This is a quick lark. Working at a bookstore put me in a position to read things without buying them, especially on lunch breaks, and so I read a pair of short stories by the master, PKD, one on recommendation by my friend Dan, and one because I'd read it was being adapted into an eventual movie by Disney. I'm not rating them as a unit because they weren't a unit, but I'll write a little review anyways."I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" is your standard reality-questioning PKD story, and one of the last stories he wrote while he was alive. The best ones of his are all like this, and this is one of his best. A man is traveling light years on a transport vessel and there is a problem with the computer which governs his hypersleep. This story was so sad, and yet hopeful. Read all of PKD's work and see how many times you feel that way. And yet each one is different, special in its own way, and exceptional as a work of imagination and genius. This is Dan's favorite I think, not mine, but I love it and strongly recommend it. 10/10.
"King Of The Elves" I predict will be yet another PKD film that gets taken almost completely away from its original story in the adaptation (apparently the only one that didn't was "A Scanner Darkly"). The story is an interesting one, though as is often the case with the author, the best part by far is the ending. What is real here? Is the protagonist really the King of the Elves, or is he completely mad? It is up to you to decide. I love ambiguity in fiction, and this book was all there. I give it 7/10 and the only downgrade is for the relative silliness of the subject at hand, though it is mostly treated seriously. I think I know exactly what the good people at Disney will do with this, and I have no idea how I will feel about it when it happens.
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