Ο χρυσαφένιος άντρας by Philip K. Dick

Ο χρυσαφένιος άντρας Reviews

• 
  Bill Kerwin

  
  This short action-filled novella, first published in If (April 1954), is set in a post-apocalyptic world where government agents like Baines hunt down all mutants, killing the most dangerous and neutering the rest. Baines, though, had his hands full with his latest quarry: a beautiful young golden-skinned man named Chris who lives just one step into the future, but can see the consequences of that one step so clearly that he always chooses the prudent thing to do.
  
  He has another “superpower” too . . . but you’ll have to read “The Golden Man” yourself to find out what it is. (I think I can say this much, though, without spoiling it for you: it has something to do with the way evolution chooses the most effective mutations.)
  
  Philip Dick himself, in a 1978 interview, told us something about his reasons for writing this story. Apparently he was weary at the ‘50’s fantasy of the benign mutant leader or mentor ( a view favored by John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding:

  Here I am also saying that mutants are dangerous to us ordinaries, a view which John W. Campbell, Jr. deplored. We were supposed to view them as our leaders. But I always felt uneasy as to how they would view us. I mean, maybe they wouldn't want to lead us. Maybe from their superevolved lofty level we wouldn't seem worth leading. Anyhow, even if they agreed to lead us, I felt uneasy as to where we would wind up going. It might have something to do with buildings marked SHOWERS but which really weren't.
• 
  Trish

  This is the story the movie Next with Nicolas Cage was based on. As is usually the case with PKD, I know the movie but didn't know the story (didn't even know it was based on a story). We're changing that this year though.
  
  We are in a post-apocalyptic world where atomic radiation has produced mutated human beings. They are simultaneously considered god-like and a danger to us mundane homo sapiens. Thus, there are people employed by the government to hunt down the mutants and either neuter or even kill them (depending on the strength of their abilities).
  One mutant still at large is the titular Golden Man who is always a step ahead because his ability is to see the future (or where a certain decision/action will lead to). He hasn't actually done anything yet but can humanity take the risk?
  
  There is an interview with the author where he talked about his motivation for this story and apparently it's that in the 50s (when this story was written) such evolved humans were regarded as benevolent leaders in any and all stories. However, PKD couldn't shake the sinking feeling that evolved humans might not want to lead us lesser versions, thus becoming a threat.
  I'm really not sure he managed to convey that danger in this story though as, for me at least, the story rather told of humanity jumpstarting the next evolutionary step and thus bringing about their own "extinction" while the mutants aren't really the aggressive ones. Evolution itself, after all, is a natural process with no malicious intent behind it. So it was rather a case of humans not waking up to the truth.
  
  Funnily enough, except for a very short moment, this had NOTHING to do with the movie. Not sure if that is always or mostly the case with PKD's stories but how THIS could have inspired THAT is something of a mystery to me. *lol*
  
  Not a bad story, overall, but nothing too spectacular either.
• 
  Bradley

  I just read the titular story from this collection on a lark because it had the underlying core of Next with Nick Cage. I honestly didn't expect too much and wasn't all that surprised that it read like a standard hokey pulp.
  
  You know, with tin foil outfits and utter shock and amazement that some blonde dude is really a lion among men. *rolls eyes*
  
  OKAY, so, the core idea in the core idea of this story is still very cool and still pretty neat for something coming out of the mid-1950's. Multi-worlds theory involving soothsaying in a rather cool mind-blowing seeing EVERYTHING kind of way the way we tend to give Jedi's credit in the very short time-span. :)
  
  Other than that, however? The story wasn't all that much. lol
• 
  Marc

  Mark Hurst did an excellent job of editing this collection--these 15 stories work well together in terms of varying in length, style, and subject matter. They cover familiar PKD territory--the dangers of time-travel, the possibility of our planet being invaded by idiots ("fnools"), religion as politics, objects and toys being other than what they seem, and the danger of us becoming Eisenhower clones. The final story is perhaps the only sci-fi story ("The Pre-Persons") I've ever read from a pro-life perspective and while it too easily slips into misogyny, it also manages to raise interesting questions. That's the thing with PKD, even when you vehemently disagree with him or his stories lose their focus, he still makes you think. Much like his life, his writing can be wildly erratic, but he had his finger on the social pulse and genuinely seemed interested in a more honest, more free, and more loving world.
• 
  Tristram Shandy

