It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. Actor Anthony Heald delivers a gifted performance of all the characters in Philip K. Dick's prophetic 1969 short story. The "future" of 1992 is a scary place, where people with telepathic and psychic abilities are common and must be kept in check by power-dampening people called "interials." Heald is called on to portray more than a dozen characters, including a screeching being, a brain-damaged youth, and an assortment of damaged people. UBIK is a fascinating look at the excesses of science and how easily morality can be forgotten in the name of profit. Heald is the glue that holds the somewhat confusing story together—right up to the shocking climax. M.S. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
For nearly two decades, Jim Killen has served as the science fiction and fantasy book buyer for Barnes & Noble. At the end of each month, he’ll be sharing the lists of B&N’s bestsellers in the genre, from new hardbacks, to trade paperbacks, to mass markets and media tie-ins, to graphic novels and manga. These are the […]
Maniac, the new love it or hate it Netflix series from writer Patrick Somerville and director Cary Joji Fukunaga, is a lot. Like, a lot. Though it recalls the style of Kebrick and the off-kilter humor of Charlie Kaufmann, there’s no other show quite like it. It’s so dense with references and internal callbacks that […]
Another season of Black Mirror has come and gone (if a perpetually streamable show can ever be said to go), leaving us astounded, unsettled, and more than a little creeped out by our phones. Creator Charlie Brooker has announced a series of at least three forthcoming books that will feature new stories from established writers […]
In 1982, Ridley Scott loosely adapted Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? into the classic science fiction film Blade Runner, a detective story that kept the novel’s dark aesthetic, odd symbolism, and meditations on empathy. With sequel, Blade Runner 2049 on the horizon, there’s no better time to get acquainted with the author of the original. […]