The Minority Report Philip K Dick 9780375421877 Books
Download As PDF : The Minority Report Philip K Dick 9780375421877 Books
The Minority Report Philip K Dick 9780375421877 Books
I have been a fan of Philip K. Dick since the early 1950s when he began writing stories for the science fiction magazines of that period. I appreciate the reprinting of his work in this series of books published by Subterranean Press.Tags : The Minority Report [Philip K. Dick] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In the world of The Minority Report, </i>Commissioner John Anderton is the one to thank for the lack of crime. He is the originator of the Precrime System,Philip K. Dick,The Minority Report,Pantheon,0375421874,Crime prevention;Fiction.,Legal stories.,Science fiction.,Crime prevention,DICK, PHILIP K. - PROSE & CRITICISM,Fiction,Fiction - Science Fiction,Fiction Science Fiction General,Fiction-Science Fiction,GENERAL,General Adult,Legal stories,Science Fiction,Science Fiction - General,United States,MovieTv Tie-Ins
The Minority Report Philip K Dick 9780375421877 Books Reviews
There is an incredible amount of insight that went into this short story. Everyone likes the idea of fighting crime politicians get re-elected fighting it; police receive praise for attacking it at every nook and corner; citizens feel safer when, as a society, we are defeating it.
Given this context, what would happen if a politician were to endorse the idea of locking up criminals before they engange in their criminal acts? It sounds good after all, aren't they likely to engange in the act if they are locked up?
Forget the issue as to whether such acts are constitutional (they clearly they are not), the question is, is it good policy? Dick points to the idea that it clearly isn't, and that while it may seem like a good idea to completely eradicate crime, the practice of doing so would clearly create far more harm than good.
For instance, if we label someone as extremely likely to engange in the act and arrest them before they committ it, we are saying that people essentially have no free-will and we eliminate the possibility that they may change their thinking before they engange in the behavior. What we would be doing is, in a sense, locking people up for poor thoughts--no--dangerous thoughts.
This is an important lesson for all those closet utopians who believe that an intellectual can come up with an idea and cure all of society's ills. This book clearly errs in being skeptical of those in power who would sacrifice our freedom in the name of temporary security. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who would sacrifice a little freedom for temporal safety deserve neither to be safe or free."
Michael Gordon
I enjoyed this collection of science fiction short stories from Philip K. Dick under the title of Minority Report, no doubt to cash in on the Spielberg movie of the same name. I had read two of the stories already, the title story and "Second Variety" in another collection of stories - The Variable Man. Quite a few of Dick's stories, apart from "Minority Report," have been filmed. "We Can Remember it For You Wholesale" became Total Recall, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" became Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, "Paycheck" became John Woo's Paycheck, and "Second Variety," which after reading I thought would make a good short film, became Screamers written by Dan O'Bannon (he of Alien and Dark Star fame) - beaten to the punch again. These are pretty engrossing stories. Some, like "Oh, to Be a Blobel," about a human who involuntarily tranforms into a blob-like creature, after having fought a battle with this species on the other side of the galaxy, seem like the prose equivalent of a Silver Age Marvel comic (not that there's anything wrong with that). Others like "The Electric Ant" are chilling meditations on the nature of identity - does a cyborg with programmed memories fear extinction if his memory tapes are arranged? If it does fear extinction it must have consciousness. Is it therefore a "person" with a "soul"? Science fiction writers are often credited with anticipating future technology. What strikes me about these stories however is how they fail on that point. These stories, written between 1953 and 1969, do not seem to have anticipated digital technology at all - everything is on tapes and computers are still huge devices housed in separate buildings!
Book was in excellent condition! No complaints. Thanks!
This is a review of the 2013 Subterranean Press edition of volume four of the Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, entitled The Minority Report. ( has the book mixed up with an old movie-tie release of just the original novella.)
This book is essentially a reprint of volume four of the 1987 Underwood/Miller collected stories, with new typesetting, typography, dust jacket, and getting rid of the James Tiptree, Jr. introduction. The stories span a rather arbitrarily large chronological period in Dick's career, writing from late 1954 to 1963, when he mostly worked on novels.
Unfortunately, this reprint series has been a missed opportunity to improve on the original collection (for instance, correcting errors in the texts, adding uncollected stories that were later expanded into novels, updated framing material, juvenilia, etc.) And the first volume was badly botched, with the second one also having problems. So I can't recommend this book, except for the intrinsic merit of the stories, which you can find elsewhere--adequate paperbacks editions of all five volumes of Collected Stories remain in print.
I have been a fan of Philip K. Dick since the early 1950s when he began writing stories for the science fiction magazines of that period. I appreciate the reprinting of his work in this series of books published by Subterranean Press.
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