"The Best Of Philip K. Dick, Vol. 1" by Philip K. Dick; 7/10

Read, Variously, By Anthony Heald, Paul Michael Garcia, G. Valmont Thomas, Scott Brick, and Malcolm Hillgartner

The stories in this collection were:
"The Preserving Machine"
"The War With The Fnools"
"The Electric Ant"
"Autofac"
"Progeny"
"The Exit Door Leads In"
"Novelty Act"
"The Last Of The Masters"
"A Little Something For Us Tempunauts"
and though it was not in this collection,
I read on the side and briefly review with the others
"Adjustment Team"

I don't know who decided to connect the bulk of these stories with the title "The Best Of Philip K. Dick."  Maybe the same person who decided to divvy the voice acting duties by story between such a widely varied group of actors.  I'm not going to talk about the latter, except to say that this was my first small taste of Scott Brick, my least favorite narrator.

These stories are a very mixed bag.  Taken from his early career, the represent both the authors genius and his insanity, as well as his inconsistency of thought, quite well.

On the lower end of the spectrum we have "The Preserving Machine," a simple techno sf idea with a simple conclusion; "The War With The Fnools," a fairly silly space invasion that feels just paranoid enough to be a Dick; "The Electric Ant," one of his lesser reality-questioning premises; "Novelty Act," which feels too disorganized to convey the disparate ideas which constitute it, and "Last Of The Masters," a bit of anarchistic thinking in sci-fi clothes.

In the middle range you've got "Autofac," which was read by the best of the narrators in the collection (I can't remember which), which is a fairly fun and exciting story that has a bit of kinship to Dick's classic "Second Variety;" "Progeny," a robot story of alienation and disaffection that inspired an idea I haven't had yet but will someday; and "Adjustment Team," one of Dick's better "is reality really real?" paranoia stories.

[Here's young PKD. He wrote most of his short stories in the fifties as a young man before switching to focus on novels, but he kept writing one or two a year until he died.]

Lastly, there are two absolute essentials here, "The Exit Door Leads In," which I quote often, and which influenced my political thought in some quarters, an excellent anti-government paranoia story; and "A Little Something For Us Tempunauts," a time-travel story that scares the fucking shit out of me. 

What are your fears like? Mine have been science fiction fears since I was old enough to develop that part of the psyche which creates life-lasting fears (I think 10-11 or so).  Thanks to "Alas Babylon" and "Fat Man & Little Boy" my biggest fear is nuclear radiation, thanks to "Alien" and "Black Hole" (the Disney film) to my second biggest fear is outer space, and thanks to "Terminator" and "Sphere" my third biggest fear is time travel.  Robots merit an honorable mention (thanks to "Blade Runner" and "Terminator 2"), but when I have terrifying nightmares, these are the things that populate them. If you want your kids to be afraid of something more interesting than your typical spiders, snakes, bats, etc, show them sweet sci-fi movies when they are 10-11 years old. Success guaranteed. 

As such, "A Little Something For Us Tempunauts," in which time travelers find themselves caught in a possibly-inescapable temporal causality loop, was just terrifying to me.  The ending though, gives you that Phil Dick ray of ambiguity which just really makes this story stand out to me.  There is a ridiculous amount of pathos in this story out of nowhere.  Loved it.

Mixed bag here. If you really want what the title suggests, find that other short story collection of his that I already reviewed, "Minority Report."  If you want more after that, you've got the rundown on these ones above.  Worth a gander, though if you have wacky fears it may disturb, but mildly.