Science Fiction Books > M Science Fiction Books > Philip K. Dick

Advantages: Well-developed characterisation of descent into madness
Disadvantages: Rather slow-moving and not a little confusing; probably not for those new to PKD

...jumped to a mid-career novel, Martian Time-Slip, due mainly to the fact I'd bought several while half-price on Amazon. The setting, obviously enough, is Mars, circa 2001. It's still a bleak, desolate planet, where water is precious and the few human settlers eke out something of a frontier existence, with luxuries from home only available on the black market. Incidentally, the planet is populated by a few surviving natives - little black men, known ...
...they share a common ancestor with humans, which sadly is never followed-up. The whole scene put me in mind of something rather like the Australian outback, with them the Aborigines (they even have their own 'Ayers Rock'). The principal character, Jack Bohlen, is a repairman - a job that keeps him very busy on a planet where mechanical equipment is expensive to import and regularly breaks down. Other significant persons include Arnie Kott, head of ... Read review

Advantages: Thought-provoking and entertaining
Disadvantages: None, unless you can't appreciate the time-shift

...never did get to see Minority Report. What I did not know at the time (to my eternal shame) is that the film was based on a story by Philip K Dick. For those unfamiliar with the name, Dick was one of the most prolific science fiction writers of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. He gave us Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (better known to film-goers as Blade Runner) as well Total Recall (from one of the stories in this collection 'We Can Remember it for ...
...Seeing the words Minority Report & Dick's name on the same cover, therefore, brought me up short. How come I didn't know he'd written it? And even in checking out the book, indeed well into I still hadn't cottoned on to the fact that this was a short story ~ or at most a novella ~ rather than a full scale epic. Does this mean I felt short-changed? No, I got more than I bargained for. CAVEAT: The collection reviewed is not that illustrated, but rather ... Read review

Advantages: Great Read.
Disadvantages: None.

The Foreigners. Author - James Lovegrove. Introduction: ********* And suddenly they where everywhere. In the parks, in the buildings and walking the streets as though they had always been there. The Foreigners where seven foot tall and wore golden masks atop their robed bobies. They brought with ther 'Crystech', a power source and unbreakable building material. But more importantly with their arrival came peace to mankind. Some thought it ...
...not alone in the universe, some thought the foriegners may be exuding pheromones. What ever the reason none thought about it too hard or too closely lest the bubble be burst and mankind fall backwards to what it had been. The world is still deceiv'd with ornament. Bassanio, The Merchant of Venice. Synopsis: ******* Captain Jack Parry of the Foreign Policy Police of New Venice has a tricky investigation to conduct. One of 'The Foreigners' has ... Read review

Advantages: Imaginative, Free
Disadvantages: Read the book on computer

...Scalzi's sci-fi trilogy begins with Old Man's War (followed by The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony); the story is told in first-person narrative by a retired ad writer named John Perry. As the title suggests, Perry joins the military when he is seventy five years old, and is given a brand new enhanced body via mind transfer (kind of like the Hulk - green and bigger) The story then go through the basic training and eventual deployment against ...
...got the book from Tor.com books freebie giveaway, checkout their site for some interesting titles. They got the books in pdf , html and mobi format. Plus as an added bonus, John Scalzi has also written a short story set in the world of Old Man's War on the website. ... Read review

Advantages: Great powerful story
Disadvantages: Shows its age a bit

...i when I was 9 the spent another 20 years trying to find another copy of the copy. So many people telling me it didn't exist I actually thought I'd imagined reading it. A the reader you follow the life of William Mandela from becoming a Private at the start of an interstellar and interspecies war right through to its conclusion several hundred years later. Mandela is a pacifist who feels out of place in this war. When travelling to various battles ...
...longer able to relate to the time he is living in due to the relative time dilation caused by almost fast as light space travel. Its great to follow him as he rises through the ranks, hearing his inner thoughts about his colleagues & superiors and his life in the miltary. The author Joe Haldeman served in the Vietnam War and is a very pleasant author who actually answer his own email & is very open to readers contacting him as I discovered when ... Read review