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kierrang1990's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
dankeohane's review
4.0
Surprisingly, I've never read PKD before. At least I don't think I have. This is a great sampling of his short fiction and I have to say, he's a tremendous writer, very ahead of his time in style etc. SOme complaints around the formatting of this ebook however, most of time visible no scene breaks, which can be jarring. but won't hold that against the author though. Still, the publisher should clean this up. One suggestion: don't read the introduction to the story before reding the story itself, since they give too much away in some cases. So, I read the story, then would go back and read introduction. These are obviously stories used in the limited series and I look forward to seeing how the screenwriters brought them to the screen.
steeprockn847's review against another edition
dark
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.0
sleasmant's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
cesarbustios's review against another edition
4.0
Son diez relatos cortos escritos por Dick entre 1953 y 1955, todos ellos pertenecientes a diferentes volúmenes de la serie "Cuentos completos". Hay una introducción a cada relato escrita por el director/productor encargado de la adaptación de dicho relato en la serie antológica de televisión Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams.
Estoy completamente de acuerdo con lo mencionado por Jack Thorne (en la introducción de "El abonado"). Si has leído a Dick, sabrás de que está hablando:
"He leído mucha ciencia ficción, y siempre hay una diferencia entre aquellos escritores que tienen ideas y aquellos que construyen mundos. PKD construye universos."
Mis favoritos fueron "El abonado", dos realidades que se traslapan, lugares que no existían, pero que podían existir; y "El fabricante de capuchas", distopía en la que los habitantes son sondeados telepaticamente para comprobar su lealtad.
Puntajes:
- "Pieza de colección": 4/5
- "El abonado": 5/5
- "El planeta imposible": 4/5
- "El ahorcado": 4/5
- "Campaña publicitaria": 3/5
- "El padre-cosa": 2/5
- "El fabricante de capuchas": 5/5
- "Foster, estás muerto": 3/5
- "Humano es": 4/5
- "Autofab": 4/5
Promedio: 3.9/5
Recomendada para cualquier fan de Dick y de la ciencia ficción. Ahora sí, a continuar con la serie de televisión.
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Estoy completamente de acuerdo con lo mencionado por Jack Thorne (en la introducción de "El abonado"). Si has leído a Dick, sabrás de que está hablando:
"He leído mucha ciencia ficción, y siempre hay una diferencia entre aquellos escritores que tienen ideas y aquellos que construyen mundos. PKD construye universos."
Mis favoritos fueron "El abonado", dos realidades que se traslapan, lugares que no existían, pero que podían existir; y "El fabricante de capuchas", distopía en la que los habitantes son sondeados telepaticamente para comprobar su lealtad.
Puntajes:
- "Pieza de colección": 4/5
- "El abonado": 5/5
- "El planeta imposible": 4/5
- "El ahorcado": 4/5
- "Campaña publicitaria": 3/5
- "El padre-cosa": 2/5
- "El fabricante de capuchas": 5/5
- "Foster, estás muerto": 3/5
- "Humano es": 4/5
- "Autofab": 4/5
Promedio: 3.9/5
Recomendada para cualquier fan de Dick y de la ciencia ficción. Ahora sí, a continuar con la serie de televisión.
ericgrinberg's review against another edition
3.0
in this review, I will be giving a short and sometimes not so short review on each story (in the order I read them—sorry chronological order lovers; if I'm nice I'll organize it later. Update: I put them in the actual order of stories.) It's kind of just to show my process of reading it.
"Exhibit Piece"
This was a cute, short story. To be very honest...I don't remember what happened in this. What I can remember was that this was a very pleasant first story.
It wasn't as fully immersive as I thought it would be, but it didn't really bother me.
It is so cool to see how with PKD, how he weaves these huge philosophical ideas and beliefs in something that is completely the opposite—sci-fi. It's so strange. And yet fascinating at the same time.
This is a political commentary with the sci-fi elements still etched into the words on the page. It's been great.
