The Novels of Philip K. Dick is Kim Stanley Robinson's doctoral dissertation, published by UMI Research Press (Ann Arbor, Michigan) as No. 9 in the Studies in Speculative Fiction series, under the general editorship of Robert Scholes, Alumni/Alumnae Professor of English at Brown University.
At 153 pages, this is one of the earliest and most substantial academic studies devoted to Dick's novels. The Studies in Speculative Fiction series includes works by major scholars: Natalie M. Rosinsky on feminist futures in contemporary women's speculative fiction (No. 1), William F. Touponce on Ray Bradbury and the poetics of reverie (No. 2), and a volume on the scientific world view in dystopia (No. 3).
Robinson went on to become one of the most important science fiction writers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, known for the Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) and The Ministry for the Future. His dissertation on Dick represents a foundational document in Dick scholarship, bringing rigorous literary analysis to Dick's novels at a time when academic study of science fiction was still establishing itself. The combination of Robinson's later literary fame and the scholarly quality of this early work makes it one of the most significant items in the canon of Dick criticism.