Philip K. Dick (1928-1982)
Philip Kindred Dick was born in Chicago but lived in California for most of his life. He went to college at Berkeley for a year, ran a record store and had his own classical-music show on a local radio station. He published his first short story, 'Beyond Lies the Wub' in 1952. Among his many fine novels are The Man In The High Castle, Time Out Of Joint, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said and A Scanner Darkly. An extraordinary number of his novels and short stories have been adapted to film - most notably Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? which was filmed as Blade Runner.