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Ce que disent les morts
Cryogénisé à sa mort, le très puissant et richissime Louis Sarapis n'a pu être ranimé ; pourtant, il continue à diriger son entreprise et à intervenir dans la vie politique américaine ! Impossible de téléphoner, d'écouter la radio, de lire le journal ou d'allumer la télévision sans entendre ses paroles venues de l'espace... Grand écrivain de l'imaginaire, Philip K. Dick abolit les frontières entre la vie et la mort, la réalité et la fiction.
128 pages, Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1964
2 people are currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
Philip K. Dick
2,001 books22.3k followersPhilip Kindred Dick was a prolific American science fiction author whose work has had a lasting impact on literature, cinema, and popular culture. Known for his imaginative narratives and profound philosophical themes, Dick explored the nature of reality, the boundaries of human identity, and the impact of technology and authoritarianism on society. His stories often blurred the line between the real and the artificial, challenging readers to question their perceptions and beliefs.
Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field.
Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use.
One of Dick’s most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott’s iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction.
In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries.
Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists.
Dick’s legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media.
Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His work continues to challenge and inspire, offering timeless insights into the human condition a
Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field.
Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use.
One of Dick’s most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott’s iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction.
In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries.
Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists.
Dick’s legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media.
Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His work continues to challenge and inspire, offering timeless insights into the human condition a
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July 2, 2021
Dead Men Trail Like Snails
Published in Worlds of Tomorrow in June 1964, PKD’s short story What the Dead Men Say is thematically linked with Ubik, a novel Dick would write two years later. In the worlds of both stories, it has become possible not to defeat death, but to enable the dead and their relatives to communicate for a certain period of time. In WtDMS the so-called half-lifers, i.e. people who are kept in that limbo between eternal silence and everyday prattle, can even decide how quickly they want to spend the time allotted to them, and generally, the Dead and their families only communicate on Resurrection Day – probably modelled on the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos - when there is a rush on the mortuaries all over the country and families are “reunited” for a few hours.
In Louis Sarapis’s case, this is different: The powerful tycoon has no sentimental reasons for keeping himself alive, but all he wants is to exercise power from beyond the grave, using his granddaughter Kathy Egmont Sharp, a former drug addict and “religious nut”, as a puppet in order to further conduct his business matters. Another figurehead is the politician Alfonse Glam, whom Sarapis wants to make President of the U.S., but whose campaign failed a couple of years ago despite Sarapis’s backing. Now, however, he wants to give it another try. The third person Sarapis continues to use for his own plans is his P.R. manager Johnny Barefoot, whom he entrusts with the task of resurrecting him – a task that somehow goes awry, because all efforts to set up orderly communication lines with Sarapis fail, and instead, the powerful man is talking at people from somewhere out of space, continuously, endlessly, seizing control of all the media – TV, the radio, newspapers, the telephone lines – which now resound with his unceasing and tiring messages, telling people, for instance, to vote for Gam and blocking everyone else from making use of the media.
As usual, Dick skilfully weaves various ideas into his plots, which follows Johnny Barefoot in his endeavours to find his way through an intrigue spun by a former employee of Sarapis’s against Kathy, and a review that would try to do justice to all of these ideas would easily grow to the length of a short story in its own right. He addresses, for example, religious questions such as what might happen to a dead person’s consciousness, or soul, and what afterlife might really be. Frankly speaking, I am not too interested in metaphysical questions like that because I can simply wait and see for myself one day. There are two other motifs, though, I’d like to share some thoughts on, and the first is the question of the influence of dead men (generally they are really men because of our patriarchal traditions) over our culture. In this story, we find a headstrong tycoon unwilling to let go of his affairs and make room for the next generation, with dire consequences for those depending on him: Johnny Barefoot had looked forward to finding himself another job and starting all over again, but somehow he also feels obliged to abide by Sarapis’s will in which he is ordered to support Kathy in continuing the family business, Kathy, by the way, being degraded into a mere puppet from the very start. One of the reasons why Johnny was so keen on freeing himself from Sarapis’s influence was that while he still worked for the old man, he did some things he was not overly proud of, for example he gave him some ideas of how to cut down union influence, thus depriving his legions of workers of their full rights. True patriarch that he was, Sarapis regarded himself as a father-figure to his many workers – and they were mighty grateful to him for giving them jobs in an economy that offered not too many opportunities – but at the same time he insisted that everyone dance to his tune. Another person finding himself at Sarapis’s mercy is his former lawyer, St. Cyr, who is given the sack by force of the old man’s will – and who certainly has hard feelings now. Dick seems to imply that in our society, we are far too much under the spell of the power and influence of old men, a claim that I would not care to subscribe to without any qualification. After all, and this is one thing the pandemic has shown, old people are often among the most vulnerable members of our society because we tend to dispose of them by putting them into old people’s homes and more or less forgetting about them. In that context, I was asking myself whether there would really be so many people who had an interest in communicating with their deceased elders as the story implies since all too often the interest of the young in exchanging thoughts and in communication already withers during the lifetime of the elders. Maybe, we are not living so much in a gerontocratic society as in a plutocratic one, although a fair number of plutocrats, though by far not all of them, are well in the last third of their lives.
