About book Paycheck And Other Classic Stories (2003)
It took me awhile to finish this book because of the nature of the book. I didn't get drawn into the entire book. Instead, I got drawn into individual stories, but then easily put the book down when the story was over. Overall I liked the stories. They feel like I'm reading episodes of The Twilight Zone. Most have an interesting premise, but aren't fully fleshed out probably due to the nature of the short story. They use old technology as the basis of the stories and so they do have a dated feel, but the story ideas could easily be updated. I feel like Dick is full of good ideas, but his writing style isn't particularly engaging to me. Most of the stories end without complete resolution.Thoughts about the individual stories:* indicate the stories I liked best(view spoiler)[Stability-interesting circular time travel, no idea what happened at the endRoog-in the head of a dog, crazed by garbage men who "steal" the trashThe Little Movement-reminded me of Toy Story (especially Toy Story 3), toys are alive, bad toys destroyed by the good guysBeyond Lies the Wub-not really sure about the ending? Wub is a being of some sort that inhabits other bodies to have experiences?The Gun-liked the irony*The Skull-great circular time travel creating an impossibilityThe Defenders-overly simplistic view of the ending of warMr. Spaceship-again with simplistic view of war, how it's ingrained in us by habit, not natural, interesting story, but end is just huh. . .Piper in the Woods-maybe I'm just not deep enough to understand. So HOW did they become plants?? He goes off with the native and now he's a plant too? I guess I'm just not good at reading between the lines. *The Infinites-radiation causes rapid evolution. Should those far advanced intervene in primitive cultures? Reminds of the Star Trek prime directive The Preserving Machine-make all that is beautiful into a creature to preserve it, yet all that is good decays regardless, we are helpless to stop the negative, the world is a downward spiral, leaves one feeling darkExpendable-What if the bugs and creepy things could attack? Ick!*The Variable Man-a world where decisions are based solely on probability until a man from the past creates an incalculable improbability The Indefatigable Frog-about the logic puzzle of jumping frog holding the distance each time, will it get out?The Crystal Crypt-Terrans steal an entire Mars city by miniaturizing itThe Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford-Animator brings inanimate objects to life. Oxford shoe then makes a "girl" shoe come to life and they mate. The Builder-modern day Noah, builds a hulking boat in backyard without really knowing why*Meddler-man goes forward in time when caustic butterflies have destroyed the human race, he accidentally brings cocoons back with him to the past*Paycheck-man works for a company 2 years and then has mind erased, but uses time while he worked to collect data from the future to help him get leverage after his mind is wiped. Philip Dick seems fascinated by the idea of a "time scoop"-something that can collect objects from the past or future. He uses it many times in his stories.The Great C-in a post nuclear apocalyptic world a computer uses human sacrifice to feed itself fuelOut in the Garden- a boy is really the son of a duck; similar to the story of Zeus and Leda whose child was Helen of TroyThe King of the Elves-old man who runs gas station is suddenly made king of the elves when he is kind to elf king right before king's death. He is involved in an epic battle between elves & trolls and defeats his long time human friend who was really the Great Troll in disguise. I kept waiting for the whole thing to be a hallucination*Colony-a single cell organism on a newly discovered world can perfectly mimic anything inorganic*Prize Ship-what if things in the past were tiny and in the future were gigantic because the universe is expanding?The Nanny-children's robot nannies trained to destroy other nannies to ensure the parent customers are required to buy new ones, a commentary on big business tactics (hide spoiler)]
Here's the thing about this book, it's bad. There is a part of me that wants very badly to say, "Well, it wasn't that the writing was bad" but that's a lie. The writing was awful, so were the stories.Here's something I wouldn't expect of a published work: missing scenes. A captain and a crew walk into a room. They confront two people in the room. This line follows. 'He lowered the gun.' Upon further inspection I discovered that was the first mention of a gun, its being lowered. How, I must ask, does that go unnoticed? How does someone who thought up Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep do that? How is such an error acceptable to him or the editor? It boggles the mind because this is not the only case of such a thing, just one among many.Inconsistencies aside, the stories are awful nonsense. Several astronauts are shot down and find a large gun that had done the shooting. It takes FIVE PAGES of the astronauts arguing about how they will ever leave the planet before one of them says 'But wait! It can't shoot us here, on the ground! We can take it apart!' Really, Philip? They didn't immediately see that? It's a giant F'ing gun that points at the sky and the first thought wasn't just to destroy it? Oh, and let's not forget that Guinea Pigs are the most advanced form of life. And let's not forget that a higher intelligence simply bestows knowledge, like how to make a gun from a box of parts. It is literally as if I am watching children's stories. Nearly every story collected is not only poorly written, but complete nonsense. The one or two stories of this collection that are readable in no way make up for the throng of crap before.Frankly, I have a much lower opinion of him now. It's a little upsetting.
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One of the better selections of Philip K Dick short stories, the title short story is the basis for the Ben Affleck movie. Autofac and The Days of Perky Pay, are familiar stories having appeared in other collections. Dick whiles some stories seem like scripts from the ‘Twilight Zone’ for example, ‘The Father-Thing’ is a poor man’s ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ Dick does make some powerful statements in other stories, for example politics in ‘The Chromium Fence’ and on the topic of abortion in ‘The Pre-Persons’.
—Eric
Many will tell you how they do not like his short stories, or that there is some inherent flaw in his work. But I tell you that if there is, it is an inherent flaw called the 1950s. It was in the Outer Limits and Twilight Zone both. It was a product of how things were done in that decade. In this, each story often comes to some moral conclusion. Many of them karmically circular as a fable or a parable. People get what they deserve, and endings are often the product of foolishly bad choices. The moral tale is not unusual, it is prevalent to our culture.The writing itself can be dry at times. Many of his early works you can tell were a product of trying to feed a family and get by. Write whatever they ask for, get paid. The plight of any author.But it's in the concepts that set PKD apart from many of his peers. His concepts were all exceptionally unique, beyond just science fiction, and in a place where even science itself could not be trusted. Nothing in his stories can be trusted. Reality is unstable, and people are never who they appear to be. It's all about secrets, lies, and horrible truth.I love PKD. So anything I say will be bias.
—Shawn Koch
I just had my entire review which was three extremely well written paragraphs completely erased because I clicked off of the pop up. Thanks GoodReads. Sum up: most of the stories are great except the last one which is an anti-abortion dystopian world where kids get hauled off and killed up to when they learn higher math (age 10). It was written by a guy who should've been communicating the downright misogynistic thoughts he felt in the wake of his wife's choice to have an abortion to a therapist, not a copy editor. Note to PKD delivered to him via stable time loop: women do not get abortions because it's a "hip/sexy thing to do" or "a real conversation starter." Nor do they do it because they want to "eliminate the male race." If you stop yourself from reading it, the collection's a 4/5 if you like PKD. But this left a disgusting taste in my mouth like nothing I've ever read before, outside of explicit hate literature. It's really surprising to me because what I love about PKD is that he conjures up imaginative scenarios and then populates those worlds with people who react emotionally in a believable manner to their strange new surroundings. So to see him write a bunch of grotesque caricatures and try to pass them off as women, it's sickening. It's called The Pre-Persons if you have some measure of Bile Fascination from my description and simply must read it. I HIGHLY don't recommend it though if you get pissed off as easily as I do.
—Busky3
