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    Vulcan's Hammer
    Vulcan's Hammer
    Vulcan's Hammer
    Audiobook5 hours

    Vulcan's Hammer

    Written by Philip K. Dick

    Narrated by Mel Foster

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    After the twentieth century's devastating series of wars, the world's governments banded together into one globe-spanning entity, committed to peace at all costs. Ensuring that peace is the Vulcan supercomputer, responsible for all major decisions. But some people don't like being taken out of the equation. And others resent the idea that the Vulcan is taking the place of God. As the world grows ever closer to all-out war, one functionary frantically tries to prevent it. But the Vulcan computer has its own plans, plans that might not include humanity at all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateOct 23, 2012
    ISBN9781469251790
    Author

    Philip K. Dick

    Over a writing career that spanned three decades, PHILIP K. DICK (1928–1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned to deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film, notably Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, as well as television's The Man in the High Castle. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, including the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and between 2007 and 2009, the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

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    Reviews for Vulcan's Hammer

    3.5/5

    147 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Great story about the challenges that may come about from working with artificial intelligence in government.
    • 4/5
      A story that pre-empts the Terminator films, & also reccurs in some of P K Dicks short stories, as the vast computer system man hands his responsibilities over to goes awry. Some almost inconsistencies in the plot are just about rescused. Not classic Dick, but nevertheless still recognisably Dick - as always.
    • 3/5
      Paranoia, machines, science fiction, and action. The novel is stacked with all of these. While this is not Dick at his finest, he still manages to weave a cloak of himself around the novel and permeate into the reader's consciousness. This is well worth the read.
    • 4/5
      Great story about the challenges that may come about from working with artificial intelligence in government.
    • 5/5
      Here’s the great sci-fi formula of the 60s: Humanity builds a big computer to prevent war; i.e. humans build a computer to protect themselves from themselves. Computer makes unauthorized but allowed “enhancements” to itself. Computer decides that humanity’s very existence is a threat to humanity and its own circuitry. The computer takes steps to eradicate large sections of the human population. Climax ensues and story ends in one of three ways: The luddites win and computers are totally destroyed or the computers win and a sequel is planned.

      It would be really easy to say that Philip K. Dick adheres to this formula in his 1960 slim novel [book: Vulcan's Hammer: A Novel], except the surprises twisting the plot around are so fine and exquisite that one quickly realized Dick didn’t follow the formula, he invented it.

      Seemingly forgotten by modern readers, this near perfect story examines the dichotomy of free will vs. social order against the backdrop of a crumbling government caught in a quagmire of red tape, infighting, and bottlenecks. Through the eyes of an upper level paper pusher (the director of North America), his boss, and a family of rebels the reader watches as two computers fight for dominance as they attempt to follow the now contradictory directives given to them: Keep humanity and themselves safe.

      Forty-seven years old now, the story is contradictorily quaint and up-to-date. Like most 60s sci-fi writers, Dick failed to catch the miniaturization phenomena (his generations of computers get substantially larger), but he does predict the passing of punch cards (thank goodness). And he catches onto a timeless struggle in humanity’s understanding of morality. For instance, his motley crew of protagonist struggle to come to terms with government officials who side with a computer even as that computer is busy mowing down as many people as possible. These government officials cling to the hope of their party line like so many Ba’ath party members during the invasion of Iraq. Voices call for their punishment. But then, in a moment of beautiful grace, Dick reminds the reader that “this is all they know.” He calls for us to recognize the humanity of the people we so desperately want to vilify.

      As far as the end of the great equation is concerned, Dick moves beyond the expected outcomes and reaches a conclusion that allows for free will, governments and machines. While that sounds simple and pat, he manages to keep the philosophical ideals that play off each other throughout the story from compromising. It’s as unsettling and as well conceptualized as the story’s initial premise.

    • 3/5
      Objective, unbiased and hyperrational, the Vulcan 3 should have been the perfect ruler. The omnipotent computer dictates policy that is in the best interests of all citizens—or at least, that is the idea. But when the machine, whose rule evolved out of chaos and war, begins to lose control of the "Healer" movement of religious fanatics and the mysterious force behing their rebellion, all Hell breaks loose. Written in 1960, Philip K. Dick's paranoid novel imagines a totalitarian state in which hammer-headed robots terrorize citizens and freedom is an absurd joke. William Barrios, the morally conflicted hero, may be the only person who can prevent the battle for control from destroying the world—if, that is, he can decide which side he's on.
    • 5/5
      A cyber thriller long before anybody realized there would be such a thing. It's a basic computer-takes-over-the-world scenario, but things get a bit complicated for all of the players.
    • 5/5
      even though written in 1960, ideas and themes decades before their time. one of PKD's more "accessible" reads.