The Philip K. Dick Reader

Some of the short stories really spoke to me, while others didn't. They were all enjoyable to read. I'm sure everyone will have a different experience reading through this expansive collection of short stories.

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.

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

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...

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 pur