I began reading a book published in 1987, "The Secret Ascension, or Philip K. Dick Is Dead, Alas" by Michael Bishop a few days before I found something my brother Peter had sent me back in the early 1980's (which I had saved).

The computer printout I found (in obvious dot matrix print) and read, wide-eyed at the coincidence, was copyrighted by Reuters in 1982. It dated from when Peter, my brother, was employed as a person who read newspapers and cut out articles to be saved or sold or something. I believe it was LexisNexis, but Peter may have been working for Mead and merely had LexisNexis capability? I don't remember.

In any case, the book above has to do with the death of Phil Dick and the printout is from March 2, 1982, and says that, "Philip Dick, award winning SF author of 35 novels and 6 short story collections, died today..."

I have been a fan of Phil Dick almost since I first began reading SF in 1961. I must have most of those titles above packed away in plastic in a box that quite likely has not been opened for a decade.

I'm not quite done with the book by Michael Bishop yet, but am enjoying it and recommend it to anyone interested. It is strongly reminiscent of Dick's writing style, by design.

PKD REFERENCE