Volume IV: The Minority Report

Written by Philip K. Dick

Narrated by Patrick Lawlor and Joyce Bean

Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) was one of the seminal figures of 20th century science fiction. His many stories and novels, which include such classics as Ubik and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, reflect a deeply personal world view, exploring the fragile, multifarious nature of reality itself and examining those elements that make us—or fail to make us—fully human. He did as much as anyone to demolish the artificial barrier between genre fiction and "literature," and the best of his work has earned a permanent place in American popular culture.

The Minority Report is the fourth installment of a uniform, five-volume edition of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. This generous collection contains 18 stories and novellas written between 1954 and 1963, years in which Dick produced some of his most memorable work, including such novels as Martian Time Slip and the Hugo Award-winning The Man in the High Castle. Included here are "Autofac," a post-apocalyptic tale in which humans share the devastated Earth with the machines they have created but no longer fully control; "The Mold of Yancy," a portrait of a world reduced to bland conformity by the vapid—and ubiquitous—pronouncements of a virtual demagogue; and "The Days of Perky Pat," another post-apocalypse story in which Earth's survivors find temporary solace in the Perky Pat game, a game rooted in the images and memories of a world that no longer exists. Finally, the classic title story, filmed by Steven Spielberg as Minority Report, posits a future state in which the "Precrime" bureau, aided by a trio of pre-cognitive mutants, arrests and incarcerates "criminals" for crimes they have not yet committed. Like its predecessors, this extraordinary volume is a treasure house of story, offering narrative pleasures and intellectual excitement in equal measure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: May 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781531835569

Philip K. Dick

Over a writing career that spanned three decades, PHILIP K. DICK (1928–1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned to deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film, notably Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, as well as television's The Man in the High Castle. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, including the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and between 2007 and 2009, the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

Reviews for Volume IV

[expatscot-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I appreciate that Dick is building a world here and exploring it in the same way as Asimov does with his robots, but many of the stories felt a little same-y. However, one has to remember that this was written a long time ago and the concepts Dick was creating here have begun to become part of our real world, either in fact or accepted possibilities and that maybe just robs the book of it's "shock and awe" factor a little.All of that said, plenty of good material in here and well worth a read.

