Born in Chicago, Dick moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his family at a young age. He began publishing science fiction stories in 1952. His stories initially found little commercial success, but his 1962 alternative history novel "The Man in the High Castle" earned Dick early acclaim, including a Hugo Award for Best Novel. He followed with science fiction novels such as "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (1968) and "Ubik" (1969). His 1974 novel "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Following a series of religious experiences in 1974, Dick's work engaged more explicitly with issues of theology, philosophy, and the nature of reality, as in novels "A Scanner Darkly" (1977) and "VALIS" (1981). A collection of his nonfiction writing on these themes was published posthumously as "The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick" (2011). He died in 1982 in Santa Ana, California, at the age of 53, due to complications from a stroke.