"The Commuter"
PKD is simply mind-blowing. How he can take something so straightforward and conventional and detonate it into this immense science fiction story is astounding.
I don't have words for this. Also, I didn't think that this story was that great. I thought it was quite boring, to be honest. There wasn't a thing that I saw as so cool about it.
But then I am still able to see this talent in PKD. And now, I'm not the first person to say this. You can see many people discussing highly of PKD. Be that as it may, assuming you have confidence in me the most, I highly suggest you read this.
”Impossible Planet
So far, this has probably been my favorite story.
The premise is this lady wants to go to “Earth.” But, in this world, there is no such thing as Earth. Earth is just some sort of fable created that has been disproven hundreds of times. However, when she demands it while offering a large amount of money, the Commander agrees to bring her to “Earth.” Once brought ‘there,’ Earth is ruined. It’s not green as she expected. The air is dense and foggy. Nothing quite clean about it.
This feels like a huge political and environmental commentary and I loved it. The whole idea of an “impossible planet” is so fascinating and cool.
It’s also just a great commentary on the modern-day world—with all the pollution and waste brought onto this planet.
It is a message from PKD telling us to keep the earth clean and healthy, not waste to the point that people on other planets will consider us a fable.
We can not dig the hole so deep to the point that it destroys us. We can not become the “impossible planet.”
And THAT is what I loved about this. The fact that PKD can weave these beautiful messages into this one short story is amazing.
Again, probably one of my favorite stories from this (so far.)
” The Hanging Stranger”
This was a different level of Kafkaesque. It was great.
After our main character sees a hanging man in the center of his town, he understands what is going on. In an attempt to evacuate his family from an invasion by unknown creatures, this story is a perfect, thrilling short story in this immersive sci-fi world.
This was great.
There wasn’t anything too special about it. I didn’t see a huge message behind it. One thing I did see, and it mentioned it in the story, was that it was a huge nod to the KKK. Meaning that the KKK also left African Americans hung in the center of town.
So I guess the only relation to society would be the KKK. And of course, PKD was writing this when the KKK was still at large so it makes sense.
Scratch what I said. I would say that this is also a political commentary, a way of showing the horrendous activity that was happening at this time.
PKD in general is just a story genius. Pure gold in every word on the page.
I really enjoyed this.
”Sales Pitch”
This was a skim read.
I don’t remember a single thing about it.
Kinda boring. Not gonna lie. Ok. That’s it for this story.
” The Father-Thing”
This feels like a consistent problem. I read one of the stories. I like it, try to review it, and forget what happens in it.
I don’t know if it’s my fault or if this is just forgettable.
Ok, that’s all I have to say about this.
"The Hood Maker"
This was truly quite a let-down. Phillip K. Dick had such potential with this one, and yet it was quite underwhelming.
I read this short story merely for the fact that I had watched the Electric Dreams episode based on this short story and loved it.
I expected this to be like the episode, hence the fact that they even created it. But it was much, much worse.
I will say that PKD has a talent for world-building, and that is a clear given. I could definitely imagine this world in which PKD was writing about and did feel very much immersed in the story. An A goes for world-building.
However, I have some complaints.
This story didn't feel like sci-fi. Yes, obviously it is in fact sci-fi. But it didn't feel like it. Other than the fact that there were "robot cars" and they were living in this outer-worldly nation, everything else just felt...real...in a sense. I don't know if I am wording that correctly or not but, I don't know.
I think PKD could have added a lot more aspects of science fiction in this to immerse the characters even more.
Also, the characters were overly dull. They had not a single ounce of personality. I could feel any emotions towards them which sort of ruined the experience overall.
We (the readers) were kind of dumped with all these names all at once and were expected to understand what was going on.
Now, this is the part where I compare the episode to the story.
In the show (episode 1 originally, although Amazon claims it to be episode 5), there are two clear characters, Honor and Ross (both beautifully played by Holliday Grainger and Richard Madden). In the episode, the characters have a lot of depth and personality.
