The Adjustment Bureau by Philip K. Dick
Brilliance Audio has recently put Philip K. Dick’s short story The Adjustment Team on audio and they sent me a copy. This is the story that the movie The Adjustment Bureau was based on (and the name of the audiobook is The Adjustment Bureau). The story is 57 minutes of tension and psychological terror as Ed Fletcher gets to work late and accidentally sees The Adjustment Team “adjusting” his office building and its occupants. Now, unadjusted Ed notices all the differences in his environment but his adjusted colleagues think everything is normal. Is Ed crazy? Phil Gigante does an excellent job reading this story — the drama and terror really comes across well. I enjoyed “The Adjustment Team,” I’m glad I’ve finally read the story that the popular movie was based on, and I’m particularly happy to be able to listen to short stories on audio. However… The audiobook is less than an hour long and it costs (at this writing) $11. As much as I enjoyed it, I just can’t recommend spending that much money for so little story, especially when the Kindle version costs only 99¢.
Personally, I’m surprised the story even lasted as long as 57 minutes. Phil Gigante must be a very slow reader. I’ve always found audio-books to be over priced however. One of the major reasons I’ve never bothered with them.
Kiernan, I belong to Audible.com where I get audiobooks for much less with my subscription. The prices are actually better than what the subscription offers because there are several buy 2 get 1 free and half-price sales throughout the year. I love it! Here’s a link which I think will give new subscribers a deal (and maybe a kick-back to FanLit, though I’m not sure if that part actually works).
I always like to compare things to movies and video games. Those are my two other means of entertainment besides books. A typical DVD will cost you around $15 new, $10 if its a year or two old. That’s about 2 hours of entertainment for $10. A video game is usually around 15-30hrs long, and they cost $60 new and $30-$40 after a year or two. An Audiobook new is around $30 for about 20-30hrs. I find it comparable to a video game in its price range.
$11 for 57 minutes….is way out of my formula for cost of entertainment.
I do the same thing, Justin, including when I take the kids to one of those places (like Disney World) where you buy a ticket for the day. (Disney World is actually rather cost-effective!). With a movie or a game, though, you’re even likely to watch/play it again, or at least watch/play with another person who also gets value out of it. If I’m not sure I’m going to like a book, it’s hard to pay that much when I’m not sure I’ll like it and nobody else gets value out of it.