Adjustment Team [Kindle Edition]

Philip K. Dick (Author)

Book Description

"Adjustment Team" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. It was first published in Orbit Science Fiction, Sept-Oct 1954, No.4.

"SOMETHING WENT WRONG ...AND ED FLETCHER GOT MIXED UP IN THE BIGGEST THING IN HIS LIFE." -- Orbit introduction to "Adjustment Team".

Sector T137 is scheduled for adjustment and a Clerk is supervising a canine Summoner to ensure real estate salesman Ed Fletcher is inside Sector T137 during the process. An 8:15 bark to summon a Friend With A Car is needed. Unfortunately the bark is a minute late, bringing an Insurance Salesman causing Fletcher to leave for work late. Arriving at Sector T137 after it's been de-energized, Fletcher enters a terrifying gray ash world. Escaping white-robed men he flees across the street back to the everday energized world outside Sector T137 fearing he's had a psychotic episode.


On Friday, March 11 2011 Universal Pictures will release the movie "The Adjustment Bureau" starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. "The Adjustment Bureau" is loosely based on the Philip K. Dick short story titled "Adjustment Team".
Matt Damon plays David Norris, a former Fordham University basketball player and charismatic United States Congressman who seems destined for national political stardom. He meets a beautiful ballet dancer named Elise Sellas, played by Blunt, only to find that strange circumstances keep them from becoming romantically involved. Norris discovers forces are at work to keep them apart, and he peels the layers to find out why.

Product Details

• File Size: 46 KB
• Print Length: 43 pages
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004JHYSUS
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,431 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 64 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Little in common with the movie, but a decent story for the price. February 15, 2011

By Richard Mansfield

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was fortunate enough to get passes to see The Adjustment Bureau tonight, which is loosely based on Philip K. Dick's story "Adjustment Team." Five minutes before we were to leave for the theater, I read on IMDB that the movie was based on this story. I reached for my Kindle, and ran a search on Amazon for the movie title and found the Kindle version of the short story. I've read a number of PKD's stories in the past, but not this one. Like most movies based in PKD's stories (such as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, etc.) there is usually very little in the original story that is identifiable in the movie. Adjustment Team/Bureau is no exception, but it's a pretty good read anyway.

The story could be read easily in one setting, but while my wife drove us to the theater, I read half of the story out loud, and then finished it when we got back. The movie deals with bigger issues of personal destiny and God's sovereignty, but the story primarily focuses on the overarching plan of history that is kept in place by the Adjustment Team. The protagonist in the story is already married, unlike Matt Damon's character in the movie who is obsessed with a woman with whom he feels he is destined to be.

This is not PKD's greatest story, but it is always interesting to see how a story such as this can spark an idea for a much more complex movie, such as The Adjustment Bureau. This will not be a long read, but at [...] cents, you're not out much, and the original story is fairly decent in it's own right--even if it does sport a talking dog!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Quick and Simple March 31, 2011

By Ingrid G.

Format:Kindle Edition

I also watched the movie before I had a chance to read the short story it is based on. I can see how in some ways the movie follows the story...there is a team that adjusts people's lives, they follow a specific plan, there is team member that is supposed to make sure things happen in a certain sequence and a mistake is made...and so on.

The general elements are there. In the short story the man that is accidentally caught in the middle of the adjustment is already married, so there is no love that can never ben scenario (as in the movie). He just happens to witness a shift in people's lives that he works with and then is basically sent to speak to God (I assume it is God since he has a long white beard and is the boss) to discuss what he witnessed. He had a chance to tell his wife what he saw and that was a no-no to the team.

When speaking with God he promises never to tell anyone else or bring it up again with his wife, so he is sent back to live his life without being "adjusted" like everyone else in his office. He is almost about to break his promise and tell his wife, but he is saved by a salesman that distracts her from pursuing her line of questioning.

Then it just ends. We don't get much character development and we aren't really told too much about why the team has to redirect people's lives in such a complicated manner. The only explanation we get is that it's important for this man's office co-workers to buy a certain piece of land (they are real estate brokers or something like that) that will set other events in motion...like a domino effect. Because buying the land is risky, they need to adjust some of his office buddies to where they are younger - making them risk takers.

I read this in about 20 minutes. It was okay and worth reading, just not that memorable to me.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A lot of favorites in this one August 4, 2011

By Katherine Hooper VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Philip K. Dick wrote 121 short stories over his career, mostly for science fiction magazines. Subterranean Press has been collecting them in chronological order over several volumes. The first volume, The King of the Elves, contained 22 stories spanning the years 1947-1952. This second volume, Adjustment Team, covers the years 1952-1953 and includes 27 stories with notes that make up approximately 488 pages.

Many of these stories use themes that were common in 1950s SF shorts -- space exploration, the cold war, racism, xenophobia, and the fear of atomic war and radiation. Like the stories of Ray Bradbury and other popular writers of the time, Dick's stories are full of spaceships, aliens, Soviets, cigarettes, bad marriages, a disdain for 1950s psychology, and high-heeled housewives in aprons. You'll also notice other favorite themes of Philip K. Dick: what's behind reality, playing God through world-building, a vision of a post-robopocalyptic ash-covered Earth, and what it means to be human.

Most of the stories in this volume were new to me and I enjoyed all but one or two of them. My favorites were:

* Second Variety -- A frighteningly realistic-feeling robopocalypse. This haunting story was the basis for the movie Screamers (1995) and one of the best in the collection.
* Jon's World -- A fascinating idea about parallel universes and a criticism of the practice of lobotomy.
* Some Kinds of Life -- One of several anti-war stories in this collection. This one asks what we're really fighting for.
* The Commuter -- Two different realities seem to be colliding. This is a common theme for PKD, and one he does really well.
* A Surface Raid -- One of several stories which imagine a post-war Earth covered in ash with a few remaining humans living underground. All of these ash-Earth stories are terrific. And scary.
* Project: Earth -- Another common theme for PKD: Who is God?
* The Trouble with Bubbles -- "World-building is the ultimate art form." Another story about gods.
* Human Is -- A wonderful look at what it means to be human. I saw the ending twist coming, but this was still one of my favorite stories.
* Adjustment Team -- The basis for the movie The Adjustment Bureau (2010), this is one of several entertaining looks at a possible "back-end" of reality.
* The Impossible Planet -- Another post-apocalyptic cautionary tale which starts with a chuckle and ends with a chill. A beautiful story -- one of the best in the collection.
* Impostor -- Another robot story, and the basis of the film Impostor (2002).
* Survey Team -- This tale about the destruction of Earth has an interesting suggestion about where we came from.
* Prominent Author -- This is another story with a common PKD theme, but I won't mention which one, so as not to spoil the surprise ending. This is one of the few whose ending I didn't see coming and which I would actually consider "mind-bending."

Well, that's a lot of favorites, I guess, but I had a hard time narrowing them down because this collection has so many great stories. Many felt dated and I could anticipate the ending of most of them, but that's because I have, in 2011, the benefit of 60 more years of science fiction literature at my back than Dick's first readers did. Even so, I loved this collection.

The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Volume Two: Adjustment Team (1952-1953) is an absolute must-have volume for any serious PKD fan, but it's also a great place to start for anyone who wants to become better acquainted with the work of this prolific and highly esteemed science fiction writer.