Another side thought that occurred to me was that by reading classic literature, we are certainly still listening to dead men’s (and, to a lesser degree, women’s) voices, and that may be a good thing because what they tell us will interact with how we, on the basis of our own experiences, longings and beliefs, interpret it, and so the dead will have to say something new to every new generation, nay to every individual reader. This is a chain of tradition that may well prove fruitful on our journey into the future. Ironically, Dick himself is now one of the men who – through the literature they left us – have gained an unthought-of half-life.
Another idea that went into this story was Dick’s scepticism about the role of mass media and their power when it comes to feeding millions of people with propaganda in the interests of a handful of Svengalis. Sarapis’s voice has indeed taken hostage of all the media in this story and there is an incessant chant of propaganda disabling any kind of meaningful, constructive communication. If we take a look at how the so-called quality-media (at least in my own country) have started to set up a published opinion as opposed to a public opinion, there may well be something to Dick’s criticism. A recent German survey found out that 55% of those interviewed have the impression that freedom of speech can no longer be taken for granted, and that voicing certain opinions will lead to social ostracism – and this is also something that has to do with the role of the media, which tend to moralize on questions that ought to be dealt with in a more discursive and matter-of-fact style. The way that Johnny Barefoot and his allies intend to take in order to stop the propagandistic barrage directed at the public is, indeed, desperate and out of the question for anyone loyal to the tenets of a civilized society. One can say that Johnny ought to have listened more carefully to his wife Sarah Belle, who embodies the voice of reason and who tells him that for all the campaigning her neighbours told her they would never vote for Alfonse Glam because they simply don’t like him:
After all, there seems to be a limit to propaganda, and the limit may be found in people’s natural resilience to voices that tell them that 2 and 2 makes 5, when they simply know that this is not true. This resilience will probably come into play when people compare the world around them with the world as it is presented in the media and rather believe their own eyes and their own thinking, and this is a hopeful message that Johnny Barefoot just fails to learn, not wanting to really listen to what a live woman says.
Published in Worlds of Tomorrow in June 1964, PKD’s short story What the Dead Men Say is thematically linked with Ubik, a novel Dick would write two years later. In the worlds of both stories, it has become possible not to defeat death, but to enable the dead and their relatives to communicate for a certain period of time. In WtDMS the so-called half-lifers, i.e. people who are kept in that limbo between eternal silence and everyday prattle, can even decide how quickly they want to spend the time allotted to them, and generally, the Dead and their families only communicate on Resurrection Day – probably modelled on the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos - when there is a rush on the mortuaries all over the country and families are “reunited” for a few hours.
In Louis Sarapis’s case, this is different: The powerful tycoon has no sentimental reasons for keeping himself alive, but all he wants is to exercise power from beyond the grave, using his granddaughter Kathy Egmont Sharp, a former drug addict and “religious nut”, as a puppet in order to further conduct his business matters. Another figurehead is the politician Alfonse Glam, whom Sarapis wants to make President of the U.S., but whose campaign failed a couple of years ago despite Sarapis’s backing. Now, however, he wants to give it another try. The third person Sarapis continues to use for his own plans is his P.R. manager Johnny Barefoot, whom he entrusts with the task of resurrecting him – a task that somehow goes awry, because all efforts to set up orderly communication lines with Sarapis fail, and instead, the powerful man is talking at people from somewhere out of space, continuously, endlessly, seizing control of all the media – TV, the radio, newspapers, the telephone lines – which now resound with his unceasing and tiring messages, telling people, for instance, to vote for Gam and blocking everyone else from making use of the media.
