Solar Lottery
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
David de Vries
-
By:
-
Philip K. Dick
About this listen
In 2203 anyone can become the ruler of the solar system. There are no elections, no interviews, no prerequisites whatsoever - it all comes down to the random turns of a giant wheel. But when a new Quizmaster takes over, the old one still keeps some rights, namely the right to hire an unending stream of assassins to attempt to kill the new leader.
In the wake of the most recent change in leadership, employees of the former ruler scurry to find an assassin who can get past telepathic guards. But when one employee switches sides, troubling facts about the lottery system come to light, and it just might not be possible for anyone to win.
©2012 Philip K. Dick (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Martian Time-Slip
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On an arid Mars, local bigwigs compete with Earth-bound interlopers to buy up land before the Un develops it and its value skyrockets. Martian Union leader Arnie Kott has an ace up his sleeve, though: an autistic boy named Manfred who seems to have the ability to see the future. In the hopes of gaining an advantage on a Martian real estate deal, powerful people force Manfred to send them into the future, where they can learn about development plans.
-
-
Autism, schizophrenia, and Martians
- By Darwin8u on 01-22-17
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Now Wait for Last Year
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Earth is trapped in the crossfire of an unwinnable war between two alien civilizations. Its leader is perpetually on the verge of death. And on top of that, a new drug has just entered circulation - a drug that haphazardly sends its users traveling through time. In an attempt to escape his doomed marriage, Dr. Eric Sweetscent becomes caught up in all of it. But he has questions: Is Earth on the right side of the war? Is he supposed to heal Earth’s leader or keep him sick? And can he change the harrowing future that the drug has shown him?
-
-
Last/Best Self-help Book for Couples and Suicides
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The World Jones Made
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Floyd Jones has always been able to see exactly one year into his future, a gift and curse that began one year before he was even born. As a fortuneteller at a post-apocalyptic carnival, Jones is a powerful force, and may be able to free society from its paralyzing Relativism. If, that is, he can avoid the radioactively unstable government hit man on his tail.
-
-
We can't destroy Jones
- By Darwin8u on 01-15-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Dr. Futurity
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Dr. Jim Parsons awakens after a car accident, he finds himself in a future populated almost entirely by the young. But for the young to keep running the world, death is fetishized, and those who survive to old age are put down. In such a world, Parsons - with his innate desire to save lives - is a criminal and an outcast. For one revolutionary group, however, he may be just the savior they need to heal and revive their cryogenically frozen leader.
-
-
Time's Second Arrow
- By Darwin8u on 11-16-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Game-Players of Titan
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Years ago, Earth and Titan fought a war and Earth lost. The planet was irradiated and most of the surviving population is sterile. The few survivors play an intricate and unending game called Bluff at the behest of the sluglike aliens who rule the planet. At stake in the game are two very important commodities: land and spouses. Pete Garden just lost his wife and Berkeley, California, but he has a plan to win them back. That is, if he isn’t derailed by aliens, psychic traitors, or his new wife.
-
-
Game, set, match!
- By Darwin8u on 11-16-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Galactic Pot-Healer
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometimes even gods need help. In Galactic Pot-Healer that god is an alien creature known as the Glimmung, which looks alternately like a flaming wheel, a teenage girl, and a swirling mass of ocean life. In order to raise a sunken city, he summons beings from across the galaxy to Plowman’s Planet. Joe Fernwright is one of those summoned, needed for his skills at pot-healing - repairing broken ceramics. But from the moment Joe arrives on Plowman’s Planet, things start to go awry. Is the Glimmung good or evil?
-
-
If You Like your Pottery & Gods Fractured & Funky
- By Darwin8u on 03-29-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Martian Time-Slip
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On an arid Mars, local bigwigs compete with Earth-bound interlopers to buy up land before the Un develops it and its value skyrockets. Martian Union leader Arnie Kott has an ace up his sleeve, though: an autistic boy named Manfred who seems to have the ability to see the future. In the hopes of gaining an advantage on a Martian real estate deal, powerful people force Manfred to send them into the future, where they can learn about development plans.
-
-
Autism, schizophrenia, and Martians
- By Darwin8u on 01-22-17
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Now Wait for Last Year
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Earth is trapped in the crossfire of an unwinnable war between two alien civilizations. Its leader is perpetually on the verge of death. And on top of that, a new drug has just entered circulation - a drug that haphazardly sends its users traveling through time. In an attempt to escape his doomed marriage, Dr. Eric Sweetscent becomes caught up in all of it. But he has questions: Is Earth on the right side of the war? Is he supposed to heal Earth’s leader or keep him sick? And can he change the harrowing future that the drug has shown him?
