You could have probably donated those excess copies to a high school and gotten a tax deduction out of it.

I would have preferred we read something less conventional than the bare minimum-type books like Grapes of Wrath and Scarlet Letter, and I think I would have welcomed Thomas Hardy, Anthony Trollope, or even Charles Dickens. I did my senior research paper on different types of banned and censored literature my senior year just so that I could do a ton of additional reading for the year.

If you do see the movie, just know that Bathsheba saves Gabriel’s life very early on in the book. The first scene in the movie makes more sense if you know that.

I haven’t read anything by Thomas Hardy, but mostly because we were always inundated by copies of The Mayor of Casterbridge when I worked at the remainder warehouse. I’m not sure why that title was overprinted, but we could never sell it to anyone, it was always around in stacks as leftovers, and I grew to hate anything having to do with it. I still take great pleasure in recycling copies of that book. I would be inclined to watch the film version of Far From the Madding Crowd, though. I vaguely remember hearing about it several years ago, but completely forgot about it until just now.

The best experience I ever had with watching a movie and then reading the book is Far From the Madding Crowd. It’s a great movie. Yet somehow I forgot the climax, which is impressive, considering how shocking it is. So when I read the book, which is even better than the movie, I was completely shocked by the climax once again. I’m afraid I’ll never be shocked by it a third time.

I suppose my greatest concern about Blade Runner is that it took all of the action from the book but left behind all of the philosophy. But there’s nothing wrong with a straight-up action thriller, and Blade Runner is probably one of the best. And if it kept a little philosophy, so much the better.

I have seen Blade Runner, but I’ve always been afraid to go back and read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I’ve heard both are good, but also nothing alike, so I worry that I’ll make constant mental comparisons to the movie and wind up enjoying the novel less. It’s the same reason I haven’t read I Am Legend, which has three very different movie adaptations that allegedly bear little resemblance to the original novella.

I read the beginning of “Bimbos of the Death Sun” (I don’t know if it’s the same book you’re thinking of, though I think BotDS has some sequels). It’s a fine comedy, I just wasn’t interested at the time. I too should read more Dick, because what I’ve read is so mind-blowing and amazing. I should also see Blade Runner, but I am pretty sure it’s going to be inferior to the book. Especially since they changed the name. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” is the perfect name for that story.

I haven’t seen Run, Lola, Run, so I can’t comment on the similarities. I really should just watch it, I’ll have to raid one of my friend’s DVD collections over the weekend.

So why aren’t you a science fiction fan? Science fiction has a tradition of crazy titles, such as “Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death” or “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”. Speaking of which, the people running Haikasoru are definitely Dick fans, since they named the imprint after one of his most famous novels, The Man in the High Castle (High Castle = Hai Kasoru).

However, I am more interested in the idea of foreign sci-fi than any particular book they are offering. Not much sci-fi from abroad gets translated into English. In fact, the only sci-fi novel I’ve read in translation is Solaris (from Poland).

Based on your description, “All You Need Is Kill” sounds a lot like the movie “Run, Lola, Run”, though I am sure that Kill is the more gruesome of the two.