As usual, Dick skilfully weaves various ideas into his plots, which follows Johnny Barefoot in his endeavours to find his way through an intrigue spun by a former employee of Sarapis’s against Kathy, and a review that would try to do justice to all of these ideas would easily grow to the length of a short story in its own right. He addresses, for example, religious questions such as what might happen to a dead person’s consciousness, or soul, and what afterlife might really be. Frankly speaking, I am not too interested in metaphysical questions like that because I can simply wait and see for myself one day. There are two other motifs, though, I’d like to share some thoughts on, and the first is the question of the influence of dead men (generally they are really men because of our patriarchal traditions) over our culture. In this story, we find a headstrong tycoon unwilling to let go of his affairs and make room for the next generation, with dire consequences for those depending on him: Johnny Barefoot had looked forward to finding himself another job and starting all over again, but somehow he also feels obliged to abide by Sarapis’s will in which he is ordered to support Kathy in continuing the family business, Kathy, by the way, being degraded into a mere puppet from the very start. One of the reasons why Johnny was so keen on freeing himself from Sarapis’s influence was that while he still worked for the old man, he did some things he was not overly proud of, for example he gave him some ideas of how to cut down union influence, thus depriving his legions of workers of their full rights. True patriarch that he was, Sarapis regarded himself as a father-figure to his many workers – and they were mighty grateful to him for giving them jobs in an economy that offered not too many opportunities – but at the same time he insisted that everyone dance to his tune. Another person finding himself at Sarapis’s mercy is his former lawyer, St. Cyr, who is given the sack by force of the old man’s will – and who certainly has hard feelings now. Dick seems to imply that in our society, we are far too much under the spell of the power and influence of old men, a claim that I would not care to subscribe to without any qualification. After all, and this is one thing the pandemic has shown, old people are often among the most vulnerable members of our society because we tend to dispose of them by putting them into old people’s homes and more or less forgetting about them. In that context, I was asking myself whether there would really be so many people who had an interest in communicating with their deceased elders as the story implies since all too often the interest of the young in exchanging thoughts and in communication already withers during the lifetime of the elders. Maybe, we are not living so much in a gerontocratic society as in a plutocratic one, although a fair number of plutocrats, though by far not all of them, are well in the last third of their lives.
Another side thought that occurred to me was that by reading classic literature, we are certainly still listening to dead men’s (and, to a lesser degree, women’s) voices, and that may be a good thing because what they tell us will interact with how we, on the basis of our own experiences, longings and beliefs, interpret it, and so the dead will have to say something new to every new generation, nay to every individual reader. This is a chain of tradition that may well prove fruitful on our journey into the future. Ironically, Dick himself is now one of the men who – through the literature they left us – have gained an unthought-of half-life.
Another idea that went into this story was Dick’s scepticism about the role of mass media and their power when it comes to feeding millions of people with propaganda in the interests of a handful of Svengalis. Sarapis’s voice has indeed taken hostage of all the media in this story and there is an incessant chant of propaganda disabling any kind of meaningful, constructive communication. If we take a look at how the so-called quality-media (at least in my own country) have started to set up a published opinion as opposed to a public opinion, there may well be something to Dick’s criticism. A recent German survey found out that 55% of those interviewed have the impression that freedom of speech can no longer be taken for granted, and that voicing certain opinions will lead to social ostracism – and this is also something that has to do with the role of the media, which tend to moralize on questions that ought to be dealt with in a more discursive and matter-of-fact style. The way that Johnny Barefoot and his allies intend to take in order to stop the propagandistic barrage directed at the public is, indeed, desperate and out of the question for anyone loyal to the tenets of a civilized society. One can say that Johnny ought to have listened more carefully to his wife Sarah Belle, who embodies the voice of reason and who tells him that for all the campaigning her neighbours told her they would never vote for Alfonse Glam because they simply don’t like him:
”’I think they are reacting to the pressure, Louis’s pressure on the TV and phones; they just don’t care for it. I think you’ve been excessive in your campaign, Johnny.’”
After all, there seems to be a limit to propaganda, and the limit may be found in people’s natural resilience to voices that tell them that 2 and 2 makes 5, when they simply know that this is not true. This resilience will probably come into play when people compare the world around them with the world as it is presented in the media and rather believe their own eyes and their own thinking, and this is a hopeful message that Johnny Barefoot just fails to learn, not wanting to really listen to what a live woman says.
April 30, 2020
Définitivement, ma critique est à prendre à la légère. D'abord, je ne lis presque jamais de science-fiction. Mais c'est surtout parce que je saisis clairement qu'un message important est véhiculé dans le livre, mais je crois ne pas suffisamment le comprendre à sa juste valeur.