-
-
Last/Best Self-help Book for Couples and Suicides
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The World Jones Made
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Floyd Jones has always been able to see exactly one year into his future, a gift and curse that began one year before he was even born. As a fortuneteller at a post-apocalyptic carnival, Jones is a powerful force, and may be able to free society from its paralyzing Relativism. If, that is, he can avoid the radioactively unstable government hit man on his tail.
-
-
We can't destroy Jones
- By Darwin8u on 01-15-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Dr. Futurity
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Dr. Jim Parsons awakens after a car accident, he finds himself in a future populated almost entirely by the young. But for the young to keep running the world, death is fetishized, and those who survive to old age are put down. In such a world, Parsons - with his innate desire to save lives - is a criminal and an outcast. For one revolutionary group, however, he may be just the savior they need to heal and revive their cryogenically frozen leader.
-
-
Time's Second Arrow
- By Darwin8u on 11-16-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Game-Players of Titan
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Years ago, Earth and Titan fought a war and Earth lost. The planet was irradiated and most of the surviving population is sterile. The few survivors play an intricate and unending game called Bluff at the behest of the sluglike aliens who rule the planet. At stake in the game are two very important commodities: land and spouses. Pete Garden just lost his wife and Berkeley, California, but he has a plan to win them back. That is, if he isn’t derailed by aliens, psychic traitors, or his new wife.
-
-
Game, set, match!
- By Darwin8u on 11-16-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Galactic Pot-Healer
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometimes even gods need help. In Galactic Pot-Healer that god is an alien creature known as the Glimmung, which looks alternately like a flaming wheel, a teenage girl, and a swirling mass of ocean life. In order to raise a sunken city, he summons beings from across the galaxy to Plowman’s Planet. Joe Fernwright is one of those summoned, needed for his skills at pot-healing - repairing broken ceramics. But from the moment Joe arrives on Plowman’s Planet, things start to go awry. Is the Glimmung good or evil?
-
-
If You Like your Pottery & Gods Fractured & Funky
- By Darwin8u on 03-29-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Confessions of a Crap Artist
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jack Isidore doesn’t see the world like most people. According to his brother-in-law, Charley, he’s a crap artist, obsessed with his own bizarre theories and ideas, which he fanatically records in his many notebooks. He is so grossly unequipped for real life that his sister and brother-in-law feel compelled to rescue him from it. But while Fay and Charley Hume put on a happy face for the world, they prove to be just as sealed off from reality, in thrall to obsessions that are slightly more acceptable than Jack’s but a great deal uglier.
-
-
The moods of the mass can't be fathomed...
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-18
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Crack in Space
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Benjamin L. Darcie
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a repairman accidentally discovers a parallel universe, everyone sees it as an opportunity, whether as a way to ease Earth’s overcrowding, set up a personal kingdom, or hide an inconvenient mistress. But when a civilization is found already living there, the people on this side of the crack are sent scrambling to discover their motives. Will these parallel humans come in peace? Or are they just as corrupt and ill-intentioned as the people of this world?
-
-
Relevant reading for 2020
- By Anonymous User on 11-06-20
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Vulcan's Hammer
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the 20th century’s devastating series of wars, the world’s governments banded together into one globe-spanning entity, committed to peace at all costs. Ensuring that peace is the Vulcan supercomputer, responsible for all major decisions. But some people don’t like being taken out of the equation. And others resent the idea that the Vulcan is taking the place of God. As the world grows ever closer to all-out war, one functionary frantically tries to prevent it. But the Vulcan computer has its own plans....
-
-
All Your Base Are Belong to Us!
- By Darwin8u on 02-08-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Counter-Clock World
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Counter-Clock World, time has begun moving backward. People greet each other with "goodbye", blow smoke into cigarettes, and rise from the dead. When one of those rising dead is the famous and powerful prophet Anarch Peak, a number of groups start a mad scramble to find him first - but their motives are not exactly benevolent, because Anarch Peak may just be worth more dead than alive, and these groups will do whatever they must to send him back to the grave.
-
-
Our Man in the Graveyard
- By Darwin8u on 01-15-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Eye in the Sky
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a routine tour of a particle accelerator goes awry, Jack Hamilton and the rest of his tour group find themselves in a world ruled by Old Testament morality, where the smallest infraction can bring about a plague of locusts. Escape from that world is not the end, though, as they plunge into a Communist dystopia and a world where everything is an enemy. Philip K. Dick was aggressively individualistic, and no worldview is safe from his acerbic and hilarious takedowns.
-
-
Báb's Treatise Between the Two Fern-like Sanctuaries
- By Darwin8u on 01-31-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Our Friends from Frolix 8
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Our Friends from Frolix 8, the world is run by an elite few. And what determines whether one is part of the elite isn’t wealth or privilege, but brains. As children, every citizen of Earth is tested; some are found to be super-smart New Men and some are Unusuals with various psychic powers. The vast majority are Undermen, performing menial jobs in an overpopulated world.
