In the world of The Minority Report, Commissioner John Anderton is the one to thank for the lack of crime. He is the originator of the Precrime System, which uses "precogs"--people with the power to see into the future--to identify criminals before they can do any harm. Unfortunately for Anderton, his precogs perceive him as the next criminal. But Anderton knows he has never contemplated such a thing, and this knowledge proves the precogs are fallible. Now, whichever way he turns, Anderton is doomed--unless he can find the precogs's "minority report"--the dissenting voice that represents his one hope of getting at the truth in time to save himself from his own system.A film version of The Minority Report, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise, will be released this summer--further proof of the enduring appeal of Philip K. Dick's visionary fiction.From the Hardcover edition.
Couldn't believe how different the story was between the movie and the original short story.
SPOILER ALERT: At the center of the action in the short story is how a foreknowledge feedback is inevitable. At no time where the mutants held against their will and "rescued." There were no corrupt actors, but they behaved exactly how you would expect in order to maximize their outcomes. It's a satisfyingly complex look at probable futures, behavior, and motivations. The more I read Philip K. Dick, the more I like him.
Though the story was different to the movie, I still had the problem were I kept seeing Anderton as Tom Cruise and that didn’t help the enjoyment of this book. But thanks to the mastery writing of Philip K Dick, I did manage to get past this small issue and enjoy the book. Like the movie, the book explores the issues of identity and free will, but to a lesser extent it explores the issue prophecies; if you are told you will do something in the future, do you end up doing it (even if you never had any intentions in doing it).
Philip K Dick is the master of writing fiction that makes you ponder life during and after reading one of his stories. Should you be arrested for a crime you haven’t committed, yet? The Minority Report may not be my favourite Dick book but it stands strong …
Though the story was different to the movie, I still had the problem were I kept seeing Anderton as Tom Cruise and that didn’t help the enjoyment of this book. But thanks to the mastery writing of Philip K Dick, I did manage to get past this small issue and enjoy the book. Like the movie, the book explores the issues of identity and free will, but to a lesser extent it explores the issue prophecies; if you are told you will do something in the future, do you end up doing it (even if you never had any intentions in doing it).
Philip K Dick is the master of writing fiction that makes you ponder life during and after reading one of his stories. Should you be arrested for a crime you haven’t committed, yet? The Minority Report may not be my favourite Dick book but it stands strong against all his others.
Every once in a while, I go back and read a Philip K. Dick story. The Minority Report is familiar to a lot of folks because, as the jacket proclaims, it's a major motion picture!
Reading this very short novel reminded me how Dick's plots can urgently drive the reader forward, despite the bare-bones writing. Philip Dick could not write decent dialog, never developed characters or their relationships with others, and often let his plots fizzle out before the end. Fortunately, this story line is a succinct one.
Precrime commissioner John A. Anderton ( not a typo) relies on three precogs to predict future violence so that it can be prevented. These precogs are individuals born with bad birth defects who were at first considered to be profoundly retarded, and Anderton refers to them as idiots or monkeys. This made me wince, and I wonder how people felt about Anderton …
Every once in a while, I go back and read a Philip K. Dick story. The Minority Report is familiar to a lot of folks because, as the jacket proclaims, it's a major motion picture!
Reading this very short novel reminded me how Dick's plots can urgently drive the reader forward, despite the bare-bones writing. Philip Dick could not write decent dialog, never developed characters or their relationships with others, and often let his plots fizzle out before the end. Fortunately, this story line is a succinct one.
Precrime commissioner John A. Anderton ( not a typo) relies on three precogs to predict future violence so that it can be prevented. These precogs are individuals born with bad birth defects who were at first considered to be profoundly retarded, and Anderton refers to them as idiots or monkeys. This made me wince, and I wonder how people felt about Anderton back in 1956, when this story was first printed in the magazine Fantastic. Actually, this story is ironically dated in many ways: there are still computer punch cards, magic finger beds in motels, and of course female police officers are wearing high heels, ala Star Trek.
Anyway, one day the computer spits out Anderton's name, predicting that he is to murder someone he has never heard of. Of course, like all precriminals, Anderton is in extreme denial, but being the precrime commissioner, he has an important heads-up about being a wanted man, and so immediately tries to run. Obviously, he thinks, he knows, there's been a mistake.
Anderton at first believes that there is some plot to unseat him as commissioner, but that's not true. This little bit of narcissistic paranoia is the most human touch Dick gives Anderton. In reality, it's not his little job, but the entire precrime system that is being challenged. And in the end, Anderton sacrifices himself. Yes! He commits the murder so that the precrime system survives and also so that the police are not disgraced (There is an underdeveloped background plot that involves a power struggle between the police and the military).
Obviously, the movie took a different ending. It's been awhile since I saw it, but I'm sure that the film likened this practice to a horrible civil liberties violation, which of course it is. Sending people to detention camps for something they literally haven't done is horrible. There is also the issue of enslaving these poor precogs. In the movie, the precogs were people who spoke and were happy to be rescued, but in the book they remain sub-human.
The title refers to the fact that not all three precogs ever completely agree. In the case of Anderton's prophecy, one precog fed on the information of the previous two and predicted that Anderton would not kill the army general. This report was referred to as the minority report. And that's another thing about this story: people who were supposed to be professionals seemed rather daft. The fact that these three predictions were not made at the same time would be obvious to sensible people.
Philip Dick poses the question of how much error and how much intrusion we're willing to accept for the good of our civilization. Anderton felt that the precrime system was very valuable, since the police could boast that there hadn't been a murder in five years. On the other hand, there was no telling how many "preinnocents" were serving time in these camps.
Because of his position, Anderton is exiled for life to a different planet (instead of a camp), and his underwritten police officer wife dutifully goes with him.
There! I spoiled the book. Oh, one more note: this book is constructed as a flip-book, in imitation of a police officer's notepad. It's a good thing that it doesn't take long to read, because this gets old.
