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May 22, 2008

Wendi rated it:

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May 01, 2011

Trekscribbler rated it:

MINORITY REPORT, the inspiration for the latest Spielberg film, is perhaps one of Philip K. Dick's most accessible pieces of short fiction, and it's given the big blockbuster treatment here that it (arguably) deserves ... hardcover format with a clever sideways printing scheme resembling that of a traditional detective's notepad.
However, despite the popularity (or not) of the film, this item is really intended for Dick's hardcore fans. Those people drawn to it for the film might be disappo More...

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Apr 17, 2011

Brandy rated it:

Thanks to John Anderton's development of the Precrime division, violent crime has been almost completely eradicated. A team of three precognitives sits hooked up to machines all day, with their visions analyzed and translated into reports of upcoming crimes, so that the would-be perpetrators can be arrested before they have a chance to kill. Anderton is showing his new assistant around the Precrime division when he picks up a new batch of cards--and is shocked to find his name at the top. Convi More...

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Oct 12, 2010

Colby rated it:

Minority Report by Phillip K. Dick is about a future where all violent crime has been abolished thanks to the advancement of Precog technology. Precogs are mutants with the ability to see one week into the future, and are at the center of the technology. The story focuses on a police commissioner, known as Anderton, who receives a premonition from the Precogs that he will kill someone in one week. Now the race is on to find out if Anderton will kill a man or if this is just an elaborate More...

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Jul 02, 2010

John rated it:

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Dec 28, 2010

Brian rated it:

I am in perpetual awe of Philip K. Dick. He explores issues of identity and choice with such probing intensity, his inventiveness granting insights that would not be available though a framework other than science fiction. He does it better than anyone else, and "The Minority Report" is one of the finest demonstrations of Mr. Dick's powers.

Those who enjoyed the film adaptation owe it to themselves to sit down with the "The Minority Report". Just as the charact More...

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Jan 12, 2012

J K rated it:

Paranoia is your prime state of being. Nothing is what you think it is. Everything that exists is in your head, or it's a vision that someone else put there. Trust nothing and no one, especially your spouse. Throw in some high concept science fiction, interstellar war and a bit more paranoia. Then make an awesome blockbuster movie out of it.

While I was pretty familiar with the gist of these stories, thanks to the films that some of these are based on, each one came across fresh and sur More...

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Aug 10, 2011

Jonty rated it:

I realy liked this book... Normaly books that teachers give to us are realy bad and boring and you have to write essays on them but this book was realy enjoyable and even when we did have to write an essay on it i didn't realy mind. Imposter was also a good short story included in this book.

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Mar 13, 2011

Knowledge Lost rated it:

Though the story was different to the movie, I still had the problem were I kept seeing Anderton as Tom Cruise and that didn’t help the enjoyment of this book. But thanks to the mastery writing of Philip K Dick, I did manage to get past this small issue and enjoy the book. Like the movie, the book explores the issues of identity and free will, but to a lesser extent it explores the issue prophecies; if you are told you will do something in the future, do you end up doing it (even if you never ha More...

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Aug 10, 2011

Jorge rated it:

- Hasty
- Dick's typical convoluted storylines tend to work much better in novel length
- Portuguese edition wholly opportunistic. Come on: only one short story with a huge font to make it seem larger?! That is not the way to do it.
- Still, Dick's talent is there

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Aug 10, 2011

Jule rated it:

Das Hörbuch beinhaltet zwei Kurzgeschichten von Philip K. Dick.

"Der Minderheiten-Bericht" (Orig.: The Minority Report)
"Variante Zwei" (Orig.: Second Variety)

Mir haben Beide sehr gefallen. Darum 5 Punkte :) .

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Jul 17, 2010

Lon rated it:

Less character-driven and viscerally intense than the movie, but doesn't disappoint. Fascinating exploration of free will and self-fulfilling (or self-negating) prophecies. The three "pre-cogs", it turns out, perceive different future. When Anderton learns of one "time-path", his self-directed fate changes, thereby opening up a 2nd time-path, which in turn opens a third, etc. If you dig Stephen Hawking's Brief History of Time--not because you grasp time-space continuum parado More...

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Mar 15, 2010

Shannon rated it:

I originally picked up this book because I found it for $1 at Half Price Books in Fremont and had seen, and loved, the movie. The story line here is different enough though with interesting morals being presented in a short period of time.
This was a quick read on my lunch break. Many people complained about the style of the book. It reads up to down and you flip it like a detective's notebook or report ... "The Minority Report." I found it quite appealing though as it helped brin More...

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Aug 26, 2009

Mina rated it:

Entertaining enough, this short story deals with more mentally/physically ailed people who can see the future (a bit like the schizoids in Martian Time Slip) but this time a whole policing system has been built around the idea of being able to predict crime and thus incarcerate would-be criminals before they commit the deed. Prophetic future, how much of it is self fulfilling and how much is preordained and paranoia. Entertaining, but nowhere as charming as other of his stories.

The More...

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Aug 26, 2009

Alison rated it:

John Anderton is the commissioner of the pre-crime unit, which, like other government departments, uses psychic "idiots" to see the future. People who are seen committing crimes — from felony to murder — are brought in and contained before they can do the deed. On the day when Anderton's new assistant, whom Anderton is training to take over the department eventually, arrives, Anderton's own name shows up on a punch card as the murderer of a guy he doesn't even know.
read more... More...

