We Can Remember it for You Wholesale by Philip K Dick

I am not going to do a regular review because this was just a single short story.  Audible was giving it away a while ago and I just got around to listening to it.

This is the story that the movie Total Recall was based on.  Like most of Philip K Dick‘s short stories there was significant adaptation from the story to the movie.  But both were good.

Spoiler warning!!!

It has been years since I watched the movie, but as I remember the main difference was that in the short story, the focus is that the main character actually had been to Mars and assassinated someone (who it was is not really important to the story).  And his memory had been erased.  So when he tries to have a memory implanted that he went on a trip to Mars, the actual memory of being an assassin on Mars comes back.  There is not ever a real question about what was real and what was a fake memory in the story.

But at the end of the movie, the twist is that you are not sure whether it happened or it was a false memory.

I am not sure there are many authors that have had as many stories turned into movies as Philip K Dick.   Blade Runner, Total Recall, Barjo (never heard of this one), Screamers, Minority Report, Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly, Next, Adjustment Bureau have all been made and there are several more that are in production.  (Nicolas Sparks and Stephen King are the others that probably are competing for most movies.)

I need to read more of his original stories.