In the short story, only Ross is mentioned and there isn't even a character named Honor.
The short story moves along very quickly, giving minimal to no information. Yes, I understand that it is a SHORT story, however, PKD was kind of just putting in filler words when he could have expanded it to a much larger scale.
The short story barely mentions Ross, and the episode has him in every scene.
The episode also has a much better twist and ending than the story did.
”Foster You’re Dead”
Ok.
I need to stop doing this. I tried to read this slow so I can comprehend it more. I couldn’t tell you what happened in this.
I’m trying not to let this affect my review.
The thing is, I enjoyed it. And yet I don’t know what happened.
I’m done for the day.
"Human Is"
This is sci fi at its core.
If you read the back of this version of the book, it says "Kafka steeped in LSD and rage." and this represents it perfectly. This feels like the perfect Kafka story ever.
The plot of this story (yes I slightly remembered it) is about a woman going through this strange existential crisis as she sees her abusive husband completely change character. He went on a mission to a dying planet and came back a different person—different psyche, different mentality, personality, everything.
This is definitely something I'm excited to see portrayed in the show, which I will be watching as soon as I am done with this so I am very excited.
I need to see this, visualize this LSD and rage.
Ok, onto the next story.
"Autofac"
I would say this is a good closing to the book. This was...alright. I have a common pattern throughout this entire book and I'll talk about it in my final review for this.
This story, was OK. Nothing too special. I think it was a great ending to it. Although I do think that "Impossible Planet" should have been last ... this was ok.
Caught up in a nuclear war, a company struggles to suffice for every person's needs. A company called the Autofac Company, a business that creates something for every person's needs at an instant, struggles through their business as they try to make each person's life adequate, while still trying to consider the fact that their nation is at war. The company is doing good, providing each person with the things they need, but this is a problem. Autofac forgets about the problem that the products they are creating is causing more and more pollution before, during, and after the war. And there is one major problem; the company can't shut down.
This story is truly the science fiction representation of modern-day lives. I have no idea how no one else is able to capture something so true and so real besides PKD. And the fact that he is able to show this through a fictional world with robots and world-building that is beyond our imagination is crazy. Crazy, I say.
I'm almost mad that no one else is able to capture something like this. ALSO, he wrote this in 1955. NINETEEN F*CKING FIFTY-FIVE. AND STILL, NO ONE IS ABLE TO CAPTURE SOMETHING SO TRUE TO HUMANITY ALMOST SEVENTY YEARS LATER. PKD, share some talent with the rest of the class.
FINAL REVIEW OF ENTIRETY
I enjoyed this. I thought it was really good. The fact that Phillip K. Dick is able to capture humanity and real-life situations and wrote almost seventy years ago is remarkable.
This is for science fiction readers, and I don't mean that lightly. I'm personally not someone who reads science fiction, so this was not my jam. I did like the talks and commentaries on humanity and society but the sci-fi part was not my thing. But for people who love science and are super philosophical—this is for you.
The only reason this is getting three stars is that I was barely able to remember a single thing that happened here. I think it's because there was a lot of world-building in a very short amount of time and didn't give much room to get settled in and invested. But, if some of these (maybe three or four out of ten of the stories) were turned into full-length novels (which I know is impossible because he is dead but still), I would enjoy it much more.
all in all: this was great. not for everyone but still great. some stories could have been left out.
I will leave below a short review on the show for anyone who cares
"Exhibit Piece"
This was a cute, short story. To be very honest...I don't remember what happened in this. What I can remember was that this was a very pleasant first story.
It wasn't as fully immersive as I thought it would be, but it didn't really bother me.
It is so cool to see how with PKD, how he weaves these huge philosophical ideas and beliefs in something that is completely the opposite—sci-fi. It's so strange. And yet fascinating at the same time.
