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We can remember it for you wholesale

I've read Phillip K Dick's work beforehand, and this is classic sci fi, throwing the reader into the story with no previous exposition.
Phillip K Dick’s work tends to deal with hallucinations, group projections and the authenticity of humans. In Android’s we see this present in the humanity of the replicants vs the humans. What makes feeling and conscience exclusively human? While in this piece the struggle seems to be what is a real memory and fantasy. I like that without having to lift a single finger he is what keeps Earth safe from an alien invasion. His lifelong childhood fantasy manifested in his psyche and became a reality. I love how one act of kindness makes all of his past as a secret agent seem meaningless. Quail's childish thought of mercy made the aliens feel mercy in turn. The message seems to be a commentary on the senseless violence of war and how it fades away and moral solutions endure.
The slow reveal of Quail’s past is also part of sci fi genre codes. We go through the reveal with him, it’s a slow build up. 
The themes of dicey memory erasing processes are very present in modern media today, and oddly I now see some of the influence this might've had in film and television. Quail's memories didn't fully go away, they stayed as a part of his instincts, fighting their way through suppression, at one point he even fights his way out of being killed by his own government, through the skills he had forgotten, but knew deep inside

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