As I recall the movie Total Recall, it was a more interesting than usual Summer blockbuster, though still marred by excessive special effects and overlength.  It had an intriguing basic premise, but the nuances of the story kept getting lost amidst all the exploding heads.  The movie is based, like the equally uneven Blade Runner (see Orrin's review of the book), on the work of the cult favorite sci-fi author, Philip K. Dick.  But while movie tie-in versions of Blade Runner abound (Dick's original, more descriptive, title was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall is based on just a short story, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, which is harder to find.  Until that is I stumbled upon this cheesy looking, but gem filled, collection of stories by various authors, each of which is the basis for a recent science fiction film.

Dick's original short story is, predictably, a great improvement over the film, idea-filled rather than action-packed.  While Douglas Quail may be a miserable little salaried employee, for the West Coast Emigration Bureau, he has one abiding dream, "Before I die I'll see Mars."  Such a trip though would be enormously expensive and his wife constantly derides his ambition.  Lucky for him, Rekal, Incorporated, can implant it's customers with false memories that will make it seem as if they've actually experienced their fondest dreams:

    Was this the answer?  After all, an illusion, no matter how convincing, remained nothing more
    than an illusion.  At least objectively.  But subjectively--quite the opposite entirely.

So Quail goes to Rekal for the Mars "extra-factual memory implant," complete with a scenario that has him acting as an agent for Interplan.  Then, as the process gets underway, an unusual thing happens; under sedation he begins to recover genuine memories of a past trip to Mars.  As one of the technicians explains:

    He wants a false memory implanted that corresponds to a trip he actually took.  And a false reason
    which is the real reason.  He's telling the truth; he's a long way down in the narkidrine.  The trip
    is very vivid in his mind--at least under sedation.  But apparently he doesn't recall it otherwise.
    Someone, probably at a government military-sciences lab, erased his conscious memories; all he
    knew was that going to Mars meant something special to him, and so did being a secret agent.
    They couldn't erase that; it's not a memory but a desire, undoubtedly the same one that motivated
    him to volunteer for the assignment in the first place.

Realizing the gravity of their situation, the folks at Rekal hustle him out the door and refund half his money.  But now Quail starts to get fragmentary memories of a Mars trip, some from the implant and some from the real trip, so he returns to Rekal to get the matter straightened out.  Meanwhile, agents from Interplan, who have been monitoring his thoughts against just such an eventuality, show up to try and kill him before he can reveal the details of his secret mission to Mars.  Quail convinces them to have another try at implanting false memories, but this time the genuine memories that are recovered are even more bewildering.

It's a clever, twisty story, somewhat reminiscent of a really good Twilight Zone.  In addition, over the space of just twenty or so pages, Dick raises some unsettling questions about memory, desire, delusion and reality, and how they all interact in the human mind.  Total Recall is a perfectly adequate way to kill a couple hours; We Can Remember it For You Wholesale, though it takes just a half hour to read, will keep you pondering for a good long while.

(Reviewed:04-Sep-00)

Grade: (A) Orrin C. Judd

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