D'abord, le livre a été publié en 1964 et les événements se passent visiblement au cours du 21e siècle. C'est donc en quelque sorte un roman d'anticipation. On est transporté dans un monde où de nombreuses planètes sont colonisées, où les moyens de communication sont sophistiqués et où la médecine dépasse les limites de la fiction. Je me dois ici de souligner une certaine ironie: le livre met en scène un monde hyper avancé technologiquement et scientifiquement parlant, mais il n'en est rien des mœurs de la société, qui semblent ne pas avoir changées depuis 1964. De nombreuses traces de sexisme sont présentes. La plupart des personnages sont des hommes. Ce sont également ceux qui ont le plus de pouvoir, de vivacité d'esprit et de prestige. À l'inverse, les seules femmes présentes sont décrites comme étant folles, faibles, mais surtout jolies et sensuelles. Au moment où c'est une femme qui a pris le pouvoir, tous souhaitaient le lui enlever, soutenant « que c'est insupportable de se faire donner des ordres par une femme ». Je sais bien que ce livre a été écrit dans une toute autre époque, mais pour ce qui est de l'anticipation, il faut avouer que c'est loin d'être réussi. À moins qu'il ne s'agisse que d'ironie? Aucune idée.
Il faut avouer que ce livre ouvre la porte à de nombreux débats sociaux, qui sont étonnamment d'actualité. Tout ce qui a trait aux limites éthiques de la science, conjointement aux moyens de communication, pose aujourd'hui problème. C'est étonnant comme les questions soulevées il y a plus de 50 ans peuvent encore trouver application dans notre monde. Je pense que la lecture de ce livre peut effectivement amener des réflexions nécessaires quant aux technologies et à leur emprise sur notre vie.
Mis à part cela, je suis certaine que ce livre a une certaine profondeur. Malheureusement, je n'ai pas réussi à le déceler.
D'abord, le livre a été publié en 1964 et les événements se passent visiblement au cours du 21e siècle. C'est donc en quelque sorte un roman d'anticipation. On est transporté dans un monde où de nombreuses planètes sont colonisées, où les moyens de communication sont sophistiqués et où la médecine dépasse les limites de la fiction. Je me dois ici de souligner une certaine ironie: le livre met en scène un monde hyper avancé technologiquement et scientifiquement parlant, mais il n'en est rien des mœurs de la société, qui semblent ne pas avoir changées depuis 1964. De nombreuses traces de sexisme sont présentes. La plupart des personnages sont des hommes. Ce sont également ceux qui ont le plus de pouvoir, de vivacité d'esprit et de prestige. À l'inverse, les seules femmes présentes sont décrites comme étant folles, faibles, mais surtout jolies et sensuelles. Au moment où c'est une femme qui a pris le pouvoir, tous souhaitaient le lui enlever, soutenant « que c'est insupportable de se faire donner des ordres par une femme ». Je sais bien que ce livre a été écrit dans une toute autre époque, mais pour ce qui est de l'anticipation, il faut avouer que c'est loin d'être réussi. À moins qu'il ne s'agisse que d'ironie? Aucune idée.
Il faut avouer que ce livre ouvre la porte à de nombreux débats sociaux, qui sont étonnamment d'actualité. Tout ce qui a trait aux limites éthiques de la science, conjointement aux moyens de communication, pose aujourd'hui problème. C'est étonnant comme les questions soulevées il y a plus de 50 ans peuvent encore trouver application dans notre monde. Je pense que la lecture de ce livre peut effectivement amener des réflexions nécessaires quant aux technologies et à leur emprise sur notre vie.
Mis à part cela, je suis certaine que ce livre a une certaine profondeur. Malheureusement, je n'ai pas réussi à le déceler.
May 3, 2018
PREQUEL TO UBIKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
April 20, 2024
Livre très court sur une dystopie assez bien amenée, pas grand chose à dire à part que ça se lit facilement.
July 26, 2025
Un peu déçu de la fin
Ça se lit bien et c'est rapide mais clairement j'aurais préféré que ça soit plus long
Ça se lit bien et c'est rapide mais clairement j'aurais préféré que ça soit plus long
July 26, 2025
3.5/5
Une intrigue un peu perchée mais qui fonctionne bien tout de même, malgré une fin très raccourcie face à la longueur du développement…
Une intrigue un peu perchée mais qui fonctionne bien tout de même, malgré une fin très raccourcie face à la longueur du développement…
July 17, 2021
Soit c'est une très bonne histoire mal traduite, soit c'est un excellent brouillon de roman. Les phrases sont mal agencées, les mots maigres, on saute du coq à l'âne et certaines scènes sont trop bâclées pour qu'on s'attache véritablement aux personnages. Dommage car l'idée centrale est réjouissante.
