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The Philip K. Dick Reader

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Just to clear up some confusion here, The Philip K. Dick Reader is NOT the paperback edition of Selected Stories. These are the stories featured in The Reader:

Fair Game; The Hanging Stranger; The Eyes have it; The Golden Man; The Turning Wheel; The Last of the Masters; The Father-Thing; Strange Eden; Tony and the Beetles; Null-O; To Serve the Master; Exhibit Piece; The Crawlers; Sales Pitch; Shell Game; Upon the Dull Earth; Foster, you're dead; Pay for the Printer; War Veteran; The Chromium Fence; We can remember it for you wholesale; The Minority Report; Paycheck; Second Variety.

These are the stories featured in Selected Stories:

Beyond lies the Wub; Roog; Paycheck; Second Variety; Imposter; The King of the Elves; Adjustment Team; Foster, you're dead; Upon the dull Earth; Autofac; The Minority Report; The days of Perky Pat; Precious Artifact; A game of unchance; We can remember it for you wholesale; Faith of our Fathers; The electric ant; A little something for us Tempunauts; The exit door leads in; Rautavaara's Case; I hope I shall arrive soon.

For those not familiar with the stories, I'd probably give the nod to The Reader, although serious fans will want both despite all of the overlap. For those entirely new to Philip K. Dick, I'd recommend one of the short story collections before any of the novels. Dick is a rather peculiar writer, and his short stories are more accessible than the longer stories, I think. Also, if you're only familiar with the author as the source for "Total Recall" and the movie version of "Minority Report," both of these collections have the original stories. Dick's short stories tend to read like original "Twilight Zone" episodes, often with "punch-line" endings. While the more sophisticated sci-fi readers of today may find the twist endings a little trite, the stories generally offer up a multitude of interesting "what if" ideas before getting there. Recurring themes include paranoia, xenophobia, technology vs. nature, war and its devastating effect on society, metaphysics, and uncertain realities, probably the most revisited theme in P.K. Dick's work. If you want to try the novels, my recommendations are 'Time out of joint', 'Radio Free Albemuth' and 'The Divine Invasion.'

A number of Philip K. Dick's works have been made into motion pictures, most notably "Blade Runner", "Total Recall", and "Minority Report". However, the greatest PKD moment exists in a film called "The Matrix", not written by the author but a movie which most certainly derives inspiration from his works. In it, the character Morpheous offers a choice to the protagonist Neo - a return to blissful ignorance or revelation of the Matrix, seen by Neo and other restless computer acolytes as a digital enigma that requires uncovering. Neo chooses to learn about the Matrix, for such knowledge represents a tangible victory of his many pursuits. Before taking that step, Morpheous ominously forewarns "Remember, I am only offering you the truth". Neo gets his victory, but in a way and with a result he never could have imagined. This sequence is pure Philip K. Dick.

No other author has ever made victory seem quite so inconsequential. Although not as well-publicized and recognized a name in 20th century science fiction as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, or Arthur Clarke, the works of Philip K. Dick resound more strongly with each passing year. Dick seems to possess a talent for prognosticating humanity's collected Pandora's boxes in the same way Jules Verne was able to foretell the coming accomplishments of the 20th century. As an author whose primary body of work came in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, many of Dick's clever assumptions about mankind's stride into the future are already coming due in today's society. What were once cautionary tales now read as bitter satires on mankind's most irresponsible impulses.

A trademark of Dick is that his protagonists are almost always clever and resourceful enough to win the day over whatever problems they face. What makes Dick such a joy to read is the subversive nature of the path his heroes tread from beginning to end. By the conclusion of most Dick stories, there are so many strange twists and turns that the major problems of the main character only lead to bigger and more distressing issues to be dealt with. It is through Dick's cleverness in storytelling that he manages to take what would be a worthy stand-alone story and elevate it by tying it with overarcing social themes that the reader can relate to.

All this background is nothing more than a tribute to a science fiction author whose works equal if not surpass those more well-known names upon whom much praise is heaped. The Philip K. Dick Reader is a perfect introduction for anyone interested in seeing if the author is for their tastes. The Reader is a collection of some of his best short stories, including the two that serve as the basis for "Total Recall" and "Minority Report". For any casual reader looking for a good book, for any science fiction reader sifting through the run of the mill pulp for some gems, for any literary aficionado who wants to encounter a supurb author they might have missed, the Philip K. Dick Reader is a highly recommended purchase.

