Book Review: The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick

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Venganza Media, Inc.

Tv & Film, Film History, Tv & Film:film Reviews, Film Reviews, Film Interviews

4.5 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2011

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Omniscient mutant has the key to the future? Books & Nachos is now part of Now Playing Podcast. Before our book reviews were branded as Now Playing Podcast Book Reviews, they were released under a separate show called Books & Nachos. That podcast focused on book discussions, most of which tied directly into films we were covering on Now Playing. We’ve now merged those episodes into the main Now Playing Podcast feed for easier access and a complete archive. But these older episodes still have the original Books & Nachos intro and credits on those older recordings. This week, Stuart turns to The Golden Man, Philip K. Dick's 1953 short story that later inspired the Nicolas Cage thriller Next. Dick’s original tale is lean, strange, and far more unsettling than its Hollywood counterpart. Set in a post-nuclear future, it follows a mutant who can glimpse the immediate future and survives by instinct alone, hunted by a society that fears what it cannot control. Stuart explores how Dick uses this simple premise to examine evolution, fate, and humanity’s urge to destroy what’s different, and considers whether the short story’s stark vision delivers a sharper punch than the big-budget adaptation.{Philip K. Dick Series} {Book Reviews}

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Books and Notchos, a podcast for those of us who find excitement in the pages of a good book.
0:12.5	Fiction and nonfiction, graphic novels, and more.
0:15.4	We are here to help you find something great to read.
0:31.3	Hello and welcome to books and nachos, the Vinganza Media podcast about all things in print.
0:39.3	This is your host, Stuart in L.A., happy to report back for the eighth time in our Philip K. Dick book retrospective series. That's corresponding with the now-playing movie Philip K. Dick series going on.
0:44.3	Currently, we're reviewing that film Next by Lee Temahori and starring Nicholas Cage.
0:51.8	The original source material was actually called The Golden Man,
0:56.0	and it was published in 1954, was written in 1953, and is about 24 pages long. And I'm about
1:03.8	to spoil all of it. So if you guys haven't read it, it is available at Google Books. Just do a little
1:08.8	net search, and you can find it for free for there.
1:12.2	Go ahead and read it. Or actually, you might want to hear my review and thoughts on it and you might not
1:18.2	need to read it. I don't know. I got to say, this is the first real clunker I've read of Philip K. Dick.
1:24.1	I've enjoyed aspects of all of his works up until this point, but this one
1:28.9	is a stinker, and it doesn't give me much hope for a Nicholas Cage, not well-reviewed movie
1:36.1	spin-off. I got to tell you. It was written during a period of time where Philip K. Dick was
1:42.5	struggling with depression and was being prescribed
1:45.8	amphetamines. And so he was producing within the band. You'll notice most of our works that we've
1:51.5	reviewed were written between 52 and 54, and he was just cranking him out. And I got to say,
1:58.1	this must have been a bad day for him, because it really doesn't feel like his mind was in the best place.
2:04.1	It's also in the public domain. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that term, but what happens is when a copyright expires, people can take it as if it's their own and not have to pay for it.
2:15.6	And that may be a reason why it was adapted into a movie,
2:18.7	because they forgot to renew this thing when it came up. And I'm not exactly sure about the
	...

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