-
-
Unhatched eggs sat on by a cosmic chicken
- By Darwin8u on 03-30-17
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Cosmic Puppets
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following an inexplicable urge, Ted Barton returns to his idyllic Virginia hometown for a vacation, but when he gets there, he is shocked to discover that the town has utterly changed. The stores and houses are all different and he doesn't recognize anybody. The mystery deepens when he checks the town's historical records...and reads that he died nearly twenty years earlier.
-
-
Remember Millgate?
- By Darwin8u on 06-21-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Clans of the Alphane Moon
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years, the third moon in the Alphane system was used as a psychiatric hospital. But when war broke out between Earth and the Alphanes, the hospital was left unguarded and the inmates set up their own society, made up of competing factions based on their particular mental illnesses. When Earth sends a delegation to take back the colony, they find enclaves of depressives, schizophrenics, paranoiacs, and others uniting to repel what they see as a foreign invasion.
-
-
One of my favorite
- By M.Biblioswine on 05-06-21
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Zap Gun
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this biting satire, the Cold War may have ended, but the eastern and western governments never told their citizens. Instead they created an elaborate ruse wherein each side comes up with increasingly outlandish doomsday weapons - weapons that don’t work. But when aliens invade, the top designers of both sides have to come together to make a real doomsday device - if they don’t kill each other first. With its combination of romance, espionage, and alien invasion, The Zap Gun skewers the military-industrial complex in a way that’s as relevant today as it was at the height of the Cold War.
-
-
Project Plowshare, or don't touch my Love Gun
- By Darwin8u on 01-29-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Time Out of Joint
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ragle Gumm has a unique job: Every day he wins a newspaper contest. And when he isn’t consulting his charts and tables, he enjoys his life in a small town, in 1959. At least, that’s what he thinks. But then strange things start happening. He finds a phone book where all the numbers have been disconnected, and a magazine article about a famous starlet named Marilyn Monroe, whom he’s never heard of. Plus, everyday objects are beginning to disappear and are replaced by strips of paper with words written on them, like "bowl of flowers" and "soft-drink stand".
-
-
Mediocre Mother to Gravity's Rainbow and the Truman Show?
- By Darwin8u on 06-13-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
In Milton Lumky Territory
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Milton Lumky territory is both an area of the western United States and a psychic terrain: the world and worldview of the traveling salesman. The story takes place in Boise, Idaho, with some extraordinary long-distance driving sequences in which our hero (young Bruce Stevens) drives from Boise to San Francisco, to Reno, to Pocatello, to Seattle, and back to Boise in search of a good deal on some wholesale typewriters.
-
-
Better than I remember it
- By M.Biblioswine on 05-08-22
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Penultimate Truth
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the future, most of humanity lives in massive underground bunkers, producing weapons for the nuclear war they’ve fled. Constantly bombarded by patriotic propaganda, the citizens of these industrial anthills believe they are waiting for the day when the war will be over and they can return above ground. But when Nick St. James, president of one anthill, makes an unauthorized trip to the surface, what he finds is more shocking than anything he could imagine.
-
-
Not One of Dick's Best
- By Richard on 03-21-12
By: Philip K. Dick
Related to this topic
-
The Adjustment Team
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Al Kessel
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ed Fletcher is a real estate agent with a normal life, until one day he leaves the house for work a few minutes later than he should have. He arrives at a terrifying, grey, ash world. Ed rushes home and tells his wife, Ruth, who goes back to the office with him. When they return, everything is normal. But he soon realizes people and objects have subtly changed.
-
-
Unknown Gem of a Story
- By Jackie Houser on 11-20-14
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Altered Carbon
- By: Richard K. Morgan
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 25th century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.
-
-
Altered Carbon
- By Jake Williams on 09-22-07
-
The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown
- A Novel
- By: Paul Malmont
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1943, when the United States learns that Germany is on the verge of a deadly innovation that could tip the balance of the war, the government turns to an unlikely source for help: the nation’s top science fiction writers. Installed at a covert military lab within the Philadelphia Naval Yard are the most brilliant of these young visionaries. The unruly band is led by Robert Heinlein, the dashing and complicated master of the genre. His “Kamikaze Group,” is tasked with transforming the wonders of science fiction into science fact....
-
-
Pulp Perfection!
- By Jim N on 08-31-12
By: Paul Malmont
-
The Tar-Aiym Krang
- A Pip & Flinx Adventure
- By: Alan Dean Foster
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moth was a beautiful planet, the only one with wings - two great golden clouds suspended in space around it. Here was a wide-open world for any venture a man might scheme. The planet attracted unwary travelers, hardened space-sailors, and merchant buccaneers - a teeming, constantly shifting horde that provided a comfortable income for certain quick-witted fellows like Flinx and his pet flying snake Pip.
