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"The Unreconstructed M" by P.K. Dick
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This is a fun story, definitely one of my favorites. The machine is just weirdly fantastic. Love the worldbuilding, was baffled when reading something about an acre of grass on Earth costs more than an entire other planet.
This was one of my least favorites but I still liked it. I agree, Silvana, that PKD always creates a unique and interesting world. In this story I felt like his ideas never came together in a satisfying way although I again enjoyed the bafflement of the main characters as they contemplated the titular machine. And the idea of a killing machine sort of reminded me of the Michael Crichton-directed movie Runaway with Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons.
A lot of random thoughts on this one:
Trying to decide if PKD was going for a noir crime atmosphere here.
CSI, circa 1957: DNA is a brand-new thing (double-helix model comes from 1953 paper.) No one's thinking of using it to identify people from blood.
I love the idea of a robot originally created on colony planets to kill poachers and make it look like wild animal attack. The idea of a killing machine planting evidence to frame someone else is clever. (Yeah, in size, it does kind of remind me of the robot in Runaway, not a movie I think back to often.) Interesting idea of a chameleon mode, too.
Banishment: an "experimental technique" that beams you across the galaxy. Why is it only one way? (Is that only because there is no transmitting equipment at the destination?)
Interesting way to fob your criminals off on somebody else (without even informing them.) Means you don't have to get your hands dirty with executions or prisons, lets you feel like you've been humane while not incurring any inconvenience.
The dénouement were a little confusing, because they seem to wander off in different directions from the main story.
Tirol gets banished, tries to make his way back to earth, gets as far as Betelgeuse, discovers he no longer has a corporate empire and is truly stranded.
Lantano contemplates his expanding possibilities now that Tirol is gone.
What's the deal with Lantano's peaches? (not apricots. :)
1. There's a fine for possession of natural fruit?
2. At the end, they turn out to be wax, not real. Lantano isn't as rich as he pretends to be. One final bit of fakery in the play.
"Each time he offered fruit to a visitor he took a calculated risk." In this telling, both Ackers & Beam refuse the offered fruit. I wonder why it's so common for guests to refuse?
Trying to decide if PKD was going for a noir crime atmosphere here.
CSI, circa 1957: DNA is a brand-new thing (double-helix model comes from 1953 paper.) No one's thinking of using it to identify people from blood.
I love the idea of a robot originally created on colony planets to kill poachers and make it look like wild animal attack. The idea of a killing machine planting evidence to frame someone else is clever. (Yeah, in size, it does kind of remind me of the robot in Runaway, not a movie I think back to often.) Interesting idea of a chameleon mode, too.
Banishment: an "experimental technique" that beams you across the galaxy. Why is it only one way? (Is that only because there is no transmitting equipment at the destination?)
Interesting way to fob your criminals off on somebody else (without even informing them.) Means you don't have to get your hands dirty with executions or prisons, lets you feel like you've been humane while not incurring any inconvenience.
The dénouement were a little confusing, because they seem to wander off in different directions from the main story.
Tirol gets banished, tries to make his way back to earth, gets as far as Betelgeuse, discovers he no longer has a corporate empire and is truly stranded.
Lantano contemplates his expanding possibilities now that Tirol is gone.
What's the deal with Lantano's peaches? (not apricots. :)
1. There's a fine for possession of natural fruit?
2. At the end, they turn out to be wax, not real. Lantano isn't as rich as he pretends to be. One final bit of fakery in the play.
"Each time he offered fruit to a visitor he took a calculated risk." In this telling, both Ackers & Beam refuse the offered fruit. I wonder why it's so common for guests to refuse?
In discussing Minority Report, Hillary wrote: "Just started "The Unreconstructed M," but I wonder how the two will compare in their criminal justice takes...."
I wanted to come back to that thought, because there are indeed strong parallels between the two stories. In both, there are established procedures for investigating crime, determining guilt, administering “justice”. And in each story, those procedures are challenge by the discovery of something new that suggests it's possible for the “system” to convict the wrong person.
Interestingly, in both stories the system manages to step outside itself and provide an approximation of actual justice. But, also in both stories, the powers-that-be preserve the status quo. Nobody wants to change or reform the justice system in reaction to revelations.
So, does this reflect PKD's cynical belief that the system can't be changed, or PKD's cynical belief that some mistakes are just going to happen and the world will have to live with it?
I wanted to come back to that thought, because there are indeed strong parallels between the two stories. In both, there are established procedures for investigating crime, determining guilt, administering “justice”. And in each story, those procedures are challenge by the discovery of something new that suggests it's possible for the “system” to convict the wrong person.
Interestingly, in both stories the system manages to step outside itself and provide an approximation of actual justice. But, also in both stories, the powers-that-be preserve the status quo. Nobody wants to change or reform the justice system in reaction to revelations.
So, does this reflect PKD's cynical belief that the system can't be changed, or PKD's cynical belief that some mistakes are just going to happen and the world will have to live with it?
I'll go with the first one.Glad to have such perceptive readers in this discussions, thank you guys :)
Silvana wrote: "This is a fun story, definitely one of my favorites. The machine is just weirdly fantastic. ..."I think the machine is a more likeable character than the majority of the humans in the story.
G33z3r wrote: "So, does this reflect PKD's cynical belief that the system can't be changed, or PKD's cynical belief that some mistakes are just going to happen and the world will have to live with it?"
I don't know. It's interesting b/c in both cases we have some evidence that the system *can* change because it's different from 20thC U.S.; in Minority Report at least, we have characters who helped create the current system.
In thinking about the question, I kept moving away from crime and coming back to bigger free-will questions (thinking about the almost Calvinist aspect of "Recall Mechanism" for instance).
I liked the idea but the combination of the mobsters, wife, prosecutor and investigator didn't really snap as characters, unlike some of his other stories in this book. They were barely caricatures to the point where I was struggling to figure out who was doing what to why, and why should I care?
The Unreconstructed M • (1957) by P.K. Dick
From the anthology The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick. See The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories discussion hub for more info on the anthology and pointers to discussion of its other stories.