Vulcan's Hammer
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:
-
Mel Foster
-
By:
-
Philip K. Dick
About this listen
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, plans that might not include humanity at all.
©1960 Philip K. Dick (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
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 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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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 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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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 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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jason Taverner - world-famous talk show host and man-about-town - wakes up one day to find that no one knows who he is - including the vast databases of the totalitarian government. And in a society where lack of identification is a crime, Taverner has no choice but to go on the run with a host of shady characters, including crooked cops and dealers of alien drugs. But do they know more than they are letting on? And just how can a person's identity be erased overnight?
-
-
An excellent reading of an amazing book
- By dnblack on 05-24-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Mars, the harsh climate could make any colonist turn to drugs to escape a dead-end existence. Especially when the drug is Can-D, which transports its users into the idyllic world of a Barbie-esque character named Perky Pat. When the mysterious Palmer Eldritch arrives with a new drug called Chew-Z, he offers a more addictive experience, one that might bring the user closer to God. But in a world where everyone is tripping, no promises can be taken at face value.
-
-
Fantastic and current
- By Jerry Witt on 12-20-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Dr. Bloodmoney
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens after the bombs drop? This is the troubling question Philip K. Dick addresses with Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb. It is the story of a world reeling from the effects of nuclear annihilation and fallout, a world where mutated humans and animals are the norm, and the scattered survivors take comfort from a disc jockey endlessly circling the globe in a broken-down satellite.
-
-
Post nuclear apocalyptic surburban middle class
- By Michael G Kurilla on 01-04-18
By: Philip K. Dick
-
The Man Who Japed
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following a devastating nuclear war, the Moral Reclamation government took over the world and forced its citizens to live by strictly puritanical rules - no premarital sex, drunkenness, or displaying of neon signs - all of which are reinforced through a constant barrage of public messages. The chief purveyor of these messages is Alan Purcell, next in line to become head of the propaganda bureau. But there is just one problem: a statue of the government’s founder has been vandalized.
-
-
If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution
- By Darwin8u on 03-29-16
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Ubik
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business - deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in "half-life," a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter's face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time.
-
-
Holy sh*t
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-17
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
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
-
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
-
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
-
I, Robot
- By: Isaac Asimov
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own existence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two. With these Three Laws of Robotics, humanity embarked on a bold new era of evolution that would open up enormous possibilities, and unforeseen risks.
-
-
Thank you
- By Fredrik on 06-11-04
By: Isaac Asimov
-
Spandau Phoenix
- By: Greg Iles
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 26 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Spandau Diary -- what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in this new conflict about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II have to be rewritten as the future hung over a nightmare abyss?
-
-
Excellent and intense
- By CBDC on 05-09-10
By: Greg Iles
-
Tales of the Red Panda: The Android Assassins
- By: Gregg Taylor
- Narrated by: Gregg Taylor
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A city beset by the darkness and desperation of the Depression balances upon the knife edge, ready to plunge into chaos and despair. The forces of darkness have thus far been held at bay by a pair of red-gauntleted fists, but on how many fronts can Toronto's masked champion fight at one time? An unseen manipulator is pulling the city's surviving businesses to the brink of collapse for his own fiendish purposes, just as an old foe returns to unleash his bitter fury upon innocent lives. Who will survive the power of...The Android Assassins?
-
-
"Interesting point"
- By Anonymous User on 11-08-20
By: Gregg Taylor
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
I, Robot
- By: Isaac Asimov
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own existence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two. With these Three Laws of Robotics, humanity embarked on a bold new era of evolution that would open up enormous possibilities, and unforeseen risks.
-
-
Thank you
- By Fredrik on 06-11-04
By: Isaac Asimov
-
Spandau Phoenix
- By: Greg Iles
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 26 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Spandau Diary -- what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in this new conflict about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II have to be rewritten as the future hung over a nightmare abyss?
-
-
Excellent and intense
- By CBDC on 05-09-10
By: Greg Iles
-
Tales of the Red Panda: The Android Assassins
- By: Gregg Taylor
- Narrated by: Gregg Taylor
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A city beset by the darkness and desperation of the Depression balances upon the knife edge, ready to plunge into chaos and despair. The forces of darkness have thus far been held at bay by a pair of red-gauntleted fists, but on how many fronts can Toronto's masked champion fight at one time? An unseen manipulator is pulling the city's surviving businesses to the brink of collapse for his own fiendish purposes, just as an old foe returns to unleash his bitter fury upon innocent lives. Who will survive the power of...The Android Assassins?
