Volume I: The King of the Elves

De: Philip K. Dick

Narrado por: Kate Rudd

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 The Man in the High Castle 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 King of the Elves is the opening installment of a uniform, five-volume edition of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, expanded from the previous Collected Stories set to incorporate new story notes, and two added tales, one previously unpublished, and one uncollected. This generous collection contains 22 stories and novellas including Dick's first published story, "Beyond Lies the Wub," together with such landmark tales as "The Preserving Machine," in which an attempt to preserve our fragile cultural heritage takes an unexpected turn, The Variable Man, a brilliantly imagined novella encompassing war, time travel, and the varied uses of technology, and the title story, in which Shadrach Jones, owner of a dilapidated gas station in Colorado, stumbles into an ongoing war between trolls and elves, and encounters a fantastic - and utterly unexpected - destiny. Like the best of Dick's novels, these stories offer a wide variety of narrative and intellectual pleasures, and provide an ideal introduction to one of the singular imaginations of the modern era.

©2010 The Philip K. Dick Testamentary Trust (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Need headers between stories

Bad editing choices have greatly diminished the narrator's performance, but atleast the chapter skip coincides with the stories

Insights from another era

A good collection of early PKD works and insights associated with them. A solid addition to a PKD Fan's library.

good stories, wrong narrator

the narrator does a fine job. however they choose a female narrator and 90% of the characters are male.

Fun, Strange and Humorous!

Great stories, especially if you enjoy tales that are a bit unusual. Several of the stories featured have some pretty humorous themes, they had me rolling with laughter! Others are creepy and atmospheric, so there's a good variety here.

My only complaint is, the actor reading the stories sometimes has a very strange cadence. It took me a while to get used to it, but the book was still greatly enjoyable.

Performance Prevents

Where does Volume I: The King of the Elves rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I tried three times in the last year to listen to these stories. I have heard of books being unreadable ... this book is un-hearable.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

All of the Narrator's "male" dialog sounds like Billy Goat Gruif. I was unable to tell which character was speaking during conversions. Tone of dialog did not match context and/or words used so reader has to translate dialog to discover the meaning implied by author. Consequently it would have been much easier to read the book than to listen to it.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Author's e.emotional message hidden by narration that did not seem to match intended content.

Any additional comments?

I really like other recorded works by Philip k. Dick.

classic

classic short science fiction, has a lot of reread-ability! the performance was pretty good, kate rudd's voice sometimes became a bit lifeless though.

PKD Shorts! Brilliant!

The things we never think about brilliantly set in short story form to provoke thought.

it all blends together

they did a poor job of breaking these stories up and adding headers. they will play headlong one into another. the stories themselves are good. the narration leaves something to be desired.

Great stories

If you love PDK imagination and wry humor you’ll enjoy these! Definitely opens up horizons.

Great collection-but...

I'll just get it out in the open. The stories run together as if they do not end. The narration is very good. The narrator seamlessly voices character of difference sex, age, and species (because it is PKD) with skill and feeling. But the stories are ran together with no discernable break. The stories themselves are gold. It could have used a little more careful production.