| Science fiction, American |
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Summary
Summary
Philip K. Dick was a master of science fiction, but he was also a writer whose work transcended genre to examine the nature of reality and what it means to be human. A writer of great complexity and subtle humor, his work belongs on the shelf of great twentieth-century literature, next to Kafka and Vonnegut. Collected here are twenty-one of Dick's most dazzling and resonant stories, which span his entire career and show a world-class writer working at the peak of his powers.
In "The Days of Perky Pat," people spend their time playing with dolls who manage to live an idyllic life no longer available to the Earth's real inhabitants. "Adjustment Team" looks at the fate of a man who by mistake has stepped out of his own time. In "Autofac," one community must battle benign machines to take back control of their lives. And in "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon," we follow the story of one man whose very reality may be nothing more than a nightmare. The collection also includes such classic stories as "The Minority Report," the basis for the Steven Spielberg movie, and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," the basis for the film Total Recall. Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick is a magnificent distillation of one of American literature's most searching imaginations.
Author Notes
Phillip Kindred Dick was an American science fiction writer best known for his psychological portrayals of characters trapped in illusory environments. Born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 16, 1928, Dick worked in radio and studied briefly at the University of California at Berkeley before embarking on his writing career. His first novel, Solar Lottery, was published in 1955.
In 1963, Dick won the Hugo Award for his novel, The Man in the High Castle. He also wrote a series of futuristic tales about artificial creatures on the loose; notable of these was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was later adapted into film as Blade Runner. Dick also published several collections of short stories. He died of a stroke in Santa Ana, California, in 1982. (Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick, with an introduction by Jonathan Lethem, should help persuade mainstream readers that the late SF author was no "mere" genre writer. Fans of the Spielberg film Minority Report will find Dick's original, "The Minority Report," along with 20 other masterful tales. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Twenty-one stories culled from Dick's (1928-82) considerable output; all have appeared in collections before, if only in the five-volume Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (1986). Although the basis for the current selection isn't clear, the timing coincides with the release of yet another movie based on his work. Both "Beyond Lies the Wub," Dick's first published story, and "Roog," his first sale, appear. Most of the stories reflect Dick's dearest obsessions, "What is real?" or "What is human?," sometimes both at once. For Dick, reality might be adjusted at any moment: by the government, drugs, psychiatrists, aliens, or god. Angels could be vampires. Memories are at best unreliable, more likely false, or lost altogether. Machines, once activated, can't be shut off, and overthrow humanity. Changelings remain unaware of their real identity: robots assume they're human; an assassin knows nothing of the bomb he carries. Four tales here have been made into movies, if not altogether recognizably: "Second Variety" became Screamers; "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" developed, via Piers Anthony, into Arnold Schwarzenegger's Total Recall; "Imposter," spelled correctly, is Impostor; and the recent adaptation of "The Minority Report" stars Tom Cruise. Was Dick then a prophet, clairvoyantly writing outlines for future movie moguls? No. But it's curious how aptly today's world reflects the concepts that tormented and fascinated the author: paranoia, shifting realities, pulp culture, and machines. These are not, for the most part, outstanding stories, but the worlds of this fevered imagination have become our luridly inescapable reality.
Booklist Review
This volume is another consequence of the respectability Dick won posthumously with the classy movie Blade Runner, based on a novel of his. Besides the source of the new movie Minority Report, two more of his stories that were filmed--"Second Variety," lensed as Screamers, and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," which became Total Recall--appear here. Also on hand are the very early "Beyond Lies the Wub" and "Roog"; "The King of the Elves," a rare excursion into fantasy, more Borges than Tolkien; "The Days of Perky Pat" and "Faith of Our Fathers," which explore themes later developed in novels; and 13 others. The stories show him reaching out to the dark sides of American society--and of himself. When he was alive, his work fell between the stools of mainstream disdain for any science fiction and the sf subculture's disdain for anybody who tried to "write mainstream." Justice done a dead man is better than no justice at all, especially when it involves giving such distinctive short fiction renewed currency. --Roland Green