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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More early works from one of the masters, February 21, 2003
This review is from: We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (Vol 2) (Paperback)
It is a credit to Philip K. Dick's talent that even in his early days - at a time when he was cranking out stories just to keep food on the table - that he was able to write so much fiction that is not only good, but great. In this second volume of a five book set that includes essentially all his short works, we get to read more of his earliest tales and find there is little to disappoint here. The title piece is the short story which was adapted into the movie Total Recall. I like the movie well enough, but outside the premise, there is little that is really similar to the original story, which has much more of an emphasis on the comic than on action. In fact, the majority of these stories have a comic touch. Since these are tales of dark futures - most involve Earth's that are either environmentally wrecked or repressive dictatorships - the humor prevents things from getting too depressing. You don't have to be a Dick fan to enjoy these stories, nor even much of a science fiction fan (though it helps); this is just a fantastic collection of short stories that are both fun and thought-provoking. What more could you want?
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful Read; Bad Edition, February 27, 2001
This review is from: We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (Vol 2) (Paperback)
While Philip K. Dick never fails to impress me with his brilliance, the publisher succeed in writing a sketchy edition of these short stories. Every story has its own thought behind it - a deeper meaning. My favorite stories were "Some Kinds of Life", "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", and "Adjustment Team" which each story brings a whole new concept that has been exploited in recent media. However, while entranced in these short bursts of envigorating stories, one can become distracted with the large amount of typos in this edition. The abscence of characters and grammatical errors often caused me to stop reading smoothly and re-read the sentence. Ultimately, I was disgusted by this bad representation of such a masterpiece. I would recommend people to buy this book who are interested in Dick's works, but do not have the time to immerse themselves in a full-fledged novel. These stories take approximately twenty minutes each and are all amusing. A wonderful read, but the publisher might want to proofread the writing.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Evolution Of Dick's Short Stories, April 2, 2007
This review is from: We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (Vol 2) (Paperback)
In May of 1987 Underwood-Miller published a five volume set titled "The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick", with the second volume being subtitled "Second Variety". In September of 1990 the Carroll Group republished the second volume with a few of changes including changing the subtitle to "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". In addition to the change of title, they removed the title story from the original volume and replaced it with the new title story. This was probably done to take advantage of the release of the movie "Total Recall" which was based on the story. The last change they made was to move the story "Prominent Author" from the last story to the third story.
This is another great volume in the collection of Philip K. Dick's early short fiction. The original intent of the series was to present the stories in the order in which they were believed to have been written instead of the order in which they were published. However, by switching stories and changing the order in this book, the stories are now no longer in either order. There are 27 stories here, so it doesn't make sense to go through them all in detail, but there are several ones of note:
The title story, as mentioned earlier, was the basis for the movie "Total Recall", and for those familiar with the movie the first part of the story matches the first part of the movie very well. Douglas Quail is unsatisfied with his life and has a desire to go to Mars, he decides to check-out Rekal and is convinced to get the memories of a trip there as a secret agent implanted. At some point the two stories diverge though, and while the movie turns into an action film, the story takes a different twist at the end. The story was written in 1965 and first published in 1966, so it is much newer than the rest of the stories in this book which were mostly written and published in 1953 and 1954. In 1999, this story tied for 32nd on the Locus All-Time Poll for novelettes.
There are stories about our humanity such as "Progeny", which takes a look at what our society might be like if parents are taken out of the business of raising their children. There is "Human Is", which looks at what it really means to be human. "Breakfast at Twilight" involves at a family which is pulled into the near future to witness a war which appears to be the end of civilization. Lastly, there is James P. Crow, which looks at a future society which has forgotten that humans created robots and instead believes the reverse.
This is a very good collection, despite the decision to break away from the chronological order of the stories. The original collection was ranked 3rd on the Locus poll for collections in 1988. The diversity is greater here than in the first volume. Some of the stories may be a bit predictable, however that is largely due to other writers copying Dick's style and ideas. This volume leaves the reader looking forward to volume 3 and the continued evolution of Dick's writing.
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