This is a political commentary with the sci-fi elements still etched into the words on the page. It's been great.
"The Commuter"
PKD is simply mind-blowing. How he can take something so straightforward and conventional and detonate it into this immense science fiction story is astounding.
I don't have words for this. Also, I didn't think that this story was that great. I thought it was quite boring, to be honest. There wasn't a thing that I saw as so cool about it.
But then I am still able to see this talent in PKD. And now, I'm not the first person to say this. You can see many people discussing highly of PKD. Be that as it may, assuming you have confidence in me the most, I highly suggest you read this.
”Impossible Planet
So far, this has probably been my favorite story.
The premise is this lady wants to go to “Earth.” But, in this world, there is no such thing as Earth. Earth is just some sort of fable created that has been disproven hundreds of times. However, when she demands it while offering a large amount of money, the Commander agrees to bring her to “Earth.” Once brought ‘there,’ Earth is ruined. It’s not green as she expected. The air is dense and foggy. Nothing quite clean about it.
This feels like a huge political and environmental commentary and I loved it. The whole idea of an “impossible planet” is so fascinating and cool.
It’s also just a great commentary on the modern-day world—with all the pollution and waste brought onto this planet.
It is a message from PKD telling us to keep the earth clean and healthy, not waste to the point that people on other planets will consider us a fable.
We can not dig the hole so deep to the point that it destroys us. We can not become the “impossible planet.”
And THAT is what I loved about this. The fact that PKD can weave these beautiful messages into this one short story is amazing.
Again, probably one of my favorite stories from this (so far.)
” The Hanging Stranger”
This was a different level of Kafkaesque. It was great.
After our main character sees a hanging man in the center of his town, he understands what is going on. In an attempt to evacuate his family from an invasion by unknown creatures, this story is a perfect, thrilling short story in this immersive sci-fi world.
This was great.
There wasn’t anything too special about it. I didn’t see a huge message behind it. One thing I did see, and it mentioned it in the story, was that it was a huge nod to the KKK. Meaning that the KKK also left African Americans hung in the center of town.
So I guess the only relation to society would be the KKK. And of course, PKD was writing this when the KKK was still at large so it makes sense.
Scratch what I said. I would say that this is also a political commentary, a way of showing the horrendous activity that was happening at this time.
PKD in general is just a story genius. Pure gold in every word on the page.
I really enjoyed this.
”Sales Pitch”
This was a skim read.
I don’t remember a single thing about it.
Kinda boring. Not gonna lie. Ok. That’s it for this story.
” The Father-Thing”
This feels like a consistent problem. I read one of the stories. I like it, try to review it, and forget what happens in it.
I don’t know if it’s my fault or if this is just forgettable.
Ok, that’s all I have to say about this.
"The Hood Maker"
This was truly quite a let-down. Phillip K. Dick had such potential with this one, and yet it was quite underwhelming.
I read this short story merely for the fact that I had watched the Electric Dreams episode based on this short story and loved it.
I expected this to be like the episode, hence the fact that they even created it. But it was much, much worse.
I will say that PKD has a talent for world-building, and that is a clear given. I could definitely imagine this world in which PKD was writing about and did feel very much immersed in the story. An A goes for world-building.
However, I have some complaints.
This story didn't feel like sci-fi. Yes, obviously it is in fact sci-fi. But it didn't feel like it. Other than the fact that there were "robot cars" and they were living in this outer-worldly nation, everything else just felt...real...in a sense. I don't know if I am wording that correctly or not but, I don't know.
I think PKD could have added a lot more aspects of science fiction in this to immerse the characters even more.
Also, the characters were overly dull. They had not a single ounce of personality. I could feel any emotions towards them which sort of ruined the experience overall.
We (the readers) were kind of dumped with all these names all at once and were expected to understand what was going on.
Now, this is the part where I compare the episode to the story.
