Philip K Dick's Short Stories

[Connavar]

What do you think of his short stories? Does he work in short story format for you?

Which ones have you read? Favs? Worst short story?


How about the short stories that have famous movies?

Are they better or worse than the movie?

[D_Davis]

I read The Father-Thing last night. What a hoot.

I was thinking that this would make the perfect opening to a sci-fi anthology film. Something to really get the ball rolling.

[Connavar]

Heh good to know i have that short story.


Last short story of his i read was The Minority Report. It was great, a good story with a great ending.

[jojajihisc]

I read The Philip K. Dick Reader straight through, something I usually don't do with short stories and I enjoyed it tremendously. Favorites from the book were The Hanging Stranger, Strange Eden, Null-O, To Serve The Master, Sales Pitch, Upon The Dull Earth, The Chromium Fence and Second Variety.

How about the short stories that have famous movies?

Are they better or worse than the movie?

It's interesting because most of the movies were adapted from short stories with the exceptions of Blade Runner and A Scanner Darkly. Adapting short stories into movies allows for more detail in a two hour movie than an 18 page story (We Can Remember It For You Wholesale). Usually books have the advantage in storytelling because you have a few hundred pages or more to tell it and also because the reader spends several days emotionally investing himself in it and therefore feels a greater connection by the end. However, the written story wins for me probably 8 or 9 times out of 10. With PKD works that have been adapted into film I'd give the edge this way.

The film title

Blade Runner - (haven't read the book, but a great movie)
Screamers - short story was better.
Impostor - (haven't read the short story, but not a great movie)
Minority Report - both good.
Total Recall - both good.
Next - (haven't read the story, but a lousy movie)
A Scanner Darkly - (haven't read the book, but movie was not very good)
Paycheck - short story was better.

[Connavar]

For me its impossible to compare PKD stories to his movies. Not even one of them is close the idea,story of their novel or short story versions. Blade Runner is good for hollywood movie but not a PKD story. The Minority Report i enjoyed, thought it was a good movie even if it was a bit too flashy. Still not dark,paranoid,emotional enough.

Thats why i try to act his movies even the good ones dont have anything to do with PKD.
His stories are too thoughtprovoking,dark,depressing for the happy ending simplistic view of hollywood sf movies.

Just compare what happens with Anderton in the end of short and the movie Minority Report. You dont have to read it to know there is no way he will beat "the bad guy" in the end....


A Scanner Darkly i havent read the book yet but the movie was in some ways typical PKD in characters,dialouge. Having read other similar books and short stories to Scanner Darkly.

[jojajihisc]

You give Dick more credit than I do. For me his stories range from crap to brilliant and the movies based on his stories did the same.

[D_Davis]

The only film I've ever seen that captures the essence of PKD is a film not based on one of his works, but it is instead an homage to the author, and that is Southland Tales.

The best straight adaptation I've seen is easily A Scanner Darkly. It's among my favorite books - I read it often - and I had high expectations. Linklater handled the material with respect, and it being animated perfectly captured the surreal feeling of the narrative. Linklater conjured the spirit of PKD in his similar film Waking Life, and did PKD proud in ASD.

[AE35Unit]

I used to have an ex library copy of Beyond Lies the Wub but never got round to reading it!

[Rodders]

Try it. I have three volumes of his short stories. Some are harder to get into than others, but there's some really impressive stories. The title story in particular comes to mind.

[AE35Unit]

Originally Posted by Rodders

Try it. I have three volumes of his short stories. Some are harder to get into than others, but there's some really impressive stories. The title story in particular comes to mind.

I would if i still had it. But I had to leave most of my books behind when I moved 8 years ago.

[Rodders]

That's a shame. You must have been gutted, It's never easy to let books go. (And for some reason, Ties as well. )

[AE35Unit]

Yea well i had literally hundreds of books including a paperback edition of the Valis trilogy,never read. I had an 11 foot shelf of just SF. Half of it was Asimov which I decided to sell(needed the money for new glasses),but I made sure I kept all my A C Clarke books and David Attenborough first editions.

[Elbo]

Well my personal favourite is Minority Report. I have a very nice collection entitled Minority Report, and I think all the stories in it are very good. It's worth having a look into, if you're new to PKD.

[Diggler]

I've read "Paycheck and other stories" and "Second Variety and other stories" to be honest my favourites would have to be "Second Variety", "Impostor", "The Golden Man", "The Father Thing". There's a whole lot more that I really liked, though I have also read around 15-20 of his novels too. So my brain is a muddled

As for movies, Minority Report was quite good. Though I felt the rest like Next, Paycheck (close to the story, stupid film), Screamers (Second Variety), Impostor (relatively close to the story) and Total Recall were pretty crap and absolutely nothing like the stories.

[steve12553]

Originally Posted by jojajihisc

I read The Philip K. Dick Reader straight through, something I usually don't do with short stories and I enjoyed it tremendously. Favorites from the book were The Hanging Stranger, Strange Eden, Null-O, To Serve The Master, Sales Pitch, Upon The Dull Earth, The Chromium Fence and Second Variety.

I started it a few days ago it is filling my limited reading time. Wonderful stories. Cever Science Fiction ideas and plenty of good old irony.