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.

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First off, the book is designed to be read vertically with the book open like a centerfold.

Second, you are getting only one short story (about 30 pages) for [a price]. It would better to buy a Philip Dick short story collection that has "The Minority Report in it."

Very Bad

4 of 4 found the following review helpful:

Story: 5 stars; Book Layout: 1 star; Book Price: 1 starAug 30, 2005
By Stephen Pletko "Uncle Stevie"
+++++

This short science fiction story was published in 1956 and written by Philip K. Dick (1928 to 1982).

In the future, murderers are caught before they actually commit the murder. How is this achieved? By harnessing the extraordinary power of mutant humans who have the ability of precognition (the perception of an event, a murder in the story's case, before it occurs). These mutant humans are called "precogs."

The police force utilizes these precogs (there are three) by developing a "Precrime" unit where the precogs are connected to a bank of computers that reads the precog visions and processes the future murders that will happen. The only part of the story that is dated is that punch cards are used in the computers. Otherwise, this story could have been written for the present (2005).

Police Commissioner John Anderton finds that this new Precrime system is working well until the precogs have a prevision that the commissioner himself will commit a murder. The rest of the story is about the commissioner running from the Precrime unit and trying to find proof of his innocence.

Now that you know what the story is about you might ask why it has such a strange title. When two or all three precogs agree on a prevision of murder, a "majority report" is generated. If one precog disagrees, then a "minority report" is generated. As we are told in the story:

"Unanimity of all three precogs is a hoped for but seldom-achieved phenomenon...It is much more common to obtain a collaborative majority report of two precogs, plus a minority report of some slight variation, usually with reference to time and place, from the third mutant. This is explained by the theory of multiple-futures. If only one time-path existed, precognitive information would be of no importance, since no possibility would exist, in possessing this information, of altering the future."

It is this minority report that the commissioner is after to prove his innocence.

The story is an interesting and fast read. It can be appreciated not only by science fiction fans but mystery fans as well.

The movie "Minority Report" directed by Steven Spielberg expands this short story. Spielberg and friends effectively create a futuristic society only hinted at in Dick's short story.

Finally, there are two main problems with the book. First, the layout. It flips like a legal pad when read. I found this unnatural and distracting since I'm used to book pages flipping from right to left not up and down. Second, the price. This book costs just over $10.00. And you get only one story! An anthology of Dick's works that I found sells at a higher price but has twenty-one of his short stories (including this one). The price works out to 80 cents per story.

Thus my recommendation is to not buy this book new (unless you have money to burn). Instead:

(1) Buy this book used. As of the date of this review, used copies are selling for 1 cent!!
(2) Check out a Dick anthology (that contains this short story) from the library. Then photocopy this short story.

In conclusion, this short story is a very interesting and forms the basis of a good science fiction movie. However, the book itself is laid out badly and is too expensive.

** 1/3

(book first published 2002; short story published 1956; other Philip K. Dick short stories; 10 chapters; 105 pages)

+++++


3 of 3 found the following review helpful:

Awesome book, terrible layoutSep 27, 2002
By Cal
Just want to warn people to ignore dolts who claim this book doesn't help them understand the movie, or who think the book was written after the movie, or who think the brilliant author Philip K. Dick is still alive. This is an incredible short story, written decades ago, but if I were you I'd buy an anthology of Dick's stories and stay away from this weird marketing gimmick. The only merit it has, perhaps, is as a collector's item for fans of things like that. I enjoyed the spin Spielberg and his fellow writers used for the story, but found the movie version less interesting than the story. If you really want to bend your mind, buy a Philip K. Dick anthology or his "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich." Cheers!

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