-
-
The First of the Flinx and Pip Novels AT LAST!
- By Chris on 01-20-09
By: Alan Dean Foster
-
The Invaders Plan
- Mission Earth, Volume 1
- By: L. Ron Hubbard
- Narrated by: Full Cast
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They are the Voltarians of Voltar - an empire 110 planets strong. They are already among us. And the invasion is about to begin...in a hundred years or so. Or is it? The truth is far more sinister. Undercover, underground, and out of sight, the invaders plan what may in fact be a massive diversion. In the darkest recesses of Voltar’s Coordinated Information Apparatus (otherwise known as the CIA), a tyrant of terror sets out to exploit the invasion in order to seize power. All that stands in his way is a planet that doesn’t exist.
-
-
overly abridged
- By Pielle Szabo on 01-10-17
By: L. Ron Hubbard
-
The Reality Dysfunction
- Night's Dawn Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 41 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems, and throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.
-
-
Finally on Audible!! My favorite Hamilton series!
- By Patrick on 04-05-16
-
The Adjustment Team
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Al Kessel
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ed Fletcher is a real estate agent with a normal life, until one day he leaves the house for work a few minutes later than he should have. He arrives at a terrifying, grey, ash world. Ed rushes home and tells his wife, Ruth, who goes back to the office with him. When they return, everything is normal. But he soon realizes people and objects have subtly changed.
-
-
Unknown Gem of a Story
- By Jackie Houser on 11-20-14
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Altered Carbon
- By: Richard K. Morgan
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 25th century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.
-
-
Altered Carbon
- By Jake Williams on 09-22-07
-
The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown
- A Novel
- By: Paul Malmont
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1943, when the United States learns that Germany is on the verge of a deadly innovation that could tip the balance of the war, the government turns to an unlikely source for help: the nation’s top science fiction writers. Installed at a covert military lab within the Philadelphia Naval Yard are the most brilliant of these young visionaries. The unruly band is led by Robert Heinlein, the dashing and complicated master of the genre. His “Kamikaze Group,” is tasked with transforming the wonders of science fiction into science fact....
-
-
Pulp Perfection!
- By Jim N on 08-31-12
By: Paul Malmont
-
The Tar-Aiym Krang
- A Pip & Flinx Adventure
- By: Alan Dean Foster
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moth was a beautiful planet, the only one with wings - two great golden clouds suspended in space around it. Here was a wide-open world for any venture a man might scheme. The planet attracted unwary travelers, hardened space-sailors, and merchant buccaneers - a teeming, constantly shifting horde that provided a comfortable income for certain quick-witted fellows like Flinx and his pet flying snake Pip.
-
-
The First of the Flinx and Pip Novels AT LAST!
- By Chris on 01-20-09
By: Alan Dean Foster
-
The Invaders Plan
- Mission Earth, Volume 1
- By: L. Ron Hubbard
- Narrated by: Full Cast
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They are the Voltarians of Voltar - an empire 110 planets strong. They are already among us. And the invasion is about to begin...in a hundred years or so. Or is it? The truth is far more sinister. Undercover, underground, and out of sight, the invaders plan what may in fact be a massive diversion. In the darkest recesses of Voltar’s Coordinated Information Apparatus (otherwise known as the CIA), a tyrant of terror sets out to exploit the invasion in order to seize power. All that stands in his way is a planet that doesn’t exist.
-
-
overly abridged
- By Pielle Szabo on 01-10-17
By: L. Ron Hubbard
-
The Reality Dysfunction
- Night's Dawn Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 41 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems, and throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.
-
-
Finally on Audible!! My favorite Hamilton series!
- By Patrick on 04-05-16
-
Relic
- Pendergast, Book 1
- By: Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human.... But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders.
-
-
Non-Perishable
- By Snoodely on 05-26-10
By: Douglas Preston, and others
-
Singularity Sky
- By: Charles Stross
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 21st century, the perfection of faster-than-light travel and the rise of a prodigious artificial intelligence known as the Eschaton altered the course of humankind. New civilizations were founded across the vastness of space. Now, the technology-eschewing world known as the New Republic is besieged by an alien information plague. Earth quickly sends a battle fleet - but is it coming to the rescue, or is a sinister plot in motion?
-
-
Gonzo giggleworthy geekitude
- By Noah Smith on 11-11-10
By: Charles Stross
-
Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds
- The First Adventure of Alacrity Fitzhugh & Hobart Floyt
- By: Brian Daley
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mankind was beginning its third leap into the Galaxy, but Old Earth had so long kept to herself that her people were unable to travel safely among the rough-and-tumble cultures that had evolved on distant worlds. That annoyed Earth's rulers, for Hobart Floyt--a minor Terran bureaucrat-- had been left a mysterious inheritance by the deceased ruler of a small but wealthy interstellar empire.
