The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume 1

[Editor's Note: This is a combined review with THE SELECTED STORIES OF PHILIP K. DICK, Volume 2.]--From time travel to perceived reality, these wonderful collections feature 16 of Dick's most celebrated and thought-provoking short stories. Among the standouts are Anthony Heald's calm, engaging reading of the reality-examining "Electric Ant," in which Garson Poole discovers he's actually a robot; Tom Weiner's taut narration of "The Variable Man," which challenges the purported dangers of time travel and Paul Michael Garcia's delivery of "Faith of Our Fathers," about a party bureaucrat in a future communist Vietnam. While the stories' dystopian (but all-too-familiar) vision of the world will keep the listener engaged, it's the excellent matching of story to narrator that makes this collection an outstanding listen. The stories are certainly fascinating in themselves, but it's the narrators' skilled readings of them that will keep the listener enthralled. A.H.A. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine