World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade replicants who were his prey. When he wasn¿t ¿retiring¿ them with his laser weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal -- the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life. Then Rick got his chance: the assignment to kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But in Deckard¿s world things were never that simple, and his assignment quickly turned into a nightmare kaleidoscope of subterfuge and deceit -- and the threat of death for the hunter rather than the hunted...
The fifth and final part of the complete collected stories shows Philip K. Dick at the very height of his outstanding powers. The twenty-five tales were written between 1963 and 1981, just a few months before he died, and include two stories which have been turned into box office smashes: the title story, filmed as Total Recall, and "The Little Black Box", which grew into his masterpiece Blade Runner.
*****
'Absolute masterpiece! The story is short and is entirely encapsulated in few conversations in just a single day. But the tension of what is real and what is not is great. This is a psychological masterpiece.' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'I love this story - in just a few pages it is a prime example of Philip K. Dick's inexhaustible inventiveness and wittiness. Here especially I was delighted by the story twist(s). Although paranoia as an omnipresent theme of his stories sometimes enervates, in this story that didn't bother me an iota.' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'This book is easily the best ever short story I have ever read. The story contains hardly 30 pages. But, it pulls off being one of the best ever edge-of-the-seat thriller.' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'This is a dangerous book, and I mean that in the best way possible. Dick's own introductory quote about the revolutionary nature of science fiction writing sets the tone for everything to follow. Avoid it if you don't feel comfortable descending into the mind of an actual madman.' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Imagine a future where crimes can be detected before they are committed, and criminals are convicted and sentenced for crimes before committing them. This is the scenario of Philip K. Dick's classic story, now filmed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Cruise.
In addition to MINORITY REPORT, this exclusive collection includes nine other outstanding short stories by the twentieth century's outstanding SF master, three of which have been made into feature films.
Fourteen people arrive on the strange planet of Delmak-O; they have nothing in common other than a desire to make a fresh start. And they have no idea why they are there and no way of escaping. And then the first murder takes place ...
The operating principle was random selection: positions of public power were decided by a sophisticated lottery. Everyone had a chance, everyone could live in hope that they would be chosen to be the boss, the Quizmaster.
But with the power came the game - the assassination game - which everyone could watch on TV. Would the new man be good enough to avoid his chosen killer? Which made for fascinating and exciting viewing, compelling enough to distract the public's attention while the Big Five industrial complexes run the world, the solar system and the people, unnoticed and completely unopposed. Then, in 2203, with the choice of a member of a maverick cult as Quizmaster, the system developed a little hitch...
Mars is a desolate world. Largely forgotten by Earth, the planet remains helpless in the stranglehold of Arnie Kott, who as boss of the plumbers' union has a monopoly over the vital water supply.
Arnie Kott is obsessed by the past; the native Bleekmen, poverty-stricken wanderers, can see into the future; while to Manfred, an autistic boy, time apparently stops. When one of the colonists, Norbert Steiner, commits suicide, the repercussions are startling and bizarre.
A masterly tale of political deception from the most significant SF writer of the 20th century
World War III is raging - or so the millions of people crammed in their underground tanks believe. For fiteen years, subterranean humanity has been fed on daily broadcasts of a never-ending nuclear destruction, sustained by a belief in the all powerful Protector.
Now someone has gone to the surface and found no destruction, no war. The authorities have been telling a massive lie. Now the search begins to find out why.
Bruce Stevens is a young buyer for a big discount house when he meets the recently divorced Susan Faine. She suggests that he might like to manage her ailing typewriter store and he leaps at the suggestion. Then he realizes that Susan was his teacher when he was in fifth grade. In spite of that, they are married within days. And then the odd compulsions and instabilities start to interfere with their plans. Milton Lumky, the paper salesman in whose area they live, is uneasy about their future ...
PAYCHECK, originally written as a short story by Philip K. Dick and first published in 1953, centres on an electrician who wakes up to discover his employer has erased his memory of the past two years -- as a security measure. When he tries to collect his paycheck, he finds he has previously signed a release replacing the money with a bag of random objects.
Previous film adaptations of Dick's short stories have included the box office smash hits MINORITY REPORT, TOTAL RECALL and BLADE RUNNER, released shortly after Dick died in 1982.
Drawn from the five volumes of his complete short stories (also published by Gollancz) this volume represents the very cream of Philip K. Dick's output.
It serves both as a celebration of his work, in the 25th year since his death, and as the ideal introduction to his unique take on the world for new readers.
As our culture becomes ever more fluid, as fact is fictionalised, as documentary gives way to reality-TV, as our identities are digitised, as globalism runs wild, as drugs become ever more ubiquitous the world is finally catching up with even the most bizarre of Philip K. Dick's imaginings.
25 years after his death we are living in Philip K. Dick's world, this new authoratitive collection of his best short fiction shows us why.
A typically unsettling tale of different realities from a master of the genre
Yielding to a compulsion he can't explain, Ted Barton interrupts his vacation in order to visit the town of his birth, Millgate, Virginia. But upon entering the sleepy, isolated little hamlet, Ted is distraught to find that the place bears no resemblance to the one he left behind - and never did. He also discovers that in this Millgate Ted Barton died of scarlet fever when he was nine years old. Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that it is literally impossible to escape. Unable to leave, Ted struggles to find the reason for such disturbing incongruities, but before long, he finds himself in the midst of a struggle between good and evil that stretches far beyond the confines of the valley.
Winner of both the HUGO and JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARDs for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves.
A prophetic and unsettling chronicle detailing the rise and fall of a post-nuclear massiah, by the author of BLADE RUNNER and MINORITY REPORT
Floyd Jones is sullen, ungainly and quite possibly mad, but he really can see exactly one year into the future. And this talent means that in a very short time he rises from being a disgruntled carnival fortune-teller to convulse an entire planet. For Jones becomes a demagogue, whipping up the ideal-starved population into a frenzy against the threat of the 'drifters', enormous single-cell protoplasms that may be landing on Earth soon.
But, in a world of engineered mutants, hermaphrodite sex performers in drug-fuelled nightclubs, Jones is a tragic messiah. His limited precognition renders him helpless because he cannot bring himself to fight against what he knows will happen ...
Jack Isidore is a 'crap artist', a collector of crackpot ideas and worthless objects. His beliefs make him a man apparently unsuited for real life and so his sister, an edgy and aggressive woman, and his brother-in-law, a crass and foul-mouthed businessman, feel compelled to rescue him from it. But, observed through Jack's murderously innocent gaze, Fay and Charley Hume are seen to be just as obsessed as Jack. Their obsessions may be a little more acceptable than Jack's but they are uglier. And, in the end and thanks to Jack's intervention, theirs lead to tragedy ...