-
-
Best Sci Fi Fun anywhere!
- By A. Foxter on 07-07-15
By: Brian Daley
-
To the Stars
- By: L. Ron Hubbard
- Narrated by: Robert Caso, Jim Meskimen, R.F. Daley, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How far is too far? Alan Corday is about to find out. Corday is shanghaied aboard a craft bound for the stars...on a journey at the speed of light, the world he leaves behind fast vanishing into the past. And nothing in the dark, forbidding reaches of space can prepare him for the astounding discovery he will make upon his return from the stars.
-
-
To the Stars
- By John on 12-01-04
By: L. Ron Hubbard
-
Make Room! Make Room!
- By: Harry Harrison
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a New York City groaning under the burden of 35 million inhabitants, detective Andy Rusch is engaged in a desperate and lonely hunt for a killer everyone has forgotten. For even in a world such as this, a policeman can find himself utterly alone.
-
-
Unable to see
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 01-21-12
By: Harry Harrison
-
Footfall
- By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star. The world's frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods.
-
-
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle at Their Best
- By Flatlander on 06-24-10
By: Larry Niven, and others
-
At Any Price & Rolling Hot
- Hammer's Slammers Series
- By: David Drake
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This two-story compiliation, read by Stefan Rudnicki, offers two stories from David Drake's popular Hammer's Slammers series. In At Any Price, Col. Alois Hammer's indomitable Slammers are called in to support human colonists against a native uprising in this novel-length adventure. But even though the natives' off-world weapons are no match for the Slammers, their ability to teleport gives them a frightening advantage! In Rolling Hot, the battle-crazed troop of recruits and vets, led by Captain Ranson, must cover 300 miles of hostile enemy territory.
-
-
Not a cohesive story or stories
- By Jeffery on 01-19-21
By: David Drake
-
Sleepwalk
- By: John Saul
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Another terrifying, classic horror novel from best-selling author John Saul. An insidious madman haunts the peaceful town of Borrego, New Mexico. His goal is singular, as is the focus of his hate and rage. The teenagers of the town seem to have gone too far, and now he will strike back - while they sleep and even during their waking hours - and silence them forever.
-
-
Loved it.
- By Karen R. Anderson on 02-22-19
By: John Saul
-
The Sheriff of Yrnameer
- A Novel
- By: Michael Rubens
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Cole: hapless space rogue, part-time smuggler, on a path to being full-time dead. His sidekick just stole his girlfriend. The galaxy's most hideous and feared bounty hunter wants to lay eggs in his brain. And the luxury space yacht Cole just hijacked turns out of be filled with interstellar do-gooders, one especially loathsome stowaway, and a cargo of freeze-dried orphans.
-
-
Fun, Light-hearted SF
- By Martin Moore on 08-30-09
By: Michael Rubens
-
Cold City
- Repairman Jack: Early Years Trilogy, Book 1
- By: F. Paul Wilson
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you've never read a Repairman Jack novel, this is the place to begin. It's 1990. A twenty-one-year-old named Jack has dropped out of college, leaving his old life behind to build a new one in New York City. Manhattan's rough edges are jagged enough to shred any unwary newcomer, but perhaps not one who is determined to stay off the grid, at any cost, in the busiest metropolis on earth. And to do so, he'll have to take jobs of a less than legal nature.
-
-
Fun, as long you don't think too much
- By Andrew Pollack on 01-17-14
By: F. Paul Wilson
-
2113
- Stories Inspired by the Music of Rush
- By: John McFetridge - editor, Kevin J. Anderson - editor
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The music of Rush, one of the most successful bands in music history, is filled with fantastic stories, evocative images, thought-provoking futures and pasts. In this anthology, notable, best-selling, and award-winning writers each chose a Rush song as the spark for a new story, drawing inspiration from the visionary trio Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart.
-
-
I'm a RUSH fan, but ...no..not this book
- By NBP on 07-15-17
By: John McFetridge - editor, and others
-
Titans
- By: Edward W. Robertson
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rob Dunbar is the world's best history professor. And with good reason: he's been alive for 3,000 years, keeping his existence a secret since before the days of Athens. But a stranger named Baxter has a better use for Rob's vast expertise. Baxter's looking to found a mining company in the Asteroid Belt. In exchange for Rob's help, he'll try to unravel the mystery of Rob's origin. As they're getting their outfit off the ground, they come under covert attack by HemiCo, a powerful Mars-based corporation.
