"The claws were bad enough in the first place--nasty, crawling little death-robots. But when they began to imitate their creators, it was time for the human race to make peace--if it could " Philip K. Dick said of his story "Second Variety" "My grand theme--who is human and who only appears as human?--emerges most fully. Unless we can individually and collectively be certain of the answer to this question, we face what is, in my view, the most serious problem possible. Without answering it adequately, we cannot even be certain of our own selves." Reviewing the story, critic Zack Handlen...
"The claws were bad enough in the first place--nasty, crawling little death-robots. But when they began to imitate their creators, it was time for the...
"Did you ever wonder at the lonely life the bird in a cuckoo clock has to lead --" wrote the editor of Fantastic Universe in January, 1954, blurbing this tale "-- that it might possibly love and hate just as easily as a real animal of flesh and blood? Philip Dick used that idea for this brief fantasy tale. We're sure that after reading it you'll give cuckoo clocks more respect."
"Did you ever wonder at the lonely life the bird in a cuckoo clock has to lead --" wrote the editor of Fantastic Universe in January, 1954, blurbin...
The last spaceship to leave Mars headed for Earth is stopped and searched by Martian soldiers, who are looking for three saboteurs who destroyed a Martian city. "Attention, Inner-Flight ship Attention You are ordered to land at the Control Station on Deimos for inspection. Attention You are to land at once " The metallic rasp of the speaker echoed through the corridors of the great ship. The passengers glanced at each other uneasily, murmuring and peering out the port windows at the small speck below, the dot of rock that was the Martian checkpoint, Deimos. Stark terror ruled the...
The last spaceship to leave Mars headed for Earth is stopped and searched by Martian soldiers, who are looking for three saboteurs who destroyed a ...
Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of mid-day. A metal sphere. It raced up the hill after the Russian, its treads flying. It was small, one of the baby ones. Its claws were out, two razor projections spinning in a blur of white steel. The Russian heard it. He turned instantly, firing. The sphere dissolved into particles. But already a second had emerged and was following the first. The Russian fired again. A third sphere leaped up the Russian's leg, clicking and whirring. It jumped to the shoulder. The spinning blades disappeared into the...
Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of mid-day. A metal sphere. It raced up the hill after the Russi...
In a future where death is embraced, a time-traveling doctor is the only one who can save a wounded resistance leader.
When Dr. Jim Parsons wakes up from a car accident, he finds himself in a future populated almost entirely by the young. But to keep the world run by the young, death is fetishized, and those who survive to old age are put down. In such a world, Parsons--with his innate desire to save lives--is a criminal and outcast. But for one revolutionary group, he may be just the savior they need to heal and revive their cryogenically frozen leader. And when he and the group...
In a future where death is embraced, a time-traveling doctor is the only one who can save a wounded resistance leader.
An artist searches for God so he can paint his portrait in Philip K. Dick's collaboration with Roger Zelazny.
After World War III, the Servants of Wrath cult deified the mysterious Carlton Lufteufel, creator of the doomsday weapon that wiped out much of humanity. But to worship the man, they need an image of him as a god, and no one has ever seen him. So the high priests send a limbless master painter named Tibor McMasters into the wilderness on a mission to find Lufteufel and capture his likeness. Unfortunately for Tibor, the nation's remaining Christians do not want him to succeed...
An artist searches for God so he can paint his portrait in Philip K. Dick's collaboration with Roger Zelazny.
On a planet run by escapees from a mental institution, the doctors who arrive to restore order may be the craziest of all.
For years, the third moon in the Alphane system was used as a psychiatric hospital. But when war broke out between Earth and the Alphanes, the hospital was left unguarded and the inmates set up their own society, made up of competing factions based around each mental illness. When Earth sends a delegation to take back the colony, they find enclaves of depressives, schizophrenics, paranoiacs, and other mentally ill people coming together to repel what they see as a...
On a planet run by escapees from a mental institution, the doctors who arrive to restore order may be the craziest of all.
This satirical adventure from Philip K. Dick deals with issues of power, class, and politics, set in a world ruled by big-brained elites.
In Our Friends from Frolix 8, the world is run by an elite few. And what determines whether one is part of the elite isn't wealth or privilege, but brains. As children, every citizen of Earth is tested; some are found to be super-smart New Men and some are Unusuals, with various psychic powers. The vast majority are Undermen, performing menial jobs in an overpopulated world.
Nick Appleton is an Underman, content to go with the flow...
This satirical adventure from Philip K. Dick deals with issues of power, class, and politics, set in a world ruled by big-brained elites.
A powerful and enigmatic alien recruits humans and aliens to help it restore a sunken cathedral in this touching and hilarious novel.
Sometimes even gods need help. In Galactic Pot-Healer that god is an alien creature known as The Glimmung, which looks alternately like a flaming wheel, a teenage girl, and a swirling mass of ocean life. In order to raise a sunken city, he summons beings from across the galaxy to Plowman's Planet. Joe Fernwright is one of those summoned, needed for his skills at pot-healing--repairing broken ceramics. But from the moment Joe arrives on Plowman's...
A powerful and enigmatic alien recruits humans and aliens to help it restore a sunken cathedral in this touching and hilarious novel.
Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick contains twenty-one of Dick's most dazzling and resonant stories, which span his entire career and show a world-class writer working at the peak of his powers.
In "The Days of Perky Pat," people spend their time playing with dolls who manage to live an idyllic life no longer available to the Earth's real inhabitants. "Adjustment Team" looks at the fate of a man who by mistake has stepped out of his own time. In "Autofac," one community must battle benign machines to take back control of their lives. And in "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon," we...
Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick contains twenty-one of Dick's most dazzling and resonant stories, which span his entire career and show a...