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Jul 01, 2011

Denis rated it:

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Aug 26, 2011

Célia rated it:

Este pequeno livro, que na realidade contém apenas o conto que lhe dá nome, foi trazido da biblioteca num dia em que decidi ir lá dar uma volta, sem intenções de requisitar o que quer que fosse. Nunca tinha lido nada deste autor, apesar de o seu nome ser bastante conhecido no género da ficção científica e de ter ficado com curiosidade em ler O Homem do Castelo Alto, que teve recentemente uma nova edição da Saída de Emergência.

Em linhas gerais, este conto decorre numa sociedade futuri More...

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Aug 10, 2011

Marta rated it:

This is actually a short story, although I have it as a book. A very small book, that can be read in a flash. But that doesn't mean it's light or simple.

As a disclaimer I should point out that I haven't seen the movie that is based on this story, even if my edition has Tom Cruise staring at me on the cover. I had no idea what it was about, and I had the book on my shelf because it was an offer on a book fair.

Despite all the books I've read of the genre, I still have this sill More...

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Aug 10, 2011

Richard rated it:

To be honest, Minority Report wasn't my favourite story in this book. I particualy like Philip K. Dick's style of writting. There are always lots of twists and Dick often misleads you with his clever and interesting style of writting. Minority report is about a system that allows people to predict crimes before they are actually commited. However, people are begining to doubt the system and the leader of "Precrime" is framed. The forged card states that he is going to commit a murder. More...

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Oct 01, 2009

Barbara rated it:

I'm always fascinated by just how much the genesis of an idea (the written concept) can vary with a subsequent execution of that idea (the filmed version). In this case, the two versions varied a great deal. The short story contained the kernel of how precognition of a crime could result in a loss of civil liberties to society. The movie moved the idea many steps beyond that, fleshing out details and making the characters more believable and sympathetic. Maybe Philip K. Dick had a short atte More...

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Nov 26, 2008

Mary-Lynn rated it:

I had never seen the movie before reading this story. My husband went on a random $0.01 book buying spree on Amazon and The Minority Report was one that arrived on Monday. I picked it up on a whim and could not put it down until I was done with the story.

He then suggested we watch the Tom Cruise movie. I could not get through the first 45 minutes of it. The story is so much better than the special effects the movie wanted to display.

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Oct 02, 2011

Sam rated it:

As a short story "The Minority Report" was pretty good but the story could have been more developed, more fleshed out. I felt like the story was rather rushed and that as quickly as the conflict arose it was resolved. It was interesting to see how this story differed from the movie with Tom Cruise. In my reading of Dick's story I felt the world in the movie was not nearly bleak or dark enough. Dick's world of the future is a good deal less shiny.

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Aug 10, 2011

Bob rated it:

All the best SF ideas are to be found in Philip K Dick's work. Alright, add a nearly to the front of that sentence and it is the Gospel truth. As it is, it is very close. This collection contains Minority Report and Impostor, filmed under the same titles, Second Variety, filmed as Screamers and We Can Remember for you Wholesale, filmed as Total Recall (probably because Arnie couldn't remember a title as long as the original).
The introduction to this collection points out that Dick (who wa More...

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Jul 26, 2011

Misha rated it:

Three stars for a great premise, and an intriguing story... but it was executed poorly. The story would have been better told in a much longer book, one with enough room for the subtlety and complexity it deserved. As it was, the book felt rushed, careening feom event to event to event with no sense of pacing or character development. Philip K Dick is great at conspiracies and plot twists, but you need more than that to craft a successful book.

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Jan 23, 2009

CJ rated it:

This story was simple, but raised a lot of issues I'll be chewing on for a while. I finished the story with the feeling I get contemplating a Ko-An, like the two sides of my brain no longer line up quite like they used to.

The only downside was the annoying format. The copy I picked up was published as just the short story in a notebook format so the reader flips the pages up vertically rather than side-to-side.

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Jan 04, 2011

Dan rated it:

I picked this book up for the sole reason that it's bound vertically... glad I did. I pretty much vowed never to read anything else by this guy after an unpleasant book club read. this book is short and sweet and not as drug addled as some of his other books. I don't remember this movie at all and can't really figure how tom cruise could fit into the story...

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Oct 29, 2011

Julia rated it:

First page turner I've read in a long time. I've been reading mostly Austen and Brontes, which are lovely and warm the cockles of my heart, but it was fun to be reading and realize suddenly that I'd been reading for hours and that it was 4 am, but feel the need to just read a little bit more...Read it all in one night. So good!

1 comment like

Feb 11, 2011

Aaron rated it:

Entertaining and fast-paced science fiction. Focused more on the necessity of separating police powers from the military than on the precogs and the precrime system. I haven't seen the movie adaption in years, so I can't really compare the two. Worth the read for science fiction fans.

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 06, 2011

Bryan rated it:

I was a little disappointed in this. Maybe my fault for higher expectations (based off the movie). It is just a short story and didn't really develop the characters. Interesting basic plot, but I might not have understood everything if I hadn't seen the movie(?)

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Jul 09, 2011

Sky rated it:

Enjoyed this a lot. Haven't been an avid reader of sci-fi, but the genre excels at dealing with philosophical implications and paradoxical ideas and morality. This title is a great primer, a quick read that shouldn't take more than a piece of an afternoon. Read it.

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