Years of Rice and Salt ? Do you think space travel is a Eurocentric enterprise?

No, I think any technological civilization would think about space travel, because of the moon, and the simplicity of rockets, and so on. I didn’t have it in Years of Rice and Salt partly by accidental omission, partly because that book only takes history about seventy years past us; and I think without Percival Lowell, we might not have gotten to the moon yet, and might not for another century or so. That was a freak event, with a genealogy that runs from Lowell’s fantasia to the novels of Lasswitz/Bogdanov/Wells to the German Rocket Society to von Braun to WWII to NASA. Without all those elements, including Lowell’s hallucinations about Mars, we might still not have gotten to the moon. So, in my alternative history, I thought it was okay to leave it out. It would have only gotten a sentence or two anyway if I had thought of it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

The Wild Shore

Novel. Locus Poll winner, Best First Novel; Philip K. Dick Award Runner-up.

a. Ace Books, 1984.

b. Futura (UK), 1985.

c. McDonald (UK) 1986.

d. Bastei (W. Germany), 1986.

e. Hayakawa (Japan), 1986.

f. J’ai Lu (France), 1986.

g. Ediciones Jucar (Spain), 1989.

h. Interno Giallo (Italy), 1990.

i. Zysk (Poland), 1998.

j. HarperCollins (UK), 1997.

k. Tor Orb, 1997.

l. Polyaris (Russia).

m. Laser (Czech Republic).

n. Minotauro (Spain) 2006.

Icehenge

Novel.

a. Ace Books, 1984.

b. Futura (UK), 1985.

c. McDonald (UK), 1986.

d. Denoel (France), 1986.

e. Editrice Nord (Italy), 1986.

f. Bastei (W. Germany), 1987.

g. Tor Books, 1990.

h. HarperCollins (UK), 1997.

i. Tor Orb, 1998.

j. KZ Zagrebacka Naklada (Croatia).

k. Minotauro (Spain).

l. Gallimard (France), 2004.

The Novels of Philip K. Dick

Criticism. (UCSD dissertation)

a. UMI Research Press, 1984; paperback, 1989.

b. Chapter 4 reprinted as “Introduction” to Heyne edition of PKD’s The Man in the High Castle, Heyne, 2000.

c. Shayol (Germany) 2005.

d. Les Moutons Electronique (France), 2005.

The Memory of Whiteness

Novel.

a. Tor Books, 1985.

b. McDonald (UK), 1986.

c. Futura (UK), 1987.

d. Bastei (W. Germany), 1987.

e. J’ai Lu (France), 1987.

f. Tokyo Sogensha (Japan), 1996

g. Tor Orb, 1997.

h. HarperCollins (UK), 1999.

i. Librarie Generale Francaise, (France).

The Planet on the Table

Stories. New York Times Notable Book.

a. Tor Books, 1986.

b. Futura (UK), 1987.

c. J’ai Lu (France) 1989.

d. Bastei (W. Germany), 1988.

e. Editorial Caminho (Portugal), 1989.

f. Tor Orb (w/Remaking History), 1995.

The Gold Coast

Novel. John W. Campbell Award runner-up; New York Times Notable Book.

a. Tor Books, 1988.

b. Futura (UK), 1989.

c. J’ai Lu (France), 1989.

d. Hayakawa (Japan), 1991.

e. Bastei (Germany), 1989.

f. Ediciones Jucar (Spain), 1990.

g. Ultramarine Press, 1995.

h. HarperCollins (UK), 1997.

i. Tor Orb, 1997.

j. Akti-Oxi (Greece), 1998.

k. Polyaris (Russia).

l. Minotauro (Spain) 2006.