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Philip K. Dick
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The Minority Report Hardcover – August 31, 2013

by Philip K. Dick (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 396 ratings
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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.
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  1. Print length
    472 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Subterranean
  4. Publication date
    August 31, 2013
  5. Dimensions
    7 x 1.75 x 9.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1596065982
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1596065987
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

It’s always quite interesting to read Philip K. Dick because the ways in which his stories have aged poorly are not always those you’d expect, and vice versa. The fact is, though, PKD’s stories are still impressive feats of imagination and bring up all kinds of significant themes—identity, ethics, the fallibility of predictive machines. This is, of course, a good collection for the completist; this volume’s title story is one of the (several) PKD shorts adapted to a movie—and it is most satisfying to read the original. It’s slight (for a Philip K. Dick piece)—but it’s intense. As are most of the stories—one of the characteristics of Dick’s writing is always its density. There are a few light, humorous takes on time travel, too, and ways it changes the future—including one in which well-known science-fiction authors are (possibly) mistakenly seen as precognitives. Certainly, there are aspects of the way Dick’s vision of the future is rooted in the ’50s and ’60s that will be jarring, but suspend that disbelief and you’ll find this collection quite worthwhile. --Regina Schroeder

From the Inside Flap

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.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Subterranean; Deluxe Hardcover edition (August 31, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 472 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1596065982
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1596065987
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 1.75 x 9.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 396 ratings

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Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick

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Over a writing career that spanned three decades, Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned toward deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film; notably: Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and in 2007 the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
396 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

C J Shaw
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Dick short story collection.
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2019
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I love Dick and his short stories are great snapshots of worlds that seem so real but thankfully only possible futures.
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Leonard Seet
4.0 out of 5 stars Can we change the future?
Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2013
What if we can detect crimes before they happen? What if we can arrest criminals before they commit crimes?

Anderton is the commissioner and founder of Precrime, the police force that arrests criminals before they have a chance to commit crime. Computers manipulate “gibberish” from three “precogs,” each one seeing into a possible future, and Anderton determines whether a crime will be committed. When two or more “precogs” agree on an outcome, the resulting agreement is a majority report and the police can act on it. The system has been working fine until one day a majority report indicates Anderton will murder a retired general.

When he reviews the reports and tried to understand how the minority report differs from the majority. He realizes the fact that he, unlike other criminals, could see the report has altered the results. The first report gives the situation where he doesn’t know he will kill the general and in this scenario he would kill the general to prevent the military from taking over. But the second report, the minority report, considers his seeing the first report and therefore changing the outcome and in this scenario he wouldn’t kill the general. Then the third report, which consider his seeing the minority report, indicates he would kill the general. The very fact that he could see into the “future” changes it.

In this story, Philip K. Dick questions the validity of “seeing into the future.” If we could “see into the future,” we have the opportunity to change that future and therefore create a different future. Hence, the paradox.

