Dick presents some insight into his fictional cosmology in his essay "Man, Android, and Machine," published in the anthology Science Fiction at Large (1976), edited by Peter Nicholls. There he describes the complexity of a dream universe wherein there are beings aware of man's plight but offering no help. There are also entities existing outside the dreams of humans which are helping.

Dick's Hugo Award-winning novel The Man in the High Castle (1962) explores notions of authority and political oligarchy by supposing that the United States had lost World War II. Japan and Germany divide the U.S. and Dick shows how easily Americans adopt their respective rulers.

Perhaps the best insight into the very enigmatic figure that was Philip K. Dick is the one offered by Paul Williams, close friend and literary executor. Using his access to all of Dick's papers...