  A-Changing
  
  In the fifties, when PKD wrote his story The Golden Man, there seemed to have been a general fascination with the idea of mutants, i.e. human beings that were, in some decisive ways, different from the run-of-the-mill us. Sometimes mutation was seen as the result of some tampering with nuclear material – just think of Spiderman, who made his appearance in the early 60s – or of nuclear war and widespread contamination, or of evolution itself. Very often, mutants were regarded as a hope for mankind, as leaders who could help us strike completely new paths and overcome civilization’s numerous problems.
  
  PKD was wary of that naïve optimism, asking himself the legitimate question that if those mutants are really so superior, why should they bother employing their marvellous faculties in order to help us out of our self-created messes; or why should they do so without the ulterior motive of seizing power over humanity. The eponymous Golden Man in our story is not really a Nietzschean Übermensch but he is also different from most other mutants that populate the world of PKD’s short story, a society which has grown used to mutants as a result of a past nuclear war and which has adapted a strict policy of hunting these mutants down and “euthing” them – as they “euph” the term. In this story, we get introduced to a wide variety of mutants – through the talk of the characters –, ranging from an eight-breasted woman to some menacing creatures in Tunis, which kill their victims and then take on their forms, continuing their lives. Our Golden Man is devoid of language, uninterested in social exchange, but able to know what is going to happen in the near future and adapt his course of action to it instinctively. [1] Apart from that, as his sobriquet implies, he is very good-looking – tall, athletic, of a golden colour, which is why especially the women in this story often refer to him as a god come down from heaven.
  
  The fact that an unthinking being, with some precog abilities, appears to be superior to homo sapiens, maybe able to replace him one day, is seen as a dire humiliation by the representatives of non-mutant society:
  
  

  ”’To be replaced by an animal! Something that runs and hides. Something without a language!’ He spat savagely. ‘That’s why they weren’t able to communicate with it. We wondered what kind of semantic system it had. It hasn’t got any! No more ability to talk and think than a — dog.’
  
  ‘That means intelligence has failed,’ Baines went on huskily. “We’re the last of our line — like the dinosaur. We’ve carried intelligence as far as it’ll go. Too far, maybe. We’ve already got to the point where we know so much — think so much — we can’t act.’”

  
  
  In other words, the existence and the success of the Golden Man seem to suggest that our assumptions as to evolution tending into the direction of intelligent humans may be starkly erroneous. We are probably not the crown of creation, not even of any further interest at all, but just a blind alley, leading nowhere. Maybe, the whole idea of evolution following a scheme is wrong. Maybe, it’s just a trial-and-error-game, a wilful squandering of life forms that tends to go nowhere in particular?
  
  One may imagine that PKD had some difficulty getting this story published and that when it was published in the science fiction magazine If, the following number had a two-page editorial consisting of a letter by a school teacher who criticized Dick’s story for not presenting the mutants in a more favourable life.
  
  Hmmm, people’s implicit trust in mutants and their desire for being led by them, will it ever be exploited politically, one wonders …
  
  [1] One may say that in this respect, PKD fails in credibility to a certain extent because near the end of the story, the Golden Man seems to be weighing various alternatives of action, which is something that could not be achieved just relying on animal instinct, I’d say.
  