-
-
"Interesting point"
- By Anonymous User on 11-08-20
By: Gregg Taylor
-
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
-
Homeworld
- By: Harry Harrison
- Narrated by: Charles Carr
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jan Kulozik was one of Earth's privileged elite. A brilliant young electronics engineer, he enjoyed all the blessings of a twenty-third-century civilization that survived global collapse and conquered the starts, unaware of the millions who slaved or starved to maintain his way of life. Then Jan met Sara, a beautiful agent of the rebel underground dedicated to smashing Earth's rigid caste system. Through her he discovered the truth behind the lies he'd been taught.
By: Harry Harrison
-
Stand on Zanzibar
- By: John Brunner, Bruce Sterling - foreword
- Narrated by: Erik Bergmann
- Length: 21 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically - it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him. Society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers and mass-marketed psychedelic drugs.
-
-
perfect audio experience
- By Darryl on 03-24-14
By: John Brunner, and others
-
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
-
Ghost of a Chance
- By: Simon R. Green
- Narrated by: Toby Leonard Moore
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Simon R. Green has crafted numerous acclaimed science-fiction and fantasy novels, including Blue Moon Rising, Blood and Honor, and Shadows Fall. In this first installment of the Ghost Finders series, JC Chance, Melody Chambers, and Happy Jack Palmer are agents of the Carnacki Institute - a place where the sole purpose is to “do something” about ghosts. But what exactly?
-
-
I LOVE Simon R Green. But....
- By A. Lund on 02-09-13
By: Simon R. Green
-
Cobra Alliance
- Cobra War, Book 1
- By: Timothy Zahn
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the colony worlds Adirondack and Silvern fell to the Troft forces almost without a struggle. Outnumbered and on the defensive, Earth made a desperate decision. It would attack the aliens not from space, but on the ground with forces the Trofts did not even suspect. Thus were created the Cobras, a guerilla force whose weapons were surgically implanted, invisible to the unsuspecting eye, yet undeniably deadly.
-
-
Military sci-fi with realistic characterization
- By crazybatcow on 02-02-13
By: Timothy Zahn
-
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
-
Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master
- By: Gregg Taylor
- Narrated by: Gregg Taylor
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sinister forces are at work, striking within the very heart of the city's elite with powers that seem otherwordly. Are the attacks random? Simply for profit? Or is an unknown predator hunting our masked heroes themselves? If the mysterious Ajay Shah really does have powers that rival those of the Red Panda, will even the Terrific Twosome of Toronto be able to resist the might of... The Mind Master?
-
-
Gregg Taylor Strikes Again
- By Craig on 02-16-13
By: Gregg Taylor
-
Stormbreaker
- The First Alex Rider Adventure
- By: Anthony Horowitz
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Parker
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They said his uncle Ian died in a car accident. Alex Rider knows that's a lie, and the bullet holes in his uncle's car confirm the truth. But nothing can prepare him for the news that the uncle he always thought he knew was really a spy for Britain's top-secret intelligence agency. Enlisted to find his uncle's killers and complete Ian's final mission, Alex suddenly finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, with no way out.
-
-
Okay action story held up by an great narrator
- By Mary Fan on 08-13-13
By: Anthony Horowitz
-
Cobra Slave
- Cobra Rebellion, Book 1
- By: Timothy Zahn
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cobras are technologically-enhanced warriors bred to fight an alien menace no ordinary human can withstand. At the center of action, on the Cobra world of Aventine, is the legendary Moreau clan. While the Cobras are necessary in times of war, in times of peace, they are often reviled by those they have saved. Now, the Cobras have resisted a second invasion of the alien Troft forces, forcing the Troft to a stalemate - even converting some thoughtful Troft into uneasy allies against their kin.
-
-
What?
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 07-09-15
By: Timothy Zahn
-
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
-
Starfire
- By: B.V. Larson
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On June 30, 1908, an object fell from the sky, releasing more energy than a thousand Hiroshima bombs. A Siberian forest was flattened, but the strike left no significant crater. The anomaly came to be known as the Tunguska Event, and scientists have never agreed whether it was the largest meteor strike in recorded history - or something else. Alien artifacts have been uncovered since the 1908 event, and a new star drive is discovered.
-
-
Het
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 04-09-17
By: B.V. Larson
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jason Taverner - world-famous talk show host and man-about-town - wakes up one day to find that no one knows who he is - including the vast databases of the totalitarian government. And in a society where lack of identification is a crime, Taverner has no choice but to go on the run with a host of shady characters, including crooked cops and dealers of alien drugs. But do they know more than they are letting on? And just how can a person's identity be erased overnight?
-
-
An excellent reading of an amazing book
- By dnblack on 05-24-16
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
-
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
-
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
-
Ubik
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business - deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in "half-life," a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter's face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time.
