Philip K. Dick has 55 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 32 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 596 ratings. The most-rated is Blade Runner.
Volume I: The King of the Elves
Summary
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 The Man in the High Castle 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 King of the Elves is the opening installment of a uniform, five-volume edition of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, expanded from the previous Collected Stories set to incorporate new story notes, and two added tales, one previously unpublished, and one uncollected. This generous collection contains 22 stories and novellas including Dick's first published story, "Beyond Lies the Wub," together with such landmark tales as "The Preserving Machine," in which an attempt to preserve our fragile cultural heritage takes an unexpected turn, The Variable Man, a brilliantly imagined novella encompassing war, time travel, and the varied uses of technology, and the title story, in which Shadrach Jones, owner of a dilapidated gas station in Colorado, stumbles into an ongoing war between trolls and elves, and encounters a fantastic - and utterly unexpected - destiny. Like the best of Dick's novels, these stories offer a wide variety of narrative and intellectual pleasures, and provide an ideal introduction to one of the singular imaginations of the modern era.
©2010 The Philip K. Dick Testamentary Trust (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Dr. Futurity
Summary
When Dr. Jim Parsons awakens after a car accident, he finds himself in a future populated almost entirely by the young. But for the young to keep running the world, death is fetishized, and those who survive to old age are put down. In such a world, Parsons - with his innate desire to save lives - is a criminal and an outcast. For one revolutionary group, however, he may be just the savior they need to heal and revive their cryogenically frozen leader. When he and the group journey to 16th-century California, what they find causes them to question what they know about history and the underpinnings of their society. With the jarring immediacy of a car crash, Philip K. Dick throws both the listener and the protagonist of Dr. Futurity into a bizarre future where healing is a crime and youth rules.
©1960 Philip K. Dick (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Collected Works of Philip K. Dick: 11 Science Fiction Stories
Summary
The Collected Works of Philip K. Dick is a collection of 11 science fiction stories by Philip K. Dick. Included in this audiobook: 1. "Beyond Lies the Wub" 2. "Beyond the Door" 3. "Mr. Spaceship" 4. "Piper in the Woods" 5. "Second Variety" 6. "The Crystal Crypt" 7. "The Defenders" 8. "The Eyes Have It" 9. "The Gun" 10. "The Skull" 11. "The Variable Man"
©2012 BookDar Publishing (P)2012 BookDar Publishing
Volume V: We Can Remember It for You Wholesale
Summary
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. We Can Remember It for You Wholesale is the final installment of a uniform, five-volume edition of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. This expansive collection contains 27 stories and novellas written between 1963 and 1981, years in which Dick produced some of his most mature work, including such novels as Ubik, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and A Scanner Darkly. Among the many pleasures included here are the classic title story (filmed twice as Total Recall), in which an ordinary clerk, awash in resurrected memories, discovers the truth about his past and about the astonishing role he has played in human history; the Hugo-nominated "Faith of Our Fathers," with its bleak and controversial vision of a predatory deity; and "The Electric Ant," a brilliant embodiment of a classic Dick theme: the elusive - and changeable - nature of what we believe to be "real." Like its predecessors, this generous volume offers wit, ingenuity, and intellectual excitement in virtually every second. The best of these stories, like the best of Dick's novels, are richly imagined, deeply personal visions that no one else could have written. They're going to be around for a very long time to come.
©1987 The Estate of Philip K. Dick (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Introduction © 1987 by Thomas M. Disch. The excerpt which appears at the beginning of this volume is from a collection of interviews with the author conducted by Paul Williams and published in Only Apparently Real, Arbor House, 1986. Used with permission.
Deus Irae
Summary
Two masters of science fiction collaborate on one wild post-apocalyptic story. After World War III, the Servants of Wrath cult deified the mysterious Carlton Lufteufel, creator of the doomsday weapon that wiped out much of humanity. But to worship the man, they need an image of him as a god, and no one has ever seen him. So the high priests send a limbless master painter named Tibor McMasters into the wilderness on a mission to find Lufteufel and capture his likeness. Unfortunately for Tibor, the nation’s remaining Christians do not want him to succeed and are willing to kill to ensure that the so-called Deus Irae remains hidden. This hallucinatory tale through a nuclear wasteland asks what price the artist must pay for art and tries to figure out just what makes a god.
©2013 Philip K. Dick (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Clans of the Alphane Moon
Summary
For years, the third moon in the Alphane system was used as a psychiatric hospital. But when war broke out between Earth and the Alphanes, the hospital was left unguarded and the inmates set up their own society, made up of competing factions based on their particular mental illnesses. When Earth sends a delegation to take back the colony, they find enclaves of depressives, schizophrenics, paranoiacs, and others uniting to repel what they see as a foreign invasion. Meanwhile, back on Earth, CIA agent Chuck Rittersdorf and his wife, Mary, go through a bitter divorce, and Chuck loses everything. But when he is assigned to clandestinely control an android accompanying Mary to the Alphane moon, he sees an opportunity to get revenge.
©1964 Philip K. Dick (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Volume III: Upon the Dull Earth
Summary
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 The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, reflect a deeply personal worldview, 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. Upon the Dull Earth is the third installment of a uniform, five-volume edition of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. This generous collection contains 22 stories and novellas written in 1953 and 1954, along with extensive - and valuable - story notes. Included here are a number of bona fide PKD classics, among them the title story, the brilliantly conceived account of a bizarre, ultimately catastrophic resurrection, "The Father-Thing," in which a young boy comes to realize that his once familiar father has somehow changed, and The Golden Man (filmed in 2007 as Next), which tells the tale of a golden skinned mutant who may represent the future direction of the human race. These and all the other stories in this important and necessary audiobook offer a wide range of literary and intellectual pleasures. At the same time, they provide a fascinating glimpse into the continuing development of this iconic - and hugely influential - figure.
©2012 Laura Leslie, Isa Dick Hackett, and Christopher Dick (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Galactic Pot-Healer
Summary
Sometimes even gods need help. In Galactic Pot-Healer that god is an alien creature known as the Glimmung, which looks alternately like a flaming wheel, a teenage girl, and a swirling mass of ocean life. In order to raise a sunken city, he summons beings from across the galaxy to Plowman’s Planet. Joe Fernwright is one of those summoned, needed for his skills at pot-healing - repairing broken ceramics. But from the moment Joe arrives on Plowman’s Planet, things start to go awry. Is the Glimmung good or evil? Are Joe and his friends helping to save Plowman’s Planet or destroy it? Told as only Philip K. Dick can, Galactic Pot-Healer is a wildly funny tale of aliens, gods, and ceramics.
©1969 Philip K. Dick (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Cosmic Puppets
Summary
Following an inexplicable urge, Ted Barton returns to his idyllic Virginia hometown for a vacation, but when he gets there, he is shocked to discover that the town has utterly changed. The stores and houses are all different and he doesn't recognize anybody. The mystery deepens when he checks the town's historical records...and reads that he died nearly twenty years earlier. As he attempts to uncover the secrets of the town, Barton is drawn deeper into the puzzle, and into a supernatural battle that could decide the fate of the universe.
©1957 A. A. Wynn, Inc., © renewed 1985 by Laura Coelho, Christopher Dick, and Isa Dick. (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Our Friends from Frolix 8
Summary
In Our Friends from Frolix 8, the world is run by an elite few. And what determines whether one is part of the elite isn’t wealth or privilege, but brains. As children, every citizen of Earth is tested; some are found to be super-smart New Men and some are Unusuals with various psychic powers. The vast majority are Undermen, performing menial jobs in an overpopulated world. Nick Appleton is an Underman, content to eke out an existence as a tire regroover. But after his son is classified as an Underman, Appleton begins to question the hierarchy. Strengthening his resolve, and energizing the resistance movement, is news that the great resistance leader Thors Provoni is returning from a trip to the farthest reaches of space. And he’s brought help: a giant, indestructible alien.
©1970 Philip K. Dick (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Great Sci-Fi Stories, Volume 1
Summary
This volume contains a variety of imaginative stories from both famous and not-so-famous science fiction writers. Titles include: "The Six Fingers of Time" by R. A. Lafferty "Card Trick" by Randall Garret "A World Apart" by Sam Merwin, Jr. "Industrial Revolution" by Poul Anderson "The Martian and Moron" by Theodore Sturgeon "The Smiler" by Albert Hernhunter "Project Hush" by William Tenn "Hunter Patrol" by H. Beam Piper and John McGuire "A Little Journey" by Ray Bradbury "Master of the Moondog" by Stanley Mullen "The Storm" by A.E. Van Vogt "Thompson's Cat" by Robert More Williams "Scrimshaw" by Murray Leinster "The Clean and Wholesome Land" by Ralph Shoto "Tony and the Beetles" by Phlip K. Dick "Innocent at Large" by Poul Anderson "Novice" by James H. Schmitz
©2020 Jimcin Recordings (P)2020 Jimcin Recordings
Volume IV: The Minority Report
Summary
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.
©1987 The Estate of Philip K. Dick (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Introduction © 1987 by James Tiptree, Jr. The excerpt by Philip K. Dick that appears in the beginning of this volume is from a collection of interviews with the author conducted by Paul Williams and published in Only Apparently Real, Arbor House, 1986. Used with permission.
We Can Build You
Summary
In this lyrical and moving novel, Philip K. Dick intertwines the story of a toxic love affair with one about sentient robots, and unflinchingly views it all through the prism of mental illness - which spares neither human nor robot. The end result is one of Dick’s most quietly powerful works. When Louis Rosen’s electronic-organ company builds a pitch-perfect robotic replica of Abraham Lincoln, the firm is pulled into the orbit of a shady businessman, who is looking to use Lincoln for his own profit. Meanwhile, Rosen seeks Lincoln’s advice as he woos a woman incapable of understanding human emotions - someone who may be even more robotic than Lincoln’s replica.