• 
  Tasmiah26 Chowdhury

  I only read The Golden Man, for school. But i think it was a pretty good, short, sci-fi, story. Well at least the idea/theme of the story was - i really cant think of a word. But you know, it was pretty good i guess. Anyway, i only typed this to let people know that i only read The Golden Man, so yeah
  
• 
  Grant Johnson

  So basically PKD created the X-Men like ten years before X-Men first appeared? He’s still proving that he was light years ahead and we’re all just catching up to him (or at least trying to).
• 
  Lazaros Karavasilis

  Αναμνήσεις ενός μέλλοντος που δεν ήρθε ποτέ
  
  Ο Φιλιπ Κ. Ντικ (ΦΚΝ απο εδώ και πέρα, δεν θα κάνουμε αυτή τη δουλειά συνέχεια) αποτελεί έναν απο τους σημαντικότερους συγγραφείς Ε.Φ. παγκοσμίως και για πολλούς είναι ο αδιαμφισβήτητος πρωταθλητής της Ε.Φ. Εδώ όμως δεν θα πλέξω το εγκώμιο του συγγραφέα, γιατί α) το έχουν κάνει πολλοί πριν απο μένα και β) το έχουν παρακάνει πλέον.
  
  Αντ’αυτού θέλω να μείνω στην προσωπική μου εμπειρία με τον ΦΚΝ. Η πρώτη μου επαφή ήταν πριν αρκετά χρόνια, όταν διάβασα τον Άνθρωπο στο Ψηλό Κάστρο, σε μια αρκετά παλιά έκδοση. Να μην τα πολυλογώ το πλαίσιο πολύ δυνατό, η ιστορία κάπου χώλαινε και για μένα η σειρά εξακολουθεί να έχει διαχειριστεί πολύ καλύτερα το πρωτογενές υλικό.
  
  Αυτό άλλαξε με την συλλογή ιστοριών «Ο Χρυσαφένιος Άντρας». Οι ιστορίες που περιλαμβάνονται καλύπτουν ένα εύρος που ξεκινά απο cyber noir και καταλήγει στη λογοτεχνία του φανταστικού. Ο ΦΚΝ γράφει και ζει σε έναν μεταπολεμικό κόσμο, μιας χρυσής τριακονταετίας (1945-1975) όπου εντάσσονται και οι ιστορίες του τόμου. Αναπόφευκτα, αντανακλώνται ανησυχίες της εποχής: πυρηνικά ολοκαυτώματα, αυτοματοποίηση της εργασίας, αχαλίνωτος καταναλωτισμός μέχρι και επαναστατικά κινήματα. Η πραγματικότητα παίρνει cyber-punk διαστάσεις στο έργο του ΦΚΝ και ο λόγος του δείχνει γιατί θεωρείται απο τους καλύτερους του είδους.
  
  Είναι πραγματικά αξιόλογο πως η φαντασία του συγγραφέα κινούνταν περίπου 20-30 χρόνια μπροστά, σε ένα μέλλον που δεν ήρθε ποτέ όμως. Οι φοβοι των ανθρώπων του 1960 δεν πραγματοποιήθηκαν αλλά αντικ��ταστάθηκαν απο άλλους φόβους. Αυτό αυτομάτως, κάνει τη γραφή του ΦΚΝ vintage αλλά και retro. Η ισορροπία μεταξύ του να απολαμβάνεις μια κλασσική ιστορία Ε.Φ. και παρόλα αυτά να ελκύεσαι να συνεχίσεις την ανάγνωση είναι αντιπροσωπευτική των αισθημάτων που σου δημιουργούνται.
  
  Ολίγον τι μοιρολατρικός ο ΦΚΝ, καθώς συνεχώς επιφέρει στο προσκήνιο πως στο μέλλον η ανθρωπότητα έβαλε τα χεράκια της και έβγαλε τα ματάκια της. Βέβαια, αν κοιτάξεις έξω μήπως δεν έχει άδικο τελικά; Μήπως το μέλλον που φανταζόταν ο ΦΚΝ ήρθε με άλλους όρους;
  
  Διαβάζεται υπο την συνοδεία μουσικής 80s synthwave για μέγιστο αποτέλεσμα.
• 
  Angus McKeogh

  Maybe three of the stories were really good. Five were average. And seven were marginal to bad. And perhaps this was the worst time to read this book. The final story is basically plotless and is just a screed about fetal rights being so fundamental that they trump the rights of living people. It was an anti-abortion story, which is fine if it’s a good story, but it ended up just being a treatise without a story, and it finished the book. Just kind of inadvertently sour and sad. Dick also wrote a little explanation about each story, and surprise, he received a load of criticism from other women writers and the public about this final “story”. Oh well, wasn’t the best collection anyway.
• 
  Νίκος Vitoliotis)

  Διαβάζοντας το ομότιτλο διηγήματα, The golden man, γραμμένο το 1954, να μιλά για μεταλλαγμένους με υπερδυναμεις και για κυβερνητικές υπηρεσίες που έχουν εξαπολύσει κυνηγητό με σκοπό την εξόντωση τους, αρχίζεις και αναρωτιέσαι μήπως οι κληρονόμοι του P. K. Dick θα πρέπει να ζητήσ��υν μέρος των πνευματικών δικαιωμάτων των X Men των Kirby και Lee. Άλλη μια έκδοση που την βρίσκει κανείς στην τιμή των 2.03 ευρώ και σε κάνει να αναρωτιέσαι πώς και υπάρχουν ακόμα διαθέσιμα κομμάτια (εκτός αν τελικά οι φίλοι της εφ στην Ελλάδα δεν είναι και τόσοι πολλοί...).
• 
  Terence Blake

  This is a review of the title story: THE GOLDEN MAN. It contains spoilers.
  
  This story is a precursive working of themes that will be treated in more detail in Frank Herbert's DUNE. The mutant as potential dominator, but also the trap of precognition. Cris is presented as in the grip of his "inflexible path", he knows where we guess, so he has no freedom at all. His vision of the world is synchronic and spatialised, where human intelligence is diachronic, i.e. comprising novelty and uncertainty. He is all protention, and no retention. He is perceived as a god, but that is an effect of his golden appearance, a tool of sexual manipulation.
  He is called a "deeve", a deviant, but in fact he cannot deviate from his precognized "inflexible" path. Without language, without interpretation, he cannot sublimate into culture or morality. His superiority is Darwinian, but he is driven by his instincts. Anita feels something like love and worries for him, he feels no such empathy, he just impregnates and uses her, and dumps her as soon as escape is possible. There is no semantic bridge, not because he has superior semantics, but because he has no language. There is no empathic bridge either. In view of his inflexible future we humans are the deviants, introducing complexity into what would otherwise be a simple life.
  The story's ending with his escape is foreshadowed in the complexity of human social organisation. They were able to catch Cris because of a perfect "clamp" that lest no holes allowing escape. Yet Anita does not answer to Wisdom, and his security clamp down is incomplete: "I have no control over her. If she wants, she can check out." This is the loophole that Cris exploits.
  Yet this victory is like that of a computer winning at chess by exploring mechanically all the consequences of possible moves. Cris's "intelligence" is synchronic and algorithmic: he knows, where the aptly named Wisdom's is diachronic and heuristic: he guesses. Of course it is informed guessing, but all it takes is sufficient computational power to see half an hour into the future to triumph over even experienced well-trained expert guessing. Baines is right to remark that such superior computation is not a sign of mental or spiritual superiority: "Superior survival doesn't mean superior man." Cris's precognition is a "neat faculty", but it is not a "development of mind".
• 
  ᴹᵗᴮᵈ멘붕

  this is such an amazing story and one of great depth in my opinion. how it was made into such a bad movie like "Next" is beyond me when one could get so much more from just the setting alone. please read the story, dont watch the movie.
• 
  Elizabeth Ponds

  I only read The Golden Man. It was interesting. Not at all like the movie that was based on it: Next.
• 
  Paul Weimer

  An excellent narration of a chilling and interesting Philip K Dick story.
• 
  Kerry Nietz

  I read this book in high school and the stories really stuck with me, particularly those with themes that were atypical for mainstream science fiction. Even decades later, I found myself wanting to read it again.
  
