Philip K. Dick's "Paycheck"
I've been on a sort of Sci-Fi binge the last few days. I've had Philip K. Dick recommended to many many times, but I've been reluctant to read his work. I have some issues with Retro Sci-Fi, for any number of reasons. "We've got flying cars! That we program with punchcards!" ...Wha? Weird stuff like that can pull me out of the experience of a book.
However, sometimes an author can pull it off. Philip K. Dick is one of those, like Heinlein, that can make me forget about the anachronistic nature of vintage Sci-Fi. Which brings me to Paycheck.
Paycheck isn't the first Philip K. Dick book I've read this week, but it's the most recent. It's a relatively short little story (I listened to it in a day) but is good, solid Sci-Fi. Solid in that "Don't think too much about it" kind of way, I should say. Peter F. Hamilton builds solid Sci-Fi- Dick constructs nearly Postmodernist stories with important and interesting themes in the social and technological spaces. And they're good reads! As long as you approach the stories with that Postmodern mindset. Paycheck is one of those- it gets you thinking. A man signs away two years of his memory, and instead of the small fortune he was expecting at the start of the contract, all he receives is a pocket full of trinkets. And rather quickly, these trinkets turn out to be worth a lot more than the original contract.
