Dr. Futurity

Written by Philip K. Dick

Narrated by Jefferson Mays

In a future where death is embraced, a time-traveling doctor is the only one who can save a wounded resistance leader.

 

When Dr. Jim Parsons wakes up from a car accident, he finds himself in a future populated almost entirely by the young. But to keep the world run by the young, death is fetishized, and those who survive to old age are put down. In such a world, Parsons—with his innate desire to save lives—is a criminal and outcast. But for one revolutionary group, he may be just the savior they need to heal and revive their cryogenically frozen leader. And when he and the group journey to 1500s California, what they find causes them to question what they know about history and the underpinnings of their society. With the jarring immediacy of a car crash, Philip K. Dick throws both the reader and protagonist of Dr. Futurity into a bizarre future where healing is a crime and youth rules.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 20, 2025
• ISBN: 9798894863832

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.

Reviews for Dr. Futurity

[danielstj · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A fairly standard PKD romp through the exploration of space and time. I was satisfied with the characters and the plot, though they did not seem to be as detailed and in depth as many of other PKD works. However, the plot-line was very focused and direct in this one and I feel that this was a more stabilized, logical, and brief sojourn rather than a longer one- which could have offered more key details. Nevertheless, I was appeased.

3 stars.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Looks at some of the paradoxes of time travel and some of the strange things that can happen to a doctor taken and eventually returned to his own time.

[sixslug · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A man is plucked from his time to a very strange future and rolls with it way too well. I usually enjoy Dick's explorations into life, death and life after death, time travel and evil corrupt governments, but not here. There's lots of ideas but not much believability. I kept wondering if this man had any friends back in his own time. We know he has a wife, but he hardly thinks or worries about her. I was also frustrated by Dick's refusal to supply descriptive details about things: cars, food, medical equipment, etc. that practically scream for it.

[rameau_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Pretty minor Dick, but still has the jazzy improv feel of his later novels The Simulacra and Clans of the Alphane Moon. Supposedly Van Vogt would slam two unrelated novellas together to make a novel. This seemed like that. Some of PKD's tics (Mars, classical music, German) make cameos.

[cliffburns · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A familiar PKD theme: character thrown out of this universe, confronted with a new and (usually) hostile reality...

Not top tier PKD.

[mareki_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very interesting early novel by Dick, that shows some of the themes (identity, time travel, ethics, the self etc) that typify his work throughout his career. But the plot is a bizarre romp through time involving euthenasia, red indians & Sir Francis Drake.