  Unfortunately, I wasn't sure of the title--I thought it was "Golden Boy"--and I had no idea who the author was. So, I was delighted when I figured out not only what the actual title was, but that Philip K. Dick was the author. Not just some run-of-the-mill sci-fi writer, but someone whose writings have been translated to film again and again.
  
  I got myself a used copy and gave it another read. To my surprise, I found it as interesting and compelling as the first time I read it. Possibly more so. Like any anthology, I liked some stories more than the others. But all of them are solid and many have twists and ideas that still feel unique yet relatable. For instance, "the Pre Persons" seems as relevant today as it ever was. Possibly more so.
  
  I also like the author's story notes at the end. They give a welcome glimpse into the circumstances and thoughts surrounding the stories.
  
  All in all a great collection of Dick's works that span decades of his career. I recommend it.
  
  
• 
  Λευτέρης Ευμορφόπουλος

  Αυτός ο άνθρωπος... Όσο αγαπάω τα διηγήματά του, τόσο αδιάφορα με βρίσκουν τα μυθιστορήματά του. Πώς το καταφέρνει;
  
  Όλα (μα όλα) τα διηγήματα σε αυτήν τη συλλογή (μα και σε μία ακόμη που έχω διαβάσει) είναι γεμάτα εκπλήξεις, εκρήξεις (εγκεφαλικές), στιγμές σαστιμάρας που σε κάνουν να αναρωτιέσαι "τι ακριβώς έγινε τώρα;", ανατροπές, στιγμές αυτο-αμφισβήτησης ( πράγματι το βλέπει αυτό ή έχει αποτρελαθεί; ). Είσαι διαρκώς με μια γλυκιά απορία στο μυαλό που σιγά σιγά μετατρέπεται σε αυτή την εσωτερική ένταση που κάνει τον αναγνώστη να μην τολμάει να αφήσει την ιστορία στη μέση. Λατρεύω Philip K. Dick.
  
  Θα διαλέξω ως αγαπημένα το "Η έξοδος οδηγεί μέσα" και το "Ο βασιλιάς των ξωτικών".
• 
  Βασίλειος Μέγας

  Εξαιρετικές ιστορίες από έναν εξαιρετικό δημιουργό.
• 
  Míla Brousil

  From "based on movies" I always saw Dick as visionary and clever writer, but never actually read something from him. This collection of early short stories, although amazingly constructed, is so idealogically distant for me, I just cannot recommend it. It was unpleasant eye-opener, which makes Philip K. Dick look like babbling TV preacher.
• 
  Άννα Μακρή

  Τα περισσότερα διηγήματα αυτής της συλλογής είχαν κάτι ενδιαφέρον. Τρία, τουλάχιστον, θα τα θυμάμαι για καιρό. Τα περισσότερα, παρόλα αυτά, δεν τα απόλαυσα πραγματικά. Είχαν αυτό το στυλ γραφής που με έχει κρατήσει μέχρι τώρα μακριά από την Ε.Φ. Ψυχρό, στεγνό, κάπως βαρετό μέχρι την τελική αποκάλυψη (όχι σαν το Ηλεκτρικό Πρόβατο, που το ευχαριστιέσαι από την πρώτη ως την τελευταία γραμμή).
• 
  Ben G

  You will not find a better Introduction to the span and scope of PKD's writing. His themes of human fallibility, desire and philosophical meditations on the mind, self and their relationship to reality makes this truly masterful science fiction in my opinion.
• 
  keys

  interesting collection of old stories. for fans only i think.
• 
  Joe

  a great, if brief, parable of the superman. in inimitable Dick style.
• 
  Przemek

  With this book I have discovered PKD in 1989...
• 
  Joseph Griggs

  This was an interesting short story dealing with humanities reaction to human genetic evolution. I'd recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Philip K Dick.
• 
  Ілля Слаба

