Philip K Dick was born in Chicago in 1928, but lived most of his life in California. He began reading science fiction when he was 12 and was never able to stop. Among the most prolific and eccentric of s-f writers, Dick's many novels and stories allbelend a sharp and quirky imagination with a strong sense of the surreal. The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo Award in 1963. Other novels include: The Penultimate Truth, Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Time Out of Joint. He died in 1982.