I enjoy reading Philip K. Dick because his stories spurs to think about issues in our existence. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it is the nature of being alive and being human. In Ubik, it the nature of reality. And here, it is the paradox of knowing the future.
2 people found this helpful
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William Hoffman
5.0 out of 5 stars Impressed.
Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2018
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Book was in excellent condition! No complaints. Thanks!
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Frank Hollander
3.0 out of 5 stars Subterranean Press edition of Collected Stories is plodding to completion
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2013
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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. (Amazon 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.
9 people found this helpful
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JOSE GONZALEZ BUENO
5.0 out of 5 stars Different editions
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2010
There is some confusion with this title, Volume Four of The Collected Short Stories of P.K.D. Originally published in 1987 as "Vol. 4: The days of Perky Pat", it was changed to "Minority report" to benefit of the movie. I have the 2000 Gollancz edition, with an uncredited cover by Chris Moore (that appears in a Moore book as "The days of Perky Pat"), and in the copyrights page says: previously published as "The little black box", which must be a mistake, as that is the original title of Vol. 5 of the collected short stories, changed to "We can remember it for you wholesale" after the Total Recall movie.
There are 19 short stories, and it reads as a book should. Contents:
Autofac
Service Call
Captive Market
The Mold of Yancy
The Minority Report
Recall Mechanism
The Unreconstructed M
Explorers We
War Game
If There Were No Benny Cemoli
Novelty Act
Waterspider
What the Dead Men Say
Orpheus with Clay Feet
The Days of Perky Pat
Stand-By
What'll We Do with Ragland Park?
Oh, to Be a Blobel!
All this refers to the Underwood-Miller and Millenium-Gollancz editions. There is another five-volume collection by Citadel-Twilight, with basically the same stories.
7 people found this helpful
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Glen O'Brien
4.0 out of 5 stars Future Noir
Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2009
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!
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Marcelo Martins
3.0 out of 5 stars Razoável
Reviewed in Brazil on April 24, 2023
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Entendo que é um produto importado. Também cometi a falha de não verificar as dimensões do item. O livro é versão pocket, bem pequeno, sem orelhas. Pelo menos as páginas são amareladas. Mas, pelo preço, não recomendo.
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Brigitta
5.0 out of 5 stars neue Ausgabe, absolut lesenswert
Reviewed in Germany on October 13, 2023
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Es handelt sich um eine neue Ausgabe (mit selber ISBN-Nummer). Anderes Cover und eine andere Auswahl an Kurzgeschichten, wenn man mit ältereren Rezensionen vergleicht. Daher habe ich ein Foto des Inhaltsverzeichnises beigefügt.
Dennoch sehr empfehlenswert. Die Geschichten haben einen zeitlosen Charakter, und man ist immer wieder erstaunt wie aktuell sie wirken.
Das Buch ist außerdem eher klein und kompakt und eignet sich daher gut als Reiselektüre.
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Brigitta
5.0 out of 5 stars neue Ausgabe, absolut lesenswert
Reviewed in Germany on October 13, 2023
Es handelt sich um eine neue Ausgabe (mit selber ISBN-Nummer). Anderes Cover und eine andere Auswahl an Kurzgeschichten, wenn man mit ältereren Rezensionen vergleicht. Daher habe ich ein Foto des Inhaltsverzeichnises beigefügt.
Dennoch sehr empfehlenswert. Die Geschichten haben einen zeitlosen Charakter, und man ist immer wieder erstaunt wie aktuell sie wirken.
Das Buch ist außerdem eher klein und kompakt und eignet sich daher gut als Reiselektüre.
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Merlini G.
5.0 out of 5 stars Bellissimo libro x appassionati di fantascenza
Reviewed in Italy on November 1, 2022
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Bellissimo libro di fantascenza
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twacar
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, the author should have been a director
Reviewed in Canada on July 28, 2018
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Great book, the author should have been a director, movies based on his books are great, the books, not so much.
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Jean Levant
4.0 out of 5 stars Quelques unes des meilleures nouvelles de Dick
Reviewed in France on December 2, 2019
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Ironique que la couverture de ce livre soit une référence à "Minority Report" qui se trouve sans conteste être le texte le plus faible de ce recueil. Bien sûr, le film de Spielberg, dont est tirée la photo de couverture est très réussi et parvient intelligemment à masquer ou pallier certaines des faiblesses de l’intrigue originale, sauf à la fin. Mais ça n’en est pas moins ironique. L’ironie est d’ailleurs caractéristique de la personne et du destin de Dick. Il savait la manier avec talent comme le prouve ici "Oh, To Be A Blobel", aussi drôle que du meilleur Kornbluth avec un petit quelque chose en plus qui doit s’appeler le don d’empathie. Mais il semble que Dieu l’ait aussi maniée à ses dépens.
Dick a eu en effet l’inestimable honneur d’être l’un des auteurs de science-fiction les plus adaptés au cinéma et maintenant par les chaînes du câble avec le seul inconvénient d’être mort quand le succès est enfin arrivé (la première adaptation notable, qui allait lancer sa mode, Blade Runner, est sortie juste après la mort de l’auteur et a d'ailleurs été un bide lors de sa sortie). Dans ce recueil, sur les neuf nouvelles qu’il comprend, quatre ont été adaptées au moins une fois en film. Excusez du peu. Comme je l’ai dit, "Minority Report" est la plus faible des quatre et a pourtant donné lieu au plus gros succès commercial parmi les films issus d’un livre de Dick. On peut également noter qu’en dehors de "Minority Report", les trois autres nouvelles impliquées ont donné lieu à des films de série B, y compris Total Recall, qu’on pourrait qualifier de série B bodybuildé, aussi bien pour le budget que les muscles de Schwarzenegger. Pourtant les textes de Dick qui ont servi à ces films assez quelconques sont sans exception remarquables. Evidemment, la concision et la force de la nouvelle originale, "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" n’y sont plus du tout dans le film de Verhoeven et encore moins dans son remake qui atteint le point zéro de la créativité.
"Imposter", qui a donné le film "Impostor", est une très bonne nouvelle comme on en faisait dans les années 50, pas exagérément dicksienne donc. Le film est assez honorable mais dénué de tout cachet, tout comme l’adaptation de "Second Variety", intitulée "Screamers". C’est difficilement compréhensible, surtout dans ce dernier cas tant la novella (car il s’agit presque d’un roman) est excellente : dense, implacable, tirée au cordeau, rien que de l’os et du muscle. "Second Variety" est un des rares textes longs de Dick où il ne cède pas à son penchant pour les digressions ou les intrigues secondaires qui viennent parasiter et affaiblir le drame central (un excellent exemple de ce travers est le très bavard et embrouillé "Do Androïds Dream Of Electric Sheep ?" qui a donné lieu au chef d’œuvre de la SF "Blade Runner").
Les autres textes ne sont guère moins intéressants. J’ai pourtant un peu de mal avec "The Electric Ant", mais pour des raisons plus philosophiques qu’artistiques. Je n’aime pas les les histoires qui systématisent une idée, aussi bonne soit-elle, toujours au dépens des personnages. Mais comme je l’ai dit, la seule nouvelle vraiment ratée de Dick incluse dans ce recueil est celle qui donne son titre et sa couverture à ce très bon livre. Ironie dicksienne ou divine ?
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