I just finished Philip K. Dick’s novel Dr. Bloodmoney. Before this, the only other book I had ready by him was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. With both stories there is a weird sense of the narrative pushing along with an undertone of dread—the kafkaesque twists of Androids, the characters’ surreal perception of their crumbling worlds, and solipsistic insanity crawling into their minds.

The character Hoppy in Dr. Bloodmoney has to have been an inspiration for some of the characters in Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love: there’s telekenesis, his body’s limitations, his cult-like leadership of a community, and his creepy sense of control.