Total Recall

A novelization of a 1990 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, in its turn based on Philip K. Dick 1966 novelette “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale.” Frustrated with his life, Duglas Quail decides to purchase a memory of a two-week adventure on Mars because he can’t afford the real thing. However, while under heavy sedation preparatory to the installation of the memory, Quail remembers that he actually was on Mars as an intelligence agent and killer. Now that he has recovered the memory which had been suppressed by his employers, his life is in jeopardy. Here the novel deviates from Dick’s philosophical original, becoming a more pedestrian if exciting slam-bang chase thriller. Judged on its own terms, the book works and it’s fun.