Philip K. Dick is one of the grandfathers of science fiction, and this short story is one of his classics. It’s a bit difficult to review without giving too much away, but I’ll give it my best shot.

Like many of Dick’s short stories, this one is heavily carried by the central concept. In this case, the central concept is the idea that in place of actually experiencing a particular experience, a person could undergo a simple procedure to have a memory of that experience implanted. Note only does this raise questions of whether all of their other memories are real, but additionally, the story asks:  if memories can be implanted, can they also be erased?

The concept is a strong basis for the story and interesting food for thought, though as is often the case in these classic stories, the central ideas crowd out character development or world building. I think the story is well-structured, and its double twist works well. I have to say though that I think that Dick has written better prose, and there is some unnecessary casual misogyny that would look very much out of place today.

Overall, it is not a bad story, but not as good as some of Dick’s other works. The central concept of a virtual experience is not near as novel now, though we’ve mostly drifted away from the memory angle in modern fiction. Nowadays, it is probably mostly of interest to people who are curious about the origin of Total Recall, and not the public at large.