Womb twin survivors in science fiction - Philip K Dick

 Philip K. Dick - womb twin survivor and  science fiction writer



From the Phil K Dick web site

The Early Years

 He was born prematurely, along with his twin sister Jane, in Chicago on December 16, 1928. His father was Edgar Dick, his mother Dorothy Kindred - from her maiden name came Dick's middle initial. Jane died six weeks after her birth, a loss that Phil felt deeply throughout his life.

 As time went on, Phil came, with whatever justice, to blame his mother for Jane's death. His relationship with both of his parents was decidedly difficult, and made only more so when they divorced when he was five years old.

Sister Jane, his mother, and his father served as models for many of the characters who would populate Dick's fictional universes in the decades to come. In particular, the death of Jane - and Phil's traumatic sense of separation from her, an experience common to many twins who have lost their sibling - contributed to the dualist (twin-poled) dilemmas that dominated his creative work - science fiction (SF)/mainstream, real/fake, human/android. It was out of these pressing dualities that the two vast questions emerged which Dick often cited as encompassing his writing: What is Real? and What is Human?

He never stopped writing about twins.

For example, here we have an unborn twin (a fetus in fetu in fact)  as a character in his science fiction novel Dr Bloodmoney.

Edie Keller Daughter of Bonny Keller and Andrew Gill. Edie tells everyone she has a twin brother, assumed by everyone to be an imaginary friend but really being a sentient fetus in fetu named Bill.


Bill Keller Edie's brother, a fetus in fetu within her body. He depends on Edie for sustenance and for reports of her sense perceptions, but independently has telepathic contact with the dead.

Do you read his books? Did you come across the lost twin in the ones you read? Do comment and let us know......