Book excerpt: Philip K. Dick struggled to make a living during his lifetime, but his work has since served as a deep seam of ideas to be mined by filmmakers such as Ridley Scott, Paul Verhoeven, Steven Spielberg, 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.