Counterfeit Worlds

Philip K. Dick, the visionary author behind Blade Runner, is the most adapted science fiction writer in cinema history. Though he struggled to make a living during his lifetime, his work has since served as a deep seam of ideas to be mined by filmmakers such as Ridley Scott, Paul Verhoeven, Steven Speilberg, John Woo and Richard Linklater, resulting in some of the most successful and influential SF movies of all time. For the still-unequalled future world of Blade Runner to the mind-bending A Scanner Darkly, via the blockbusting action/adventure of Total Recall, Paycheck and Minority Report – not to mention the debt of gratitude films like The Matrix and The Truman Show owe to his work – the legacy of Philip K. Dick has revolutionised Hollywood.

Illustrated with rare photos, Counterfeit Worlds is the first book to trace the history of Philip K. Dick screen adaptations, both in cinema and on television.



Brian J. Robb is a New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling biographer. He has also written on silent cinema, the films of Philip K. Dick, Laurel and Hardy and the Star Wars movies and he won the Tolkien Society Award for his book Middle-earth Envisioned. He is a founding editor of the Sci-Fi Bulletin website and lives near Edinburgh.