The Minority Report

And other classic stories by
Philip K. Dick
(With an introduction by James Triptree, Jr.)

I’m not sure what to say about this one. After reading the first five or so stories, I had to set the book aside for a while. I found Dick’s writing to be too impersonal for my tastes. His ideas are provocative, but the characters are generally one dimensional (if that).

However, when I picked the book up after a month, I found the remaining stories to be more enjoyable. I’m pretty sure that this is because I was ready for Dick’s style, rather than being due to the remaining stories being more compelling that the first few that I read.

A few noteworthy stories in the collection:

• “The Minority Report” — this is, of course, one of the stories that the movie with Tom Cruise is based on. It’s different from the movie, with the lead character being older than I pictured, but I could enjoy it.
• “The Unreconstructed M” — this is a fun and unusual “murder mystery”
• “Waterspider” — as story featuring guest appearances by classic sci-fi writers, including a large role by Poul Anderson. In it these sci-fi writers are all precogs, who have sucessfully predicted all of humanities future.