The Rhetorizer

Steven Spielberg takes on Philip K Dick’s 1956 story Minority Report. We’ve got future crimes, we’ve got gross eye stuff, we’ve got moldy sandwiches, and we’ve got weird mutant plants. 

We watch PBS's 1980 made-for-TV version of The Lathe of Heaven, a cult classic based on the Ursula K. Le Guin book. You can watch it on Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8VRbaVNvSA&t=4737s&ab_channel=kliljedahl

Today, a detour: we read The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick went to the same high school and admired each other’s writing. This book takes inspiration from some of Dick’s work. It’s about a man whose dreams change reality and a therapist who attempts to harness this power as a tool to improve the world. In the process, he creates space turtles, a plague and grey-s...

Dr. Bloodmoney (1965) is a surprisingly upbeat novel about the nuclear apocalypse. It’s also one of Philip K. Dick's most narratively cohesive books.

All three versions of Total Recall on one podcast! We compare the Philip K Dick short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Paul Verhoeven's 1990 classic movie adaptation Total Recall, and the 2012 Mars-free remake. It’s unanimous: one of the three is absolute garbage. Find out which one!

With Earth overcrowded and overheating, colonists on Mars take drugs to escape the awful hovel lives in their hovels and briefly inhabit the miniature figurines Perky Pat and Walt. That is, until a new man with a new drug shows up and threatens the future of humanity.  We read Philip K. Dick's 1964 climate change/drug trip novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.  Jacob is away, so g...

Jon and Jacob watch Richard Linklater's 2006 movie adaptation of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly, starring Keanu Reeves. Kevin takes a long trip to the bathroom to deal with the aphids in his colon.

It's 1994. Undercover narcotics agent Bob Arctor has a new assignment: to investigate drug addict Bob Arctor. Arguments ensue about bike gears and how to extract cocaine from an aerosol can. We read Philip K. Dick's 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly.

A thoughtful, lugubrious space pig tries to convince a swashbuckling captain not to eat him, in Philip K. Dick's first published scifi story.

There’s a war, an important man who won’t stop dying, multiple dimensions, and a drug that induces time travel. We try to make sense of Philip K Dick’s 1966 novel Now Wait for Last Year.

Without the movie Blade Runner, this podcast probably wouldn't exist.  The adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was released shortly after the author’s death. It was a huge success and spawned decades of other film adaptations of Dick’s work. We revisit that movie and the recent Denis Villeneuve sequel, Blade Runner 2049, through the lens of the original...

Philip K. Dick’s 1968 classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is the story of a man’s search for meaning as he murders androids on an Earth that has been largely abandoned in favour of the colonization of Mars. As the basis for Blade Runner, it’s the reason most people know know Philip K Dick’s work at all. Spoilers abound.

Nicolas Cage plays a lacklustre magician who can see exactly 2 minutes into the future. Except when he’s in love. This is somehow based on The Golden Man, a Philip K. Dick short story about persecuted mutants.

Humanity has been driven underground by war. A man goes on a quest to find a fake pancreas and discovers a big lie. A propaganda writer for an artificial despot searches for meaning in his work.  Spoilers galore. 

A consultant accepts a job where he must have his memory wiped, and wakes up to discover he's traded his paycheck for an envelope of random trinkets that may be more useful than they look. Did he screw himself out of a fortune? Or was it... maybe... a Time Scoop?  John Woo adapts this Philip K. Dick short story, and turns that man into an ass-kicking, motorcycling-driving computer programmer...

A cream curdling, soul-sucking mystery featuring psychic spies, objects reverting in time and a man getting into arguments with his door. One of TIME's 100 greatest novels since 1923.

A man pulls out his guts, but they’re not man guts. They’re tape. 

It's 1962. The Nazis have colonized Mars, but can’t crack show biz. A vendor of fake antiques finds himself. A bureaucrat has an urban planning nightmare.  Spoilers abound.

This is a trailer for Book Show: A Show About Books.