What if you discovered that everything you knew about the world was a lie? That’s the question at the heart of Philip K. Dick’s futuristic novel about political oppression, the show business of politics and the sinister potential of the military industrial complex. This wry, paranoid thriller imagines a future in which the earth has been ravaged, and cities are burnt-out wastelands too dangerous for human life. Americans have been shipped underground, where they toil in crowded industrial ant hills and receive a steady diet of inspiring speeches from a President who never seems to age. Nick St. James, like the rest of the masses, believed in the words of his leaders. But that all changes when he travels to the surface—where what he finds is more shocking than anything he could possibly imagine.

Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utlizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves.

菲利普·迪剋 （1928-1982）

美國著名科幻作傢。他一生雖然隻有短短五十三年，卻創作瞭三十六部長篇小說和五部短篇小說集。

他隻得過一次雨果奬、一次約翰·坎貝爾紀念奬，卻被稱為“科幻作傢中的科幻作傢”，因為他的創意和點子層齣不窮，成為無數科幻作傢藉鑒的創作素材庫。齣於同樣的原因，好萊塢也將迪剋的作品視為寶庫。截至目前，他共有十一部小說十三次被改編成影視作品，其中包括《銀翼殺手》《宇宙威龍》《少數派報告》《記憶裂痕》等經典大作，堪稱好萊塢科幻電影的靈感之源。