  Very intersted idea. Not more.
• 
  Karolina Baudelaire

  ENG/PL
  
  A very good collection of stories. Short form definitely serves PKD. Those who know it know more or less what to expect: the unexpected. ;) And this handful of readers, who would like to bite into his work from this volume, should do it without much difficulty. This collection, despite excellent ideas and very decent realisation of them in terms of lyrics, does not have such a high "entry threshold" as some of the more famous (and longer) works of PKD; I mean for example "Ubik", which I would recommend to save for the end. "Last master and ruler" is a piece of good literature for lovers of more ambitious, brain-bending science-fiction and ideas unprecedented anywhere else, not developed to the size of a novel; just a tasty bite that can cause the reader's eyebrows to lift up and the syndrome of "one more story", as well as red colour on the cheeks.
  
  PL
  
  Bardzo dobry zbiór opowiadań. Krótka forma zdecydowanie służy PKD. Ci, którzy go znają, wiedzą już czego mniej-więcej się spodziewać: niespodziewanego. ;) A ta garstka czytelników, która zechce wgryźć się w jego twórczość od tego tomu, powinna uczynić to bez większego trudu. Zbiór ten pomimo rewelacyjnych pomysłów i bardzo przyzwoitej realizacji ich pod względem lirycznym, nie posiada tak wysokiego "progu wejścia", jak niektóre z bardziej znanych (i dłuższych) dzieł PKD; mam na myśli na przykład "Ubika", którego polecałabym zostawić sobie na koniec. "Ostatni pan i władca" to kawał dobrej literatury dla miłośników ambitniejszego, zginającego mózg science-fiction i niespotykanych nigdzie indziej idei nierozwleczonych do rozmiarów powieści; ot, smakowity kąsek potrafiący wywołać uniesienie brwi u czytelnika i syndrom "jeszcze jednego opowiadania", a także wypieki na policzkach.
• 
  Steve Rainwater

  A mixed collection of PKD stories with a few good ones.
  
  Stand outs in the collection are "The Little Black Box" about a quasi-religion based empathy acquired by using a technological artifact, and "The Unreconstructed M" which is a rare PKD mystery complete with a murder, clues, gangsters, a private detective, and a police chief. What makes it unusual is that the murder weapon is a small robot that plants clues to throw off the cops.
  
  The title story, "The Golden Man", is interesting in that it essentially predicts the entire X-Men comic/movie franchise - humans developing mutations that give all sort of special abilities. There are 87 known types of mutants including chameleons, pre-cogs, telepaths, psychokinetics, teleporters, and others. The DCA hunts down mutants and "euths" them to insure they don't out-evolve homo-sapiens. The Golden Man turns out to be a new type of mutant. What's weird is that the story was used as the basis of a movie called "Next", starring Nicolas Cage, that had almost nothing to do with the original story.
  
  "Small Town" reads like an original Twilight Zone episode with a downtrodden husband who escapes daily life by building a detailed model railroad layout in his basement that's an exact duplicate of his small town. It's a fun read even if it's not hard to guess where the story is heading.
  
  There are a few other moderately interesting stories and some forgettable ones. Overall worth a read if you come across the book but I'm not sure it's worth special effort to track it down. There are lots of better PKD books around.
• 
  Chris Johnson

  This review is for The Golden Man, not the rest in the stated anthology. A fan of the Nicolas Cage movie (why wouldn’t I be since I share the main character’s name and make a living as a mentalist) I looked for this short story to catch its roots. And I loved it.
  
  It’s set nearly three-quarters of a century after the next war. Written in the 1950s and based on their perceptions then, it will be nuclear. From the radioactive areas are born the next humans - mutants. Humans fear the mutants because they could be the next “fittest species” that could kill us off.
  
  So the DCA is there to protect us. Until the find Cris Johnson, a being capable of knowing all future events. He doesn’t need to guess; he knows!
  
  They can’t kill him. He never makes mistakes.
  
  I loved reading this. It’s born from a era of paranoia for the future, its unknown factors, and a fear of extinction.