Volume IV: The Minority Report

By: Philip K. Dick

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor, Joyce Bean

Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's Summary

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.

©1987 The Estate of Philip K. Dick (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Introduction © 1987 by James Tiptree, Jr. The excerpt by Philip K. Dick that appears in the beginning of this volume is from a collection of interviews with the author conducted by Paul Williams and published in Only Apparently Real, Arbor House, 1986. Used with permission.

The Minority Report was the only good story

1. Autofac, part 1 (1955)
2. Autofac, part 2 (1955)
3. Autofac, part 3 (1955)
4. Autofac, part 4 (1955)
5. Service Call (1955)
6. Captive Market (1955)
7. The Mold of Yancy (1955)
8. The Minority Report, Part 1 (1956)
9. The Minority Report, Part 2 (1956)
10. The Minority Report, Part 3 (1956)
11. The Minority Report, Part 4 (1956)
12. The Minority Report, Part 5 (1956)
13. The Minority Report, Part 6 (1956)
14. The Minority Report, Part 7 (1956)
15. The Minority Report, Part 8 (1956)
16. The Minority Report, Part 9 (1956)
17. The Minority Report, Part 10 (1956)
18. Recall Mechanism (1959)
19. The Unreconstructed M, Part 1 (1957)
20. The Unreconstructed M, Part 2 (1957)
21. The Unreconstructed M, Part 3 (1957)
22. Explorers We (1959)
23. War Game (1959)/If There Were No Benny Cemoli (1963)
24. Novelty Act (1964)
25. Waterspider, Part 1 (1964)
26. Waterspider, Part 2 (1964)
27. Waterspider, Part 3 (1964)
28. Waterspider, Part 4 (1964)
29. Waterspider, Part 5 (1964)
30. Waterspider, Part 6 (1964)
31. What the Dead Men Say, Part 1 (1964)
32. What the Dead Men Say, Part 2 (1964)
33. What the Dead Men Say, Part 3 (1964)
34. What the Dead Men Say, Part 4 (1964)
35. What the Dead Men Say, Part 5 (1964)
36. Orpheus with Clay Feet (1964)
37. The Days of Perky Pat (1963)
38. Stand-by (1963)/What'll We Do with Ragland Park? (1963)
39. Oh, to be a Blobel! (1964)
40. Notes

FIX THE CHAPTERS

The Audible Chapters do not line up with the stories and chapters have no names

Many good stories!

This is as much a review of this collection as a critique of those reviews stating Minority Report to be the only good story here. Nope, simply not true.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked the movie, I’ve got nothing against Tom Cruise. But that’s not this story nor is it fair to judge the other stories harshly because you like the movie.

What makes PKD’s stories great? The great ideas, for one. And beyond that, the calm execution of these ideas - folding them into an intricate origami.

So, minority report is built mainly on one idea which wasn’t new to PKD’s readers - see “captive market” for a variation, written before minority report.

And as for the construction? Minority report is actually badly constructed - PKD clearly couldn’t manage to explain the folding of the story within the dialog or the action… so at the end, you get presented with a long “voice-over” giving you all of that in one throw up. Bad! That turns this whole story into one of the, frankly, worst constructed stories by PKD I have read in the five volumes. Even the movie explained and resolved this much better than the story.

And as for the weakness of the other stories - simply wrong. Were the others turned into a Tom Cruise movie? Could they have? No, but I think there’s several stories which are really delightful and better on their own terms - eg the one reinterpreting sci-fi writers as involuntary pre-cogs. Or the one about spy-slimeballs - haven’t we all experience similar unfortunate “missed connections”? Well, maybe not quite like that.

A great collection.

Of course, as anything classic science fiction from the 50s, 60s, earlier 70s, there are specific limitations, shortcomings, unfairness, etc…

Well, I just wished there was any author writing like this today, without the problems of the time. Oh, well!

A Lot Of Book For 1 Good Story and a few Average

Minority Report was really good to hear. The rest of the stories in this one aren't outstanding. I was sad that I was mostly bored with so much of this collection compared to the others.

Very nice

I enjoyed this collection for many reasons. The reader’s performance is great. I recommend it.