The PKD reader is an excellent introduction to this seminal SF author's short fiction. Most all of his major pieces are here, as well as some enjoyable underrated works. Mr. Dick's greatness is shown here by the stories in this volume. Also, there are four (at least) movies or potential movies made from the stories here. It's not uncommon for an SF novel to be made into a movie, but a short story is something else again. And yet, from the wonderful "We Can Remember It For You, Wholesale" (a classic Dick story) the classic SF film Total Recall was made; likewise for Screamers from "Second Variety. Steven Spielberg is currently filming "The Minority Report" with Tom Cruise. "Paycheck" has been optioned. All four of these stories are excellent, top-notch science fiction. "Minority", in particular, is awesome, and stands as one of my all-time favorite pieces of short SF. One can also see, during the course of reading this book, just how much Philip K. Dick grew as a writer during his career. Early stories featured here such as "Fair Game" and "The Hanging Stranger" while certainly good, have a VERY pulp-ish feel. This is offset by wonderful later stories such as the one mentioned, and other such as "The Father-Thing", "The Last of The Masters", and "War Veteran." Dick's writing style is compelling, fast-paced, readable, and thought-provoking, and you can see why he is held in such high regard by fans and critics alike. These are some of the best SF shorts written since the likes of Heinlein and Clarke ruled the roost. It's sad that he only started receiving real recognition after his untimely death in 1982 (just before Blade Runner was released. Pick up this book, and see why it has been said that "100 years from now, Philip K. Dick may be looked back upon as the greatest writer of the second half of the 20th century."

There's a great line in the short story "Paycheck" that goes: "Rethrick was here all right. And apparently the trinkets were going to see him through. One for every crisis. A pocketful of miracles, from someone who knew the future!" The same could be said of Philip K. Dick's short stories as a whole. For none of the stories in this collection did Philip K. Dick earn more than 250 dollars. "Paycheck" the movie (as of writing this review) has grossed over $53,000,000 worldwide. A pocketful of miracles, indeed.

Philip K. Dick may have been the best _idea_ fiction writer who ever lived. His ideas for plots are at once pulpish, deeply metaphysical, and as original as any 20th century writer, and the stories in The Philip K. Dick Reader are as good an introduction to Dick as any other collection I've been able to find. Here you'll find the original stories that inspired Total Recall, Screamers, Paycheck, The Minority Report, and part of the fun in reading this collection comes with seeing the differences between what Philip K. Dick originally wrote and what was realized on film. But there are many quality stories here, too, that haven't been filmed. A few of them include:

"Strange Eden" -- a wonderfully imagined, eerie story of a space pilot who finds an alluring woman on a peaceful, Eden-like planet where nothing is as it seems.

"Sales Pitch" -- a hilarious story about an automatic sales robot that drives a man over the edge. I couldn't help but think about the 20+ emails I receive each day trying to sell me stuff, on-line pop-up windows, and, to me, the story seems prophetic.

"Exhibit Piece" -- the quintessential Philip K. Dick story; a futuristic museum curator stumbles into a 20th century exhibit only to find that it is utterly real to him. The emotion that Dick employs when the George Miller's co-workers at the museum don't believe his story was heartrending to read.

"Foster, You're Dead" -- turns a satirical eye to the nuclear paranoia of the 50s and 60s, a time when people actually bought bomb shelters for their homes the way you might buy a TV or new washer machine.

The highlight of this collection, though, are the stories "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale," "Second Variety," "Paycheck,", and "The Minority Report," which have each been made into highly successful movies. These stories are flat-out as good as any science fiction stories out there. Dick wrote of hugely metaphysical ideas in a language that was prosaic and fun, and he placed his ideas in plots that combined mystery and intrigue as well as any science fiction writer before or since. I highly recommend "The Philip K. Dick Reader" to any short story fan as well as to anyone looking for a solid introduction to the fiction of Philip K. Dick. It is a great collection, one of those rare few you'll come to time and time again. It truly is a pocketful of miracles!

Stacey Cochran
Author of CLAWS available for 80 cents

My first intro to philip k dick was at the end credits of of the film "bladerunner"...where i saw his name in small print...thus, i picked up this volume with some passing curiousity only to discover with pleasure, that within it's pages was another story made into the film "we can remember it for you wholesale". i thoroughly enjoyed the story in it's own right and proceeded to find another story called "second variety" which also became a film.Between stories i was hooked...in no time i was reading other great stories in this collection, such as "minority report"-which has been ruined by the overdone version of it for the screen...too bad....
anyway i found myself immersed in a world where the paths of dreams and reality were so confusing and thought provoking ...this volume is a collection of earlier works, and i think it's one of the best places to start; but the best, i think, is to be found in his latter longer works such as "do androids dream of electric sheep' and "the three stigmata...'....this volume is like an appetizer that may make you want to read pkd to the furthermost...

This might be the best sci-fi short compilation in existence. Phillip K. Dick is a master at the short story, developing a whole universe and its history in a few short pages to deliver heavy-duty payloads of ideas time after time. No other author in the genre produces such varying and unique ideas through his stories.

Asimov and Heinlein are great, but you get to know the universes they have created and they don't change much. Where these two greats excel in other areas, they cannot get close to the raw creative power of PKD. This is a tour de force: in this one volume are the stories that inspired the movies "Total Recall," "Screamers," "Minority Report," and "Paycheck."

I highly recommend this book.

PKD was one of those rare writers who captivated you w/ his "What if?" scenarios rather than w/ unique characters or tight plotting. You find yourself frantically turning the pages to find what mind-blowing extrapolation PKD will throw at you next, instead of what happens to the characters.