-
-
Great book
- By Adam on 09-29-16
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Dr. Futurity
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Dr. Jim Parsons awakens after a car accident, he finds himself in a future populated almost entirely by the young. But for the young to keep running the world, death is fetishized, and those who survive to old age are put down. In such a world, Parsons - with his innate desire to save lives - is a criminal and an outcast. For one revolutionary group, however, he may be just the savior they need to heal and revive their cryogenically frozen leader.
-
-
Time's Second Arrow
- By Darwin8u on 11-16-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The World Jones Made
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Floyd Jones has always been able to see exactly one year into his future, a gift and curse that began one year before he was even born. As a fortuneteller at a post-apocalyptic carnival, Jones is a powerful force, and may be able to free society from its paralyzing Relativism. If, that is, he can avoid the radioactively unstable government hit man on his tail.
-
-
We can't destroy Jones
- By Darwin8u on 01-15-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Cosmic Puppets
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following an inexplicable urge, Ted Barton returns to his idyllic Virginia hometown for a vacation, but when he gets there, he is shocked to discover that the town has utterly changed. The stores and houses are all different and he doesn't recognize anybody. The mystery deepens when he checks the town's historical records...and reads that he died nearly twenty years earlier.
-
-
Remember Millgate?
- By Darwin8u on 06-21-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Crack in Space
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Benjamin L. Darcie
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a repairman accidentally discovers a parallel universe, everyone sees it as an opportunity, whether as a way to ease Earth’s overcrowding, set up a personal kingdom, or hide an inconvenient mistress. But when a civilization is found already living there, the people on this side of the crack are sent scrambling to discover their motives. Will these parallel humans come in peace? Or are they just as corrupt and ill-intentioned as the people of this world?
-
-
Relevant reading for 2020
- By Anonymous User on 11-06-20
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Counter-Clock World
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Counter-Clock World, time has begun moving backward. People greet each other with "goodbye", blow smoke into cigarettes, and rise from the dead. When one of those rising dead is the famous and powerful prophet Anarch Peak, a number of groups start a mad scramble to find him first - but their motives are not exactly benevolent, because Anarch Peak may just be worth more dead than alive, and these groups will do whatever they must to send him back to the grave.
-
-
Our Man in the Graveyard
- By Darwin8u on 01-15-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Our Friends from Frolix 8
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Our Friends from Frolix 8, the world is run by an elite few. And what determines whether one is part of the elite isn’t wealth or privilege, but brains. As children, every citizen of Earth is tested; some are found to be super-smart New Men and some are Unusuals with various psychic powers. The vast majority are Undermen, performing menial jobs in an overpopulated world.
-
-
Unhatched eggs sat on by a cosmic chicken
- By Darwin8u on 03-30-17
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Dr. Futurity
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Dr. Jim Parsons awakens after a car accident, he finds himself in a future populated almost entirely by the young. But for the young to keep running the world, death is fetishized, and those who survive to old age are put down. In such a world, Parsons - with his innate desire to save lives - is a criminal and an outcast. For one revolutionary group, however, he may be just the savior they need to heal and revive their cryogenically frozen leader.
-
-
Time's Second Arrow
- By Darwin8u on 11-16-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The World Jones Made
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Floyd Jones has always been able to see exactly one year into his future, a gift and curse that began one year before he was even born. As a fortuneteller at a post-apocalyptic carnival, Jones is a powerful force, and may be able to free society from its paralyzing Relativism. If, that is, he can avoid the radioactively unstable government hit man on his tail.
-
-
We can't destroy Jones
- By Darwin8u on 01-15-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Cosmic Puppets
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following an inexplicable urge, Ted Barton returns to his idyllic Virginia hometown for a vacation, but when he gets there, he is shocked to discover that the town has utterly changed. The stores and houses are all different and he doesn't recognize anybody. The mystery deepens when he checks the town's historical records...and reads that he died nearly twenty years earlier.
-
-
Remember Millgate?
- By Darwin8u on 06-21-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Crack in Space
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Benjamin L. Darcie
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a repairman accidentally discovers a parallel universe, everyone sees it as an opportunity, whether as a way to ease Earth’s overcrowding, set up a personal kingdom, or hide an inconvenient mistress. But when a civilization is found already living there, the people on this side of the crack are sent scrambling to discover their motives. Will these parallel humans come in peace? Or are they just as corrupt and ill-intentioned as the people of this world?
-
-
Relevant reading for 2020
- By Anonymous User on 11-06-20
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Counter-Clock World
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Counter-Clock World, time has begun moving backward. People greet each other with "goodbye", blow smoke into cigarettes, and rise from the dead. When one of those rising dead is the famous and powerful prophet Anarch Peak, a number of groups start a mad scramble to find him first - but their motives are not exactly benevolent, because Anarch Peak may just be worth more dead than alive, and these groups will do whatever they must to send him back to the grave.