[randystafford · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's tempting to say that these stories from 1954, 1955, 1958, and 1963 represent great periods of prolific creativity for Dick and the working out of themes and ideas that later found their way into his more famous novels. But Dick was more often than not prolific and frequently recycled motifs and themes and even character names from stories into novels. What the Dick scholar will find here is a growing emphasis, at least in the short story format, on illusion and fakery, the seeds of some of Dick's novels, and, for the first time, stories which convey the frequent despair and desperation of those novels. But the Dick fan and scholar is going to read this collection as a matter of course. What does it offer for those just discovering Dick or his casual readers? Of course, there is the famous title story. However, with it, Dick seems more interested in posing a logic puzzle based on the implications of precognition than making a serious political statement even though the story features much more political intrigue than the movie based on it. Indeed, with it and several Dick stories here, one gets the sense that the political struggles between various government agencies owe a lot to a study of the Soviet Union or, more probably, the Third Reich. There are other minor stories: "Stand-By" and a rare sequel, "What'll We Do With Ragland Park?". Their main attraction is Dick's weird speculation on future media -- prophecies which don't seem far from the mark 40 years later. The "news clown" of these stories doesn't seem, apart from his makeup, that different from our late night comedy hosts in America. But then the listings in _TV Guide_ often remind me of Dick. They also show Dick's fondness for theorizing odd mutations of American government. Here the President has been replaced by computer. In "Novelty Act", the nation is ruled by a permanent First Lady who inflicts her cultural tastes on America via public tv. She's mistress, wife, and mother to the nation, many of whom long to audition their talents at the White House. Later incorporated into the novel _The Simulacra_, it is the first story of Dick's that doesn't just mention the despair and desperation of its hero but induces them in the reader as effectively as many of his novels do. There's also some political fakery afoot in the story and that theme is echoed in "The Mold of Yancy" (reworked for _The Penultimate Truth_), which features a culture built around a doggedly anodyne Eisenhowerish everyman, and "If There Were No Benny Cemoli". The latter is one of the book's highlights and, against a background of searching for war criminals on a devastated Earth, built around the proposition that reality is what the _New York Times_ says it is. The spirit of a dead businessman haunts the mediasphere and a political convention in "What the Dead Man Say". It reminded me of some of the loas in early William Gibson. Fakery of a forensic sort is the idea of "The Unreconstructed M". The idea of a robot built to leave clues designed to frame someone for murder was intriguing. However, because the story goes on too long and into unnecessary tangents, this is also minor Dick. At this point in the short story part of his career, Dick seems to be less interested in mutants and berserk machines than before. Still, we get an automated command and control economy that needs reprogramming in "Autofac", and "Recall Mechanism" explores the link between precognitive mutants and certain psychological tics. The science fiction story device used most often here is time travel. "Service Call" has some engineers getting a disturbing glimpse at the future of conformity machinery. Or, as the ad says, "Why be half loyal?". "Captive Market" has a miserly shopkeeper who only sees a profit where others see a horrifying future. Time travel gets mixed with meta-science fiction in a couple of uncharacteristic Dick stories. In "Waterspider", time travelers come back to snatch Dick's friend Poul Anderson because, you see, all science fiction writers are unconscious precognitives, and they need his help on an experimental space project. This story drops plenty of famous names and even mentions Dick's inspiration, A. E. van Vogt. "Orpheus with Clay Feet" works a witty variation on the idea of time travelers meeting famous artists of the past. Here uncreative people like our protagonist can take solace in inspiring great works of art if not creating them. At least, that's how it's supposed to work. Here the artist is the greatest science fiction writer of all time, Jack Dowland. "Explorers We", somewhere in the middle range of quality, strikes one as a _Twilight Zone_ episode about aliens' failure to communicate. "Oh, To Be a Blobel!" is a story probably more famous then it deserves to be. Judging from Dick's notes as to his intentions, it's mostly a failure to illustrate the Nietzsche maxim about becoming a dragon when battling dragons. However, it works on other levels. Along with "If There Were No Benny Cemoli", the gem of the collection is "The Days of Perky Pat". While children roam a landscape blighted by nuclear war and engage in useful pursuits like hunting and making knives, their parents are underground and expending their energy on making elaborate layouts for their Barbie-like Perky Pat dolls. Their infantile obsession with recreating the minutia of a vanished world is enabled by handy care packages dropped by benovelent Martians. Dick has some weirdly plausible things to say about play and the role of toys in our lives and mental health. This story also inspired Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. In some ways, the variety of themes here dilutes the power of Dick's typical obsessions, especially the metaphor of machine as an anti-life force. There are also fewer really exceptional stories here than in the earlier volumes of this series. However, it is still as good an introduction to Dick as some of the collections he edited himself.

[stahl2ricco · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the third collection of short stories I've read by Dick in the last couple of months, and I remain impressed at how good most of them are! I've described them before as "Twilight Zone" sci-fi, and that's how these roll out, especially "Explorers We"! And I love all of the themes/issues that are dealt with on these pages - post war stories, propaganda, time travel, anti-government, anti-war, etc.. The story "Autofac" makes me think of what Amazon.com might be headed toward! And, of course, I really enjoyed (again!) "The Minority Report"! Also, as a Bay Area resident, I loved the mention of so many local towns and locations, especially the city directly to my north, Petaluma! The longest story in here, "What The Dead Men Say" was my least favorite, and four of the last six in the collection didn't really do much for me. But the last story, "Oh, To Be A Blobel!" ended the book on a high, high note! Still, I do want to know, what is a swibble?

[tysonadams · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Only the third Philip K Dick I've read. This was interesting more than engaging, but that was the idea: question your perceptions of reality.

[lamontcranston_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Familiar PKD tropes abound: paranoia, warped perceptions, altering reality. The stand out story was The Mold of Yancy.One thing that was unexpected was the unrelenting misogyny. Men hate their wives and women in general; Women are of little value beyond domestic help and gratification, they are helpless, their intellect is inferior. The one exception to all this doesn't count for much as she is a paranoid schizophrenic. This is all played entirely straight with no attempt to subvert or send up or disprove such archaic sterotypes.Also manages to work in some union bashing in a couple stories.

[burningtodd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic. Phillip K. Dick writes engaging characters who happen to live in a science fiction setting, the focus is not on the science but on the people and that is what makes it so enjoyable to read.In Dick's world the people have jobs, they have lives and they deal with problems. They behave like people you know doing things that you recognize. Often times the character is fighting against huge odds and he may not win. The important part is the struggle and the story.

[tgraettinger_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lots of good reading here. My favorite was "Perky Pat", with "The Mold of Yancy" not far behind.

[heidilove_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you like PKD's novels, his stories are the ultimate next step. I love taking them with me on a plane ride. There's something about airports that is the ultimate setting to read PKD's short fiction.