-
-
Holy sh*t
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-17
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Radio Free Albemuth
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings, Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Radio Free Albemuth, his last novel, Philip K. Dick morphed and recombined themes that had informed his fiction from A Scanner Darkly to VALIS and produced a wild, impassioned work that sounds like a visionary alternate history of the United States. Agonizingly suspenseful, darkly hilarious, and filled with enough conspiracy theories to thrill the most hardened paranoid, Radio Free Albemuth is proof of Dick's stature as our century's greatest science fiction writer.
-
-
The Pistol to the Head
- By Darwin8u on 01-02-17
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jason Taverner - world-famous talk show host and man-about-town - wakes up one day to find that no one knows who he is - including the vast databases of the totalitarian government. And in a society where lack of identification is a crime, Taverner has no choice but to go on the run with a host of shady characters, including crooked cops and dealers of alien drugs. But do they know more than they are letting on? And just how can a person's identity be erased overnight?
-
-
An excellent reading of an amazing book
- By dnblack on 05-24-16
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
-
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
-
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
-
Ubik
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business - deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in "half-life," a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter's face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time.
-
-
Holy sh*t
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-17
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Radio Free Albemuth
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings, Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Radio Free Albemuth, his last novel, Philip K. Dick morphed and recombined themes that had informed his fiction from A Scanner Darkly to VALIS and produced a wild, impassioned work that sounds like a visionary alternate history of the United States. Agonizingly suspenseful, darkly hilarious, and filled with enough conspiracy theories to thrill the most hardened paranoid, Radio Free Albemuth is proof of Dick's stature as our century's greatest science fiction writer.
-
-
The Pistol to the Head
- By Darwin8u on 01-02-17
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
A Philip K. Dick Collection
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Andy Harrington
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of science-fiction classics such as The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? comes a collection of 13 short stories of dystopic visions of technological terror, post-nuclear holocaust warfare, time travel, space travel, man vs. alien, man vs. machine, man becomes machine, man becomes plant, and other fantastic tales performed in a vividly dramatic narration by Andy Harrington.
-
-
Unfortunately mediocre
- By Anonymous User on 03-14-23
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 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
-
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 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
-
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
What listeners say about Vulcan's Hammer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tony
- 08-19-16
Mel Foster's narration ruins a decent story.
The story is pretty good, if a bit predictable, but Mel Foster is so damn slow at reading that I had to speed up the playback.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Que2
- 09-13-23
This is a wonderful story
This is a wonderful story and the audio narration was nice as well. 5 stars
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darwin8u
- 02-08-16
All Your Base Are Belong to Us!
I'm not threatening you. I'm pointing out the facts to you. If we're excluded from the ruling elite, why should we cooperate?"
-- Philip K. Dick, Vulcan's Hammer
PKD (1965), Kubrick & Clarke (1968) & I. J. Good (1965) were all publishing early warnings about an eventual technological singularity. Recently, we've seen Verner Vinge in a great essay in 1993, and such computer/science/business geeks last year (Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates) swing the hammer of warning about self computers, robots, and programs capable of recursive self-improvement:
“Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history,...unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks. In the near term, world militaries are considering autonomous-weapon systems that can choose and eliminate targets.” and “humans, limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded by A.I.”
- Stephen Hawking, 2014 interviews.
Like with most of Dick's writing, he was there, near first in line looking over that technological event horizon with his unique blend of gallows humor, optimism, and ability to find the grit and the slime even in the slickest of futures.
One thing I did notice about this book, and I think it has been true in other of his books, but I never noticed in those, is how stripped down Dick can make some of his books. These are almost Beckett-level SciFi. I only have a handful of Dick left to read (not counting his monumental The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick and his many, many short stories, but I wouldn't be surprised if the next PKD I read had two robots, one named Vladimir and Estragon talking about God. That, in essence, is this book. It is Vulcan 2 and Vulcan 3 discussing, through man, the meaning of life, perhaps. Or perhaps, no.
But anyway, my point is in this books and several other Dick really trims the books down. Yes, there is a future, and yes, there are a variety of people and character, but what you notice, really is how spare the future is. 'Vulcan's Hammer' felt like it could easily have been produced in a community theatre with a couple actors, and two punchcard computers. That is an over-simplification, obviously, but it still feels close.
One other thought. I'm not sure the technological singularity is going to be a steep cliff. I think, personally, it feels more like the heat has been turned on and we are all sitting quietly in the water, waiting for Amazon to tell us what to buy or Google to tell us where to go. I'm no Luddite, and even if I were, I'm not sure I would know where to jump to.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M.Biblioswine
- 05-23-21
A solid story
This has a solid story and an excellent performance. It is well done and I recommend it
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!