With the hotly anticipated release of Blade Runner 2049 set to hit the big screens in October, The Folio Society has been in the process for two years creating a two title combination of Philip K Dick’s outstanding Sci-Fi novels, landing ahead of the film release.
It is difficult to measure the impact of Philip K. Dick’s work. Not only did his stories and novels win awards and influence an entire generation of science-fiction writers, many of his works have been adapted into film and continue to inspire directors to this day. Alongside Ridley Scott’s genre-changing Blade Runner, inspired by Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Not to mention the films Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly and the recent television series The Man in the High Castle all owe their existence to his imagination.
For this special The Folio Society edition they have brought together two classic titles in an appropriately mind-bending format: read one, then turn the book upside down to enter the altered reality of the next. Bound in the tête-bêche binding style popular with early pulp publishers, the two titles are presented upside down relative to each other, and each features a different illustrator. For Androids, Chris Skinner has summoned the seedy neon-drenched noir of Dick’s original vision. Andrew Archer’s images for A Scanner Darkly are appropriately hallucinatory, offering a glimpse of the horrors and the wonders of a bad trip. A unique collaborative double-page illustration at the centre of the book brings these visionary worlds together, creating the ultimate collector’s edition of two science-fiction classics.
Both novels, written with Dick’s trademark energy and prescience, explore many of the author’s personal obsessions. His twin sister died when only a few weeks old, and his characters often find themselves at odds with ‘phantom twins’ and multiple identities, while his habitual drug use inspired A Scanner Darkly. As he writes in the poignant foreword, included with this edition: ‘I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel.’
The presentation of the book, from the artwork on the case, to the printing on the spine, is lovely – just like the other books produced by The Folio Society. There are 488 pages in the book, which includes 12 full-page colour integrated illustrations and one double-page-spread colour illustration by both the artists, and it comes in a plain red slipcase.
If you are a fan of Philip K Dick or Blade Runner, this one is an absolute must for your collection.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and A Scanner Darkly is available now from The Folio Society priced £75.00.
You can learn more about this book, along with a number of other books from The Folio Society website.
