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The Early Stories of Philip K. Dick
Every legend has a beginning. Here, Dreamscape Media presents a collection of short stories penned by Philip K. Dick early in his masterful and legendary writing career. Stories include: Beyond Lies the Wub; Beyond the Door; The Crystal Crypt; The Defenders; The Eyes Have It; The Gun; The Hanging Stranger; Mr. Spaceship; Piper in the Woods; Second Variety; The Skull; Tony and the Beetles; The Variable Man.
13 pages, Audiobook
First published December 12, 2009
25 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
Philip K. Dick
2,001 books22.6k followersPhilip Kindred Dick was a prolific American science fiction author whose work has had a lasting impact on literature, cinema, and popular culture. Known for his imaginative narratives and profound philosophical themes, Dick explored the nature of reality, the boundaries of human identity, and the impact of technology and authoritarianism on society. His stories often blurred the line between the real and the artificial, challenging readers to question their perceptions and beliefs.
Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field.
Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use.
One of Dick’s most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott’s iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction.
In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries.
Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists.
Dick’s legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media.
Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His work continues to challenge and inspire, offering timeless insights into the human condition a
Raised in California, Dick began writing professionally in the early 1950s, publishing short stories in various science fiction magazines. He quickly developed a distinctive voice within the genre, marked by a fusion of science fiction concepts with deep existential and psychological inquiry. Over his career, he authored 44 novels and more than 100 short stories, many of which have become classics in the field.
Recurring themes in Dick's work include alternate realities, simulations, corporate and government control, mental illness, and the nature of consciousness. His protagonists are frequently everyday individuals—often paranoid, uncertain, or troubled—caught in surreal and often dangerous circumstances that force them to question their environment and themselves. Works such as Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and A Scanner Darkly reflect his fascination with perception and altered states of consciousness, often drawing from his own experiences with mental health struggles and drug use.
One of Dick’s most influential novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for Ridley Scott’s iconic film Blade Runner. The novel deals with the distinction between humans and artificial beings and asks profound questions about empathy, identity, and what it means to be alive. Other adaptations of his work include Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle, each reflecting key elements of his storytelling—uncertain realities, oppressive systems, and the search for truth. These adaptations have introduced his complex ideas to audiences well beyond the traditional readership of science fiction.
In the 1970s, Dick underwent a series of visionary and mystical experiences that had a significant influence on his later writings. He described receiving profound knowledge from an external, possibly divine, source and documented these events extensively in what became known as The Exegesis, a massive and often fragmented journal. These experiences inspired his later novels, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which mixes autobiography, theology, and metaphysics in a narrative that defies conventional structure and genre boundaries.
Throughout his life, Dick faced financial instability, health issues, and periods of personal turmoil, yet he remained a dedicated and relentless writer. Despite limited commercial success during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily, and he came to be regarded as one of the most original voices in speculative fiction. His work has been celebrated for its ability to fuse philosophical depth with gripping storytelling and has influenced not only science fiction writers but also philosophers, filmmakers, and futurists.
Dick’s legacy continues to thrive in both literary and cinematic spheres. The themes he explored remain urgently relevant in the modern world, particularly as technology increasingly intersects with human identity and governance. The Philip K. Dick Award, named in his honor, is presented annually to distinguished works of science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. His writings have also inspired television series, academic studies, and countless homages across media.
Through his vivid imagination and unflinching inquiry into the nature of existence, Philip K. Dick redefined what science fiction could achieve. His work continues to challenge and inspire, offering timeless insights into the human condition a
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
October 29, 2018
The Eyes Have It, which is in this collection, but not sited in the summary on goodreads, is my favorite of all these because of the fantastic way he plays with words and their literal and figurative meanings. I enjoyed all the stories in this collection and will definitely seek out his other collected works. I can see why he’s one of the forefathers of Sci-if.
January 29, 2025
I really enjoyed this collection particularly how he creates such complex sci-fi worlds in such quick and efficient ways. Dick doesn't take an eternity building worlds but sets the reader directly in the story and it's just somehow real, somehow already tangible. This collection in particular was quite gloomy in that it involves a lot of just insanely realistic future war and conflicts. Many stories are intergalactic but humanity, often just what's left of it, is struggling with war. Those in charge are constantly lying or doing whatever it takes to "win" even if that victory isn't the best thing for humanity. It's rather bleak, but there are some positives. A lot of the stories take time to show how much of a warning to society they are. "The Defenders" includes a story about a future of nonstop war, driving humanity underground as it rages above using artificial intelligence as a proxy. The twist is, and spoiler, that the robots realize that the problem wasn't the opposing side but rather humanity's obsession with war and they decide to lie to humanity. I really enjoy this type of sci-fi and really recommend this collection.
March 27, 2017
Three and a half stars for these Early Stories.
Although their age betrays technological wishful thinking Philip Dick's books (IMO) center more on human behavior - which rarely changes as time reveals. Each kept my interest and were quite engaging. Although I read a lot of scifi when I was (much) younger his was never in my favored author pile and leaned more to Heinlein and Asimov. Perhaps I can more appreciate these stories for the wishful thinking they betray but that could be my cynicism showing. Philip Dick - as I see him now - would have fit nicely in with my Heinlein preference and the behavior-centered storylines.
DD@Phila
Although their age betrays technological wishful thinking Philip Dick's books (IMO) center more on human behavior - which rarely changes as time reveals. Each kept my interest and were quite engaging. Although I read a lot of scifi when I was (much) younger his was never in my favored author pile and leaned more to Heinlein and Asimov. Perhaps I can more appreciate these stories for the wishful thinking they betray but that could be my cynicism showing. Philip Dick - as I see him now - would have fit nicely in with my Heinlein preference and the behavior-centered storylines.
DD@Phila
October 12, 2018
Easy to see why Dick's one of the masters of Sci-Fi's formative years!
I love short stories & nobellas -- so much an author can do in little space!
If these are indicative of Dick's skills, I'll be reading more of him.
I love short stories & nobellas -- so much an author can do in little space!
If these are indicative of Dick's skills, I'll be reading more of him.
August 25, 2018
Beyond Lies the Wub; the pig who telepathed into the killer's body
Beyond the Door; cuckoo clock bird that killed the buyer
The Hanging Stranger; takeover of the humanity by aliens. Identifying the ones not taken over by having one of them on the street lamp
Mr. Spaceship; the professor that became the ship to start the project of humanity without war
The Gun; the alive gun on a scorched Earth, protecting now destroyed humanities works of art.
Tony and the Beetles; humans taken over Beatlejuice system, the moment the tide breaks in favor of the Beatles
The Eyes Have It; the person who misunderstood literary devices as physical realities. Eyes and limbs separating from rest of the body: have her heart, