Name: We can remember it for you wholesale
ISBN: 9780586207697

We can remember it for you wholesale

This volume of the classic stories of Philip K. Dick offers an intriguing glimpse into the early imagination of one of science fiction's most enduring and respected names. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's work has continued to mount and his reputation has been enhanced by a growing body of critical attention as well as many films based on his stories and novels. Featuring the story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, which inspired the major motion picture Total Recall, this collection draws from the writer's earliest fiction, written during the years 1952-55. Also included are fascinating works such as The Adjustment Team (basis of the 2011 movie The Adjustment Bureau), Impostor (basis of the 2001 movie), and many others. "A useful acquisition for any serious SF library or collection." --Kirkus Reviews "More than anyone else in the field, Mr. Dick really puts you inside people's minds." --Wall Street Journal "The collected stories of Philip K. Dick are awe-inspiring." --Washington Post

What Hacker News says

MattPalmer1086Jul 2025

Quite a lot of Philip K Dick's stories mess with your sense of what's real, quite intentionally.

The short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", on which Total Recall is based, is a fun read - it's not quite the same as the movie.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_W...

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getwiththeprogApr 2024

PK Dick's short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" is a great thought experiment into the validity of our memories.

I can highly recommend a read.

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atombenderNov 2023

That show butchered the original stories, though. And for some reason they picked some Dick's earliest and least interesting 1950s pulp-era stories, rather than the later, more mature. Autofac is the only classic that stands out, and the adaptation is both atrocious and unfaithful to the story.

Why not "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", "A Little Something For Us Tempunauts", "Second Variety", "Impostor", "Faith of Our Fathers", "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon", "Colony" or "Foster, You're Dead"? I wonder if it's because someone owns the rights? Some of these have already been adapted, though never faithfully.

In fact, a faithful adaptation of a PKD story or novel has never been made. Which is odd, for two reasons. One, PKD wrote quite filmable stories, with excellent dialogue and well-paced plots that should not pose a problem for anyone trying to adapt them to screen.

And secondly, why would you change anything? You adapt PKD because of the idea and how brilliantly it unfolds to its conclusion; if you replace that with your own spin, it's no longer PKD. Blade Runner very much lacks the feel of a PKD story, for example (no absurdist humour, no existential angst, no color; everything is just drab and dreary, which is a property that plagued some of his mainstream writings but very few of his SF works; if BR feels like anything it's Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, which is a sad and bleak book).

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ncmncmAug 2022

"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", by Philip K. Dick.

https://bookshop.org/books/we-can-remember-it-for-you-wholes...

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rzzzwilsonFeb 2019

Asimov's "The Last Question".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question

https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God

https://urbigenous.net/library/nine_billion_names_of_god.htm...