-
-
Our Man in the Graveyard
- By Darwin8u on 01-15-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Our Friends from Frolix 8
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Our Friends from Frolix 8, the world is run by an elite few. And what determines whether one is part of the elite isn’t wealth or privilege, but brains. As children, every citizen of Earth is tested; some are found to be super-smart New Men and some are Unusuals with various psychic powers. The vast majority are Undermen, performing menial jobs in an overpopulated world.
-
-
Unhatched eggs sat on by a cosmic chicken
- By Darwin8u on 03-30-17
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Time Out of Joint
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ragle Gumm has a unique job: Every day he wins a newspaper contest. And when he isn’t consulting his charts and tables, he enjoys his life in a small town, in 1959. At least, that’s what he thinks. But then strange things start happening. He finds a phone book where all the numbers have been disconnected, and a magazine article about a famous starlet named Marilyn Monroe, whom he’s never heard of. Plus, everyday objects are beginning to disappear and are replaced by strips of paper with words written on them, like "bowl of flowers" and "soft-drink stand".
-
-
Mediocre Mother to Gravity's Rainbow and the Truman Show?
- By Darwin8u on 06-13-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Clans of the Alphane Moon
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years, the third moon in the Alphane system was used as a psychiatric hospital. But when war broke out between Earth and the Alphanes, the hospital was left unguarded and the inmates set up their own society, made up of competing factions based on their particular mental illnesses. When Earth sends a delegation to take back the colony, they find enclaves of depressives, schizophrenics, paranoiacs, and others uniting to repel what they see as a foreign invasion.
-
-
One of my favorite
- By M.Biblioswine on 05-06-21
By: Philip K. Dick
-
We Can Build You
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this lyrical and moving novel, Philip K. Dick intertwines the story of a toxic love affair with one about sentient robots, and unflinchingly views it all through the prism of mental illness - which spares neither human nor robot. The end result is one of Dick’s most quietly powerful works. When Louis Rosen’s electronic-organ company builds a pitch-perfect robotic replica of Abraham Lincoln, the firm is pulled into the orbit of a shady businessman, who is looking to use Lincoln for his own profit.
-
-
Simulacra for me & simulacra for you.
- By Darwin8u on 01-15-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Simulacra
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a ravaged Earth, fate and circumstances bring together a disparate group of characters, including a fascist with dreams of a coup, a composer who plays his instrument with his mind, a First Lady who calls all the shots, and the world’s last practicing therapist. And they all must contend with an underclass that is beginning to ask a few too many questions, aided by a man called Loony Luke and his very persuasive pet alien.
-
-
In a mad world, only the mad are sane.
- By Darwin8u on 12-09-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Now Wait for Last Year
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Earth is trapped in the crossfire of an unwinnable war between two alien civilizations. Its leader is perpetually on the verge of death. And on top of that, a new drug has just entered circulation - a drug that haphazardly sends its users traveling through time. In an attempt to escape his doomed marriage, Dr. Eric Sweetscent becomes caught up in all of it. But he has questions: Is Earth on the right side of the war? Is he supposed to heal Earth’s leader or keep him sick? And can he change the harrowing future that the drug has shown him?
-
-
Last/Best Self-help Book for Couples and Suicides
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Eye in the Sky
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a routine tour of a particle accelerator goes awry, Jack Hamilton and the rest of his tour group find themselves in a world ruled by Old Testament morality, where the smallest infraction can bring about a plague of locusts. Escape from that world is not the end, though, as they plunge into a Communist dystopia and a world where everything is an enemy. Philip K. Dick was aggressively individualistic, and no worldview is safe from his acerbic and hilarious takedowns.
-
-
Báb's Treatise Between the Two Fern-like Sanctuaries
- By Darwin8u on 01-31-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Voices from the Street
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stuart Hadley is a young radio electronics salesman in early 1950s Oakland, California. He has what many would consider the ideal life: a nice house, a pretty wife, a decent job with prospects for advancement, but he still feels unfulfilled; something is missing from his life. Hadley is an angry young man - an artist, a dreamer, a screw-up. He tries to fill his void first with drinking and sex, and then with religious fanaticism, but nothing seems to be working, and it is driving him crazy.
-
-
A very good book
- By H. Metz on 07-31-23
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Lies, Inc.
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When catastrophic overpopulation threatens Earth, one company offers to teleport citizens to Whale’s Mouth, an allegedly pristine new home for happy and industrious émigrés. But there is one problem: the teleportation machine works in only one direction. When Rachmael ben Applebaum discovers that some of the footage of happy settlers may have been faked, he sets out on an 18-year journey to see if anyone wants to come back.