In the show (episode 1 originally, although Amazon claims it to be episode 5), there are two clear characters, Honor and Ross (both beautifully played by Holliday Grainger and Richard Madden). In the episode, the characters have a lot of depth and personality.
In the short story, only Ross is mentioned and there isn't even a character named Honor.
The short story moves along very quickly, giving minimal to no information. Yes, I understand that it is a SHORT story, however, PKD was kind of just putting in filler words when he could have expanded it to a much larger scale.
The short story barely mentions Ross, and the episode has him in every scene.
The episode also has a much better twist and ending than the story did.
”Foster You’re Dead”
Ok.
I need to stop doing this. I tried to read this slow so I can comprehend it more. I couldn’t tell you what happened in this.
I’m trying not to let this affect my review.
The thing is, I enjoyed it. And yet I don’t know what happened.
I’m done for the day.
"Human Is"
This is sci fi at its core.
If you read the back of this version of the book, it says "Kafka steeped in LSD and rage." and this represents it perfectly. This feels like the perfect Kafka story ever.
The plot of this story (yes I slightly remembered it) is about a woman going through this strange existential crisis as she sees her abusive husband completely change character. He went on a mission to a dying planet and came back a different person—different psyche, different mentality, personality, everything.
This is definitely something I'm excited to see portrayed in the show, which I will be watching as soon as I am done with this so I am very excited.
I need to see this, visualize this LSD and rage.
Ok, onto the next story.
"Autofac"
I would say this is a good closing to the book. This was...alright. I have a common pattern throughout this entire book and I'll talk about it in my final review for this.
This story, was OK. Nothing too special. I think it was a great ending to it. Although I do think that "Impossible Planet" should have been last ... this was ok.
Caught up in a nuclear war, a company struggles to suffice for every person's needs. A company called the Autofac Company, a business that creates something for every person's needs at an instant, struggles through their business as they try to make each person's life adequate, while still trying to consider the fact that their nation is at war. The company is doing good, providing each person with the things they need, but this is a problem. Autofac forgets about the problem that the products they are creating is causing more and more pollution before, during, and after the war. And there is one major problem; the company can't shut down.
This story is truly the science fiction representation of modern-day lives. I have no idea how no one else is able to capture something so true and so real besides PKD. And the fact that he is able to show this through a fictional world with robots and world-building that is beyond our imagination is crazy. Crazy, I say.
I'm almost mad that no one else is able to capture something like this. ALSO, he wrote this in 1955. NINETEEN F*CKING FIFTY-FIVE. AND STILL, NO ONE IS ABLE TO CAPTURE SOMETHING SO TRUE TO HUMANITY ALMOST SEVENTY YEARS LATER. PKD, share some talent with the rest of the class.
FINAL REVIEW OF ENTIRETY
I enjoyed this. I thought it was really good. The fact that Phillip K. Dick is able to capture humanity and real-life situations and wrote almost seventy years ago is remarkable.
This is for science fiction readers, and I don't mean that lightly. I'm personally not someone who reads science fiction, so this was not my jam. I did like the talks and commentaries on humanity and society but the sci-fi part was not my thing. But for people who love science and are super philosophical—this is for you.
The only reason this is getting three stars is that I was barely able to remember a single thing that happened here. I think it's because there was a lot of world-building in a very short amount of time and didn't give much room to get settled in and invested. But, if some of these (maybe three or four out of ten of the stories) were turned into full-length novels (which I know is impossible because he is dead but still), I would enjoy it much more.
all in all: this was great. not for everyone but still great. some stories could have been left out.
I will leave below a short review on the show for anyone who cares
mrgale's review against another edition
5.0
A bunch of classic bops, hanging man is a 5 star twist alone.
I read a dodgy tv show adaption version where various tv writers had to write each story an intro telling you that it was good but also important but good, so obviously skip all that.
I read a dodgy tv show adaption version where various tv writers had to write each story an intro telling you that it was good but also important but good, so obviously skip all that.
dell25's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5