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Title: Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (Volume 2): We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0-8065-1209-1 Publisher: Citadel Trade Pub. Date: November, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.3 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Don't miss the book for its dazzling ideas
Comment: I started reading PKD's work 6 years ago and I had a... copy of this book. Looking back, I was very glad I picked this superb volume to begin with. The amount of entertainment and thought-provoking ideas I got out of the ...book made me buy every book (new or old) I could find of PKD.
Now I just hope I have the time to read all of them...at least once.
Don't miss any of PKD's books, especially the short stories.
Rating: 5
Summary: will keep you pondering
Comment: As I recall the movie Total Recall, it was a more interesting than usual Summer blockbuster, though still marred by excessive special effects and overlength. It had an intriguing basic premise, but the nuances of the story kept getting lost amidst all the exploding heads. The movie is based, like the equally uneven Blade Runner (see Orrin's review of the book), on the work of the cult favorite sci-fi author, Philip K. Dick. But while movie tie-in versions of Blade Runner abound (Dick's original, more descriptive, title was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall is based on just a short story, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, which is harder to find. Until that is I stumbled upon this cheesy looking, but gem filled, collection of stories by various authors, each of which is the basis for a recent science fiction film.
Dick's original short story is, predictably, a great improvement over the film, idea-filled rather than action-packed. While Douglas Quail may be a miserable little salaried employee, for the West Coast Emigration Bureau, he has one abiding dream, "Before I die I'll see Mars." Such a trip though would be enormously expensive and his wife constantly derides his ambition. Lucky for him, Rekal, Incorporated, can implant it's customers with false memories that will make it seem as if they've actually experienced their fondest dreams:
Was this the answer? After all, an illusion, no matter how convincing, remained nothing more than an illusion. At least objectively. But subjectively--quite the opposite entirely.
So Quail goes to Rekal for the Mars "extra-factual memory implant," complete with a scenario that has him acting as an agent for Interplan. Then, as the process gets underway, an unusual thing happens; under sedation he begins to recover genuine memories of a past trip to Mars. As one of the technicians explains:
He wants a false memory implanted that corresponds to a trip he actually took. And a false reason which is the real reason. He's telling the truth; he's a long way down in the narkidrine. The trip is very vivid in his mind--at least under sedation. But apparently he doesn't recall it otherwise. Someone, probably at a government military-sciences lab, erased his conscious memories; all he knew was that going to Mars meant something special to him, and so did being a secret agent. They couldn't erase that; it's not a memory but a desire, undoubtedly the same one that motivated him to volunteer for the assignment in the first place.
Realizing the gravity of their situation, the folks at Rekal hustle him out the door and refund half his money. But now Quail starts to get fragmentary memories of a Mars trip, some from the implant and some from the real trip, so he returns to Rekal to get the matter straightened out. Meanwhile, agents from Interplan, who have been monitoring his thoughts against just such an eventuality, show up to try and kill him before he can reveal the details of his secret mission to Mars. Quail convinces them to have another try at implanting false memories, but this time the genuine memories that are recovered are even more bewildering.
It's a clever, twisty story, somewhat reminiscent of a really good Twilight Zone. In addition, over the space of just twenty or so pages, Dick raises some unsettling questions about memory, desire, delusion and reality, and how they all interact in the human mind. Total Recall is a perfectly adequate way to kill a couple hours; We Can Remember it For You Wholesale, though it takes just a half hour to read, will keep you pondering for a good long while.
GRADE: A
Rating: 5
Summary: Laboratory Of The Strange
Comment: Philip K. Dick's short stories are the best work of one of the greatest ( science) fiction writers in the history of the genre. His spare style leaves plenty for the imagination, as opposed to those writers who feel it necessary to fill their pages with endless technological detail. His staid characters are straight out of the Eisenhower Years, and are put through hoops such as no one has dreamed up before or since. Brilliant premises create psychological dilemmas that almost always resolve unexpectedly. As testament to his fertile imagination, five movies directly credit his short stories, and many more arguably rip him off. This five volume set comprises half of my ten most treasured books; if you like fiction, short stories, or genius social commentary, buy these stories.
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Title: The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Vol. 3 by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0806512261 Publisher: Citadel Trade Pub. Date: May, 1991 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Eye of The Sibyl and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0806513284 Publisher: Citadel Trade Pub. Date: May, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0375421513 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 05 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford: And Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick, Steven O. Godersky ISBN: 0806511532 Publisher: Citadel Trade Pub. Date: April, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories (Dick, Philip K. Short Stories.) by Philip K. Dick, James Jr. Triptree ISBN: 0806523794 Publisher: Citadel Trade Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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