The opening of “The True Stories of Philip K. Dick,” a 1975 Paul Williams Rolling Stone article about the visionary sci-fi writer, who lived on speed and saw the future, died young and mostly a cult figure, and posthumously became the king of Hollywood:

“November 17, 1971. Philip K. Dick, a brilliant novelist well known in science fiction circles, unlocked the front door of his house in San Rafael, California, and turned on the living-room lights. His stereo was gone. The floor was covered with water and pieces of asbestos. The fireproof, 1100-pound asbestos-and-steel file cabinet that protected his precious manuscripts had been blown apart by powerful explosives.

‘Thank God,’ he thought to himself. ‘Thank God! I guess I’m not crazy after all.’

There’s something about ordinary reality that causes it to go all shimmery in the presence of Philip K. Dick. Phil Dick is a science fiction writer, has been for 24 years, and the common theme that runs through all his stories is, ‘Things are seldom what they seem’–a line Phil repeated several times during my three-day stay at his house last year. His lives in Fullerton, Orange County, California, obviously the natural place for a brilliant writer to go after being driven out of semi-suburban San Rafael by forces beyond his comprehension. The new house is less than ten miles from Disneyland.

Philip K. Dick is unknown in America outside the science fiction subculture, but in Europe and especially France, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest living American novelists. Most of his 36 books are constantly in print in Germany, France and Britain, and Jean-Pierre Gorin, a respected French film director, is trying to raise money for a major Hollywood movie of a Phil Dick novel titled Ubik.

Perhaps Phil’s vision of America is just too accurate to be fully appreciated here. But Dick fans believe it’s a matter of timing. Most of them think Dick is now on the edge of a popularity surge similar to what happened to Kurt Vonnegut in the late Sixties. If so, a whirlwind of doubt, horror and laughter is stalking America, ready to blow off the pages of some of the most peculiar and loving books ever written in this country.”