-
-
The Unteleported Man
- By Darwin8u on 01-15-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Galactic Pot-Healer
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometimes even gods need help. In Galactic Pot-Healer that god is an alien creature known as the Glimmung, which looks alternately like a flaming wheel, a teenage girl, and a swirling mass of ocean life. In order to raise a sunken city, he summons beings from across the galaxy to Plowman’s Planet. Joe Fernwright is one of those summoned, needed for his skills at pot-healing - repairing broken ceramics. But from the moment Joe arrives on Plowman’s Planet, things start to go awry. Is the Glimmung good or evil?
-
-
If You Like your Pottery & Gods Fractured & Funky
- By Darwin8u on 03-29-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Game-Players of Titan
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Years ago, Earth and Titan fought a war and Earth lost. The planet was irradiated and most of the surviving population is sterile. The few survivors play an intricate and unending game called Bluff at the behest of the sluglike aliens who rule the planet. At stake in the game are two very important commodities: land and spouses. Pete Garden just lost his wife and Berkeley, California, but he has a plan to win them back. That is, if he isn’t derailed by aliens, psychic traitors, or his new wife.
-
-
Game, set, match!
- By Darwin8u on 11-16-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Valis
- Valis, Book 1
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is VALIS? This question is at the heart of Philip K. Dick's groundbreaking novel, the first book in his defining trilogy. When a beam of pink light begins giving a schizophrenic man named Horselover Fat (who just might also be known as Philip K. Dick) visions of an alternate Earth where the Roman Empire still reigns, he must decide whether he is crazy or whether a godlike entity is showing him the true nature of the world.
-
-
Life changing
- By Michael on 03-16-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Zap Gun
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this biting satire, the Cold War may have ended, but the eastern and western governments never told their citizens. Instead they created an elaborate ruse wherein each side comes up with increasingly outlandish doomsday weapons - weapons that don’t work. But when aliens invade, the top designers of both sides have to come together to make a real doomsday device - if they don’t kill each other first. With its combination of romance, espionage, and alien invasion, The Zap Gun skewers the military-industrial complex in a way that’s as relevant today as it was at the height of the Cold War.
-
-
Project Plowshare, or don't touch my Love Gun
- By Darwin8u on 01-29-15
By: Philip K. Dick
What listeners say about Solar Lottery
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M.Biblioswine
- 01-10-22
Beautiful
While not one of PKD’s first rate works, the book is mighty close to it and a thing of beauty in its own right.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darwin8u
- 03-21-16
Dick's First Novel Seems All Grown Up.
"I'm a sick man. And the more I see, the sicker I get. I'm so sick I think everybody else is sick and I'm the only healthy person. That's pretty bad off, isn't it?”
― Philip K. Dick, Solar Lottery
I figured Super Tuesday was an appropriate time to listen to PKD's first novel about lottery elections, random assassins, autocratic leaders, corruption, serfs, mad women, social control, telepathic security, idealism, cults, and the search for our galaxy's 10th planet.
It is hard to believe this was Dick's first novel. It seems so grown up; not quite ripe, but close enough to still be edible and enjoyable. It combines Dick's early space novels with his later, funky techno-politico-religious cynicism.
01 function minimax(node, depth, maximizingPlayer)
02 if depth = 0 or node is a terminal node
03 return the heuristic value of node
04 if maximizingPlayer
05 bestValue := −∞
06 for each child of node
07 v := minimax(child, depth − 1, FALSE)
08 bestValue := max(bestValue, v)
09 return bestValue
10 else (* minimizing player *)
11 bestValue := +∞
12 for each child of node
13 v := minimax(child, depth − 1, TRUE)
14 bestValue := min(bestValue, v)
15 return bestValue
Probably my favorite bit of this whole novel was Dick's bending of the idea of Minimax, a form of Nash Equilibrium and game theory. The election of a leader by random is offset by the almost simultaneous election of an assassin. In Dick's Zero-sum future, the random probability of a stupid leader is offset and minimized by the election of an average (or better than average) assassin. Thus, dumb leaders die quickly, good leaders last longer.
The climax of this novel involves both the epitome of game theory and the inevitable corruption. This might have been just a three-star novel, but for someone who loves economics, game theory, and good SF, this one needed/demanded a one-star upgrade.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darryl
- 09-27-12
a little too disjointed for me
some PKD seems a little slap dash and for me this is one. there are several good ideas but i didn't feel they were coherently worked out and i was left feeling like there were 2 or 3 short stories jammed together and not completed satisfactorily. And the overall structure of the future society needed fleshing out for me, bits and pieces floated about, and in the end i had no clear vision of it, which tends to negate the plot line as such. there are several nice moments, but still can't recommend it when you can get Policeman, Androids, Valis and Scanner as well as High Castle instead. Still I will continue on with PKD.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Randall Flagg
- 01-05-17
Not one of his best
I love PKD but this is not one of his best books. The story is weak and the ending weaker still. Look elsewhere.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!