Book Review: The Philip K. Dick Reader

About a year ago I came to the sad realization that I had never read anything by Philip K. Dick – not stories, not novels, not anything. Shocking, I know. So to rectify the situation I decided to read some of his short stories. There were a couple of problems, though. First, Mr. PKD has written a ton of short stories, so where was I to begin? And second, there are a lot of Philip K. Dick short story collections out there to choose from. Basically I just wanted a book that had his most famous stories in it, so I ended up going with The Philip K. Dick Reader. It was a great choice, and I have really enjoyed all the fun pulp fiction stories in it. In fact, a few of the stories in this book won major awards or were made into big budget Hollywood movies. And in case you didn’t know, Philip K. Dick himself placed 21st in the 1999 Locus All-Time Poll for best “all time short fiction writer.” Not too bad, eh?

Here is the list of stories it contains – I’ve linked to the ones that I have reviewed and also I’ve noted which ones were nominated for major science fiction awards or made into movies:

1. Fair Game
2. The Hanging Stranger
3. The Eyes Have It
4. The Golden Man (basis of the 2007 movie Next)
5. The Turning Wheel
6. The Last of The Masters
7. The Father-Thing
8. Strange Eden
9. Tony and The Beetles
10. Null-O
11. To Serve The Master
12. Exhibit Piece
13. The Crawlers
14. Sales Pitch
15. Shell Game
16. Upon The Dull Earth
17. Foster, You’re Dead
18. Pay for The Printer
19. War Veteran
20. The Chromium Fence
21. We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (basis of the 1990 movie Total Recall, also placed 32nd in the 1999 Locus All-Time Poll for best novelette)
22. The Minority Report (basis of the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie of the same name)
23. Paycheck (basis of the 2003 movie of the same name)
24. Second Variety (nominated for 2004 Retro Hugo Awards for 1953, also the basis of the 1995 movie Screamers)

Sound like a good book? That’s because it is! Be sure to check out The Philip K. Dick Reader at Amazon.com.

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