March 8, 2016
not as good as it could have been
February 28, 2022
Une première rencontre avec l’auteur [un monument de la SF américaine], il s’agit ici d’une nouvelle, dans un monde futuriste, où par un système de cryogénie, il est possible de faire renaitre les morts. Ce qui ne fonctionne pas de prime abord pour le très puissant et richissime Louis Sarapis. J’ai beaucoup aimé, déjà le thème est vachement intéressant [même si je trouve qu’il n’est pas exploité vraiment, au point où il en devient secondaire, sinon j’aurai adoré]. Cependant, c’est un livre qui a été publié en 1964, et je trouve qu’il reste d’actualité, car il est fait mention de plusieurs thématiques [la mort, maladie mentale, usage de drogue, politique, usurpation, contrôle et manipulation…]. Je conseille surtout pour une première découverte de l’auteur, c’est une très bonne entrée en matière.
April 2, 2024
Maybe I'm too focused on the somewhat anti-climactic plot, but this one wasn't great. The very interesting concept of the dead man's voice (his soul, it's implied) being revealed to actually just be some transmitter is a twist that feels very Scooby Doo. The truth that is revealed is less compelling than the sci-fi concept that hooked me in the first place.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 27, 2022
A society of male paranoia and the fear of losing their power. Women out of their comprehension and control are depicted as irrational and dangerous. Media technology is at the center of power struggle and is the main means to win elections.
April 22, 2025
Bien aimé tout ce qui relève de l'anticipation et de l'évènement surnaturel qui ne tourne pas tout à fait comme prévu. Mais ça reste trop ancré dans un système politique daté finalement. Distrayant, sans plus.
September 6, 2017
Un style et un récit aussi torturés et complexes que leur auteur.
Bref et original.
Bref et original.
October 9, 2017
Des prémices intéressants, surtout en cette époque de réseaux sociaux, sur un thème répandu, la vie après la mort, mais la fin, trop terre à terre, ne m'a pas transporté...
November 24, 2017
Jedna ze slabších Dickových povídek. Zbytečně dlouhý děj, který končí ve chvíli, kdy to začne být zajímavé. Nicméně jako námět na film by to nebylo špatné.
June 18, 2019
Im buch minority report auf englisch enthalten
October 21, 2019
A mystifying tale about life, death and half-death. A somewhat prequel to his masterwork 'Ubik'.
July 6, 2022
Si les morts pouvaient parler ils nous convieraient à forniquer nos défunts.
PS: enfin un auteur qui n'écrit pas de la SF comme une teub.
PS: enfin un auteur qui n'écrit pas de la SF comme une teub.
March 7, 2023
3,5
Petit livre, petit avis : sympa cette histoire, mais c’est de la science fiction donc je n’ai fait aucun effort pour comprendre les messages lol
Petit livre, petit avis : sympa cette histoire, mais c’est de la science fiction donc je n’ai fait aucun effort pour comprendre les messages lol
May 16, 2024
Idée intéressante mais intrigue trop centrée sur les personnages et le dilemme politique plus que l’événement surnaturel. Déçu de la fin. Se lis facilement.
Read
August 24, 2024Abandon :’(
July 16, 2025
Excellente découverte que cette nouvelle de Philip K. Dick. Je découvre un auteur, un style et j'aime beaucoup. Le style est fluide et plaisant.
July 23, 2025
6,5/10
November 25, 2020
A great novella, sadly, with too many adverbs!!! One of Dick's finest. The story is about a man called Louis Sarapis, who had not continued half-life after his death, but his soul seems to all that it wanders around the galaxy, sending messages about how life on Earth and the Solar System should continue to be conducted, especially regarding the US presidential election of the year 2,100 AD, only for the characters to realize the voices and messages are coming from elsewhere, perhaps the stark realization coming too late.
This thriller shoots into action after 20 pages of introducing the premises, and only after that point does it become extremely interesting.
This thriller shoots into action after 20 pages of introducing the premises, and only after that point does it become extremely interesting.
February 26, 2023
A creepy concept that holds up quite well.
In the end nothing interesting is done with the premise, but it was fun to hear the story out.
In the end nothing interesting is done with the premise, but it was fun to hear the story out.
Read
July 30, 2011Ça se lit vite, mais on y retrouve pas mal de thèmes "dickiens", dans un futur où les morts continuent de s'adresser aux vivants pendant quelques mois après leur décès. L'écriture n'est tout de même pas aussi bonne que dans ses œuvres les plus connues.
March 8, 2009
Pas la meilleurs nouvelle de Dick, mais distrayant.
July 7, 2016
Bored. :(
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews