Five by Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick. The Variable Man (1957) What’s there to say? Dick had probably the wildest and most accurate imagination of the golden age SF writers. He wanted to know the social and psychological effects of technology, and there are still too few writers (and others) who take that question seriously. Each tale in this anthology deals with issues that still trouble us. His technical imagination was limited, but his social and psychological imagination was not.
     The Variable Man: social control by algorithm, warfare between empires, the urge towards dictatorship, rivalries between government agencies.
     Second Variety: total war, autonomous weapons, artificial intelligence.
     The Minority Report: preventing crime by identifying criminal before they do the deed.
     Autofac: automated and autonomous production.
     A World of Talents: social competition and class struggle, symbolised by conflict between humans with psi talents and humans without.
     Dick’s vision is often bleak, but even in the bleakest stories the spark of resistance to tyranny glows, however dimly. ****