Good Stories...well read.

Where does The Collected Works of Philip K. Dick: 11 Science Fiction Stories rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Wow. Hard to believe one reviewer and I were listening to the same book. I thought the stories were excellent and the reader did a very good job. One of the best audiobooks I've heard.

What did you like best about this story?

The variety of stories.

What about Kevin Killavey’s performance did you like?

Great job with the many voices.

Any additional comments?

To each his own I guess but hard to see how someone could pan a book like this.

26 people found this helpful

Good enough tales, hard to listen to.

Serms to me that Phillip K Dick does better work on longer stories. Some of his characters made me cringe with how stupid they were. However, as a fan of the author and genre, you should read these stories.

And I do mean read. My main issue with this product is the reader. During most of the book I was instinctively sniffing. The reader sounds so stuffed up during some sections that I hoped he would stop and blow his nose. Overall an unpleasant thing to listen to.

6 people found this helpful

It's PKD what's not to love

a bunch of short stories from PKD. Well worth a credit. It's easy to have a few favorites in this compilation.

4 people found this helpful

MON-OHtone

Great writing distressed by the muted nasal passages of the reader. The effect is such that one story bleeds into the other and you lose track of where one ends and the other begins. listen for no more than One half hour at a time.

4 people found this helpful

Not His Best Work But Worthy

These short stories were fun to listen to as well as being solidly in the realm of good SyFy. Anyone listening to them will enjoy most, if not all, of them. Normally, I'm prepared to experience either mediocre or the worst when I purchase either Collected Works or multiple author short stories packages. I'm pleased to say that was not one of those times.

4 people found this helpful

Not worth your time

What disappointed you about The Collected Works of Philip K. Dick: 11 Science Fiction Stories?

There are few positive things to be said about this audio book.

First, the narrator says everything in the same rushed tone. The different voices he uses are laughably bad. There is very little silence between books (to be fair, I believe that's more of the producers' fault than anything). You may be listening to the end of one story and in the next breath he's on to the next.

Second, the stories are just terrible. Very little actual storytelling, very little "visuals" or descriptions, and everything has a twist ending that you can see coming a mile off. The stories are a bad combination of 50's science fiction schlock and poorly thought-out Twilight Zone episodes.

Third, the audio quality is terrible. There is a high pitched squeal throughout and even other noises (beeping? voices?). I would expect this sort of poor quality from something ripped from cassette and posted on a bittorrent site, not from Audible.

All in all, I didn't finish "reading" this book. In fact, I gave up about 5 hours in. I'll be returning it to Audible.

Would you ever listen to anything by Philip K. Dick again?

Yes, but not these stories.

Would you be willing to try another one of Kevin Killavey’s performances?

Probably not.

3 people found this helpful

Great stories, marginal reading

The stories were interesting and strangely appropriate with the war in Ukraine. Voice acting, not so great, mispronounced words, inconsistent character voices, female characters all sounded whiney.

2 people found this helpful

Not to Par with Dick's later works

Would you listen to another book narrated by Kevin Killavey?

Killavey needs to step up his game if he is serious about a career in narration. He lacks the gravitas of someone like Tom Weiner whose narrated several of Dick's book. There were minor inconsistencies in the different voices he used. The overall audio quality was below standard as well. The audio all sounded like it had a dull reverb on it or maybe that it was a copy of a copy.

Any additional comments?

There were a couple of gems in this collection. Mainly the first and last of the 11 stories approached the level of some of his better known works. Hearing the collection gives you some insight as to his obsession with certain themes like space exploration and post-apocalyptic Earth. I would give recommend this collection only to die-hard Dick-heads who have already went through all his better known works.

2 people found this helpful

I Love Philip K. Dick's Writing But...

I'm not sure whether or not it's the stories or the narration, but every one of the stories is so predictable, that I know the ending way before it happens. I do think the narrator does not help in some cases in that his reading gives things away way too early.

1 person found this helpful

Genius

All those movies made throughout the 80’s and 90’s and well up until recently that you thought were out there. And I mean way out there. Well p.k. Dick wrote the great ones.