Because of this, I think his short fiction is in many ways more enjoyable than his novels. His novels, although creative and imaginative masterpieces, tend to peter out plot-wise towards the end. His short stories are more focused, and thus less likely to stray from the path. This volume also saves the best for last, "We Can Remember...", "Minority Report", "Paycheck", and "Second Variety", and the opening stories are probably the weakest, "Fair Game" and "The Hanging Stranger". Yet even these two stories play off of PKD's paranoia and ironic metaphysics. The Matrix, Being John Malcovich, heck post-70s X-Men all found precedence in the creativity of PKD.

PKD will put new thoughts in your head, show you things you couldn't show yourself -- that's what fiction should do. Highly Recommended.

"The Philip K. Dick Reader", is a collection of short stories by the titled author.

This book contains 24 short stories with an average length of about 16 pages each. All of the stories are science fiction stories with some being told in the present (Philip K. Dicks Present, 1928-1982) and some being placed in possible distant futures. Many of Philip K. Dicks stories have been turned into movie with "Blade Runner - The Final Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition)" being one of the more known of these. I was expecting great things from the author with so much of his work being considered worthy of a Hollywood makeover but have to admit that a lot of the stories felt average or below average to me with just a few gems in the mix. The stories in this book and my rating for each:

"Fair Game" 3 stars
"The Hanging Stranger" 4 stars
"The Eyes Have It" 3 stars
"The Golden Man" 4 stars. This is the loose basis for "Next"
"The Turning Wheel" 3 ½ stars
"The Last Of The Masters" 1 star
"The Father Thing" 2 stars
"Strange Eden" 4 stars
"Tony And The Beetles" 3 stars
"Null-O" 2 stars
"To Serve The Master" 3 ½ stars
"Exhibit Piece" 3 stars
"The Crawlers" 2 stars
"Sales Pitch" 3 ½ stars
"Shell Game" 3 stars
"Upon The Dull Earth" 1 star
"Foster, You're Dead" 2 stars
"Pay For The Printer" 2 stars
"War Veteran" 3 stars
"The Chromium Fence" 2 stars
"We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" 3 stars. This is the basis for "Total Recall"
"The Minority Report" 3 ½ stars. This is the basis for "Minority Report (Widescreen Edition)"
"Paycheck" 3 stars. This is the basis for "Paycheck (Special Collector's Edition)"
"Second Variety" 4 Stars. This is the basis for "Screamers"

The Good overall: Dick had some great ideas and a very vivid imagination. It is easy to look at his stories and see how screen writers saw the little gems buried in his stories. The high points for me as far as individual stories are the 4 star stories. All of which were very good.

The Bad Overall: There is one common theme in every one of Dick's stories and that is "Paranoia". It is usually paranoia of the government but if it isn't the government it is something. This was OK for a few stories but it becomes tiresome after the continued bombardment.

Flat characters. This may be me being overly critical because I expected so much but the characters were all relatively flat. I guess this should be expected considering that the stories average length was 16 pages.

I felt that Dick had great ideas but was only average at writing. His prose just never really grabbed me and made me think I was reading one of the greats. As stated before his ideas were tremendous but his translation of those ideas to paper was only average as far as I could tell.

Overall: This book wasn't terrible but it wasn't great either. If you are interested in reading Dick (the author), this may not be a bad place to start. I wouldn't recommend reading it straight through. Read it a few stories at a time between other readings.

This collection contains ALL of these short stories:

Fair game -- Hanging stranger -- Eyes have it -- Golden man -- Turning wheel -- Last of the masters -- Father-thing -- Strange Eden -- Tony and the Beetles -- Null-o -- To serve the master -- Exhibit piece -- Crawlers -- Sales pitch -- Shell game -- Upon the dull Earth -- Foster, you're dead -- Pay for the printer -- War veteran -- Chromium fence -- We can remember it for you wholesale -- Minority report -- Paycheck -- Second variety.

The final four in the book inspired the films "Total Recall," "Minority Report," "Paycheck," and "Screamers." This is certainly the best collection for people unfamiliar with PKD to get first.

This is a budget-priced compilation of several of science-fiction novelist Phillip K. Dick's short stories. These are a different breed than his novels. Whereas the novels are brilliantly eccentric and philosophical, Dick's short stories (as a rule) were cranked out for the monthly sci-fi market of the late 1950s/early 1960s. As such, there are a lot of pulpy overtones and virtually every tale has a Twilight Zone-style twist to it. No wonder so many Hollywood films were based on Dick's short stories, rather than his novels!

You're going to enjoy these stories a lot and, if you only know Dick from the movies based on his writings, you will be in for many surprises. Hollywood insists that its heroes be Supermen, but even Dick's pulpiest heroes are ordinary men thrust into unusual and frightening situations. Even if the Twilight Zone-type settings seem dated, Dick's quality writing impresses throughout. I'm simply stunned to learn that he wrote so much so quickly.

My favorite of the stories is the last, entitled "Second Variety." It's longer than many of the rest, and it's a great transition to early Dick novels like "Eye in the Sky."

If you want a low-priced, no-frills introduction to Phillip K. Dick, you really can't go wrong with this one.