The Philip K. Dick Reader

by Philip K. Dick

Overview

Includes the stories that inspired the movies Total Recall, Screamers, Minority Report, Paycheck, and Next

“More than anyone else in the field, Mr. Dick really puts you inside people’s minds.” —The Wall Street Journal

The Philip K. Dick Reader

 

Many thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick’s works has continued to mount, and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works.

Dick won the prestigious Hugo Award for the best novel of 1963 for The Man in the High Castle. In the last year of his life, the film Blade Runner was made from his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

This collection includes some of Dick’s earliest short and medium-length fiction, including We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (the story that inspired the motion picture Total Recall), Second Variety (which inspired the motion picture Screamers), Paycheck, The Minority Report, and twenty more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806537948
Publisher:	Kensington
Publication date:	01/26/2016
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	288,233
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

More than 30 years after his untimely death at age 53, Philip K. Dick (1928 – 1982) remains one of the most celebrated authors of the last century and a looming and illuminating presence in this one. He was the winner of both the prestigious Hugo Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, which honor excellence in science fiction. Inducted in 2007 into the Library of America, which publishes a three-volume collection of his novels, Dick has received unprecedented recognition for his contributions to modern literature, specifically in the area of science fiction. His 45 novels and over 210 short stories have been adapted into numerous films, including the blockbusters Minority Report, Total Recall, and Blade Runner, as well as Impostor, Paycheck, Scanner Darkly, Next, and The Adjustment Bureau.

Editorial Reviews

Philip K. Dick is awe-inspiring.”
—The Washington Post

“More than anyone else in the field, Mr. Dick really puts you inside people’s minds.”
—The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

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.

Publishers Weekly

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.

Kirkus Reviews