Customer Reviews

Total Recall

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an excellent book for those who saw the movie and thought "This idea had potential." The Piers Anthony version of this story is superior to both the movie and the screen play. This book gives insight into the mind of a alien race and what it might expect from a species that considers itself mature enough for space travel. Mr. Anthony puts a relatively new face on the oft used concept of colonialism extended to interplanetary colonization. We see that the downtrodden are not always forgotten. We are also given the opportunity to wrestle with the question, of what makes a person themselves; is it ones actions(past, present, or future) or is it ones thoughts and ideas (remembered and forgotten). While the "Total Recall" story is taken from a short story entitled, "We can remember it for you wholesale." Piers Anthony offers a fresh look at the timeless concepts.

The book by Anthony Pier is different from the movie, the first half is relatively the same, but the second half seems almost like a different thing. The ending, although the outcome is the same, is executed differently. The ending is actually explained with some intelligence too, and entire sub-plots are in the book.

The short story by Philip K. Dick, "We'll remember it for you wholesale" was the inspiration for this book.

A good entertaining read, although it's hard to read the book without imagining Arnold Schwarzeneggar's blazing Austrian accent speaking the dialogue.

3 1/2 mars...er....stars.

The film "Total Recall" is actually one of the more thought-provoking films of the 1990s, one whose intelligence was largely ignored by the public because it starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The fact is, despite all its explosions, it is no less complex at its core than Vanilla Sky or Memento....

The Piers Anthony novel is well-written and quickly paced, but I got the impression that they commissioned Anthony to churn out a novelized version of the screenplay to coincide with the film's release. It's certainly a decent read, but if you didn't like the movie, you probably won't love the book.

While I do not have both copies to compare, I seem to remember that the HC and PB editions are different. The HC edition was based on the proposed screen play before the movie was actually made. After it was published, the rights to the movie was sold to another studio which altered the script when it was filmed. The PB edition was then edited by Mr. Anthony to be in sync with the actual filmed version. Thus you get the original proposed script if/when you buy the HC edition and the filmed storyline when you buy the PB edition.

...short story by Phillip K. Dick, "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", which is vastly superior to the dreadful film, and possibly even more superior to this hack novelization -- which at least, thank God, doesn't have any half-naked centaur chicks in it...