©1979 Philip K. Dick (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Voices from the Street
Summary
Stuart Hadley is a young radio electronics salesman in early 1950s Oakland, California. He has what many would consider the ideal life: a nice house, a pretty wife, a decent job with prospects for advancement, but he still feels unfulfilled; something is missing from his life. Hadley is an angry young man - an artist, a dreamer, a screw-up. He tries to fill his void first with drinking and sex, and then with religious fanaticism, but nothing seems to be working, and it is driving him crazy. He reacts to the love of his wife and the kindness of his employer with anxiety and fear. One of the earliest books that Dick ever wrote, and the only novel that has never been published, Voices from the Street is the story of Hadley's descent into depression and madness, and out the other side. Most known in his lifetime as a science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick is growing in reputation as an American writer whose powerful vision is an ironic reflection of the present. This novel completes the publication of his canon.
©2007 The Philip K. Dick Trust (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
In Milton Lumky Territory
Summary
In The Novels of Philip K. Dick, Kim Stanley Robinson states that "In Milton Lumky Territory...is probably the best of Dick's realist novels aside from Confessions of a Crap Artist," and calls it a "bitter indictment of the effects of capitalism." Dick, on the other hand, says in his foreword, "This is actually a very funny book, and a good one, too." Milton Lumky territory is both an area of the western United States and a psychic terrain: the world and worldview of the traveling salesman. The story takes place in Boise, Idaho, with some extraordinary long-distance driving sequences in which our hero (young Bruce Stevens) drives from Boise to San Francisco, to Reno, to Pocatello, to Seattle, and back to Boise in search of a good deal on some wholesale typewriters. He falls under the spell of an attractive older woman (who used to be his school teacher) and Milton Lumky, a middle-aged paper salesman whose territory is the Northwest. And then Bruce and the others slowly sink into the whirlpool of Bruce's immature personal obsessions and misperceptions. A compassionate and ironic portrayal of three characters enmeshed in a sticky web of everyday events, in a tension between love and money, with a basic failure to communicate, In Milton Lumky Territory stands out among Dick's early works.
©1985 The Estate of Philip K. Dick (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
The Zap Gun
Summary
In this biting satire, the Cold War may have ended, but the eastern and western governments never told their citizens. Instead they created an elaborate ruse wherein each side comes up with increasingly outlandish doomsday weapons - weapons that don’t work. But when aliens invade, the top designers of both sides have to come together to make a real doomsday device - if they don’t kill each other first. With its combination of romance, espionage, and alien invasion, The Zap Gun skewers the military-industrial complex in a way that’s as relevant today as it was at the height of the Cold War.
©1967 Philip K Dick (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike
Summary
The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike was written by Philip K. Dick in the winter and spring of 1960, in Point Reyes Station, California. In the sequence of Dick's work, it was written immediately after Confessions of a Crap Artist and just before The Man in the High Castle, the Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel that ushered in the next stage of Dick's career. This novel, Dick said, is about Leo Runcible, "a brilliant, civic minded liberal Jew living in a rural WASP town in Marin County, California." Runcible, a real estate agent involved in a local battle with a neighbor, finds what look like Neanderthal bones in Marin and dreams of rising real estate prices because of the publicity. But it turns out that the remains are more recent, the result of an environmental problem polluting the local water supply.
©1984 The Estate of Philip K. Dick (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
The Broken Bubble
Summary
Set in San Francisco in 1956, The Broken Bubble traces the ups and downs and ins and outs of four characters who are not quite sure of the lives they’re living. Jim Briskin, local radio DJ, his ex-wife Pat, the young married couple Art and Rachel Emmanual – all are acutely observed and sympathetically portrayed. Briskin is suspended from his job for refusing to read a particularly repellant ad, while Art foolishly gets mixed up in a group of absurd would-be revolutionaries. As they all get entangled and not quite disentangled with each other, it becomes apparent they are seeking only – in typical Dick fashion – to live more or less happily - if not ever after, then at least for a while. Modest as it may seem, it is an ambition very difficult to achieve.
©1988 by the estate of Philip K. Dick (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Gather Yourselves Together
Summary
Gather Yourselves Together is one of Philip K. Dick’s earliest novels, written when he was just 24 years old. It tells the story of three American workers left behind in China by their employer, biding their time as the Communists advance. As they while away the days, both the young and naïve Carl Fitter and the older and worldly Verne Tildon vie for the affections of Barbara Mahler, a woman who may not be as tough-as-nails as she acts. But Carl’s innocence and Verne’s boorishness could end up driving Barbara away from both.
©1994 The estate of Philip K. Dick (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Confessions of a Crap Artist
Summary
Jack Isidore doesn’t see the world like most people. According to his brother-in-law, Charley, he’s a crap artist, obsessed with his own bizarre theories and ideas, which he fanatically records in his many notebooks. He is so grossly unequipped for real life that his sister and brother-in-law feel compelled to rescue him from it. But while Fay and Charley Hume put on a happy face for the world, they prove to be just as sealed off from reality, in thrall to obsessions that are slightly more acceptable than Jack’s but a great deal uglier. When they take Jack into their home, he finds himself in the middle of a maelstrom of suburban angst from which he may not be able to escape. Confessions of a Crap Artist is one of Philip K. Dick’s most accomplished novels, and the only non-science-fiction novel published in his lifetime.
©1975 Philip K. Dick (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.