Strange Fiction

I know that we’ve been in the 21st century for a good while. (Does anyone remember the furor over “Y2K”?) Even so, now and then, I feel disoriented when I see the date. I recently recalled the weird experience (which took place many years ago now) of picking up a then-newly issued paperback of Philip K. Dick’s characteristically slapdash and wonderful novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), criminally retitled Blade Runner (to capitalize on the cachet of the Ridley Scott movie, which—whatever its independent virtues—is utterly out of tune with its source). In this reissue, the action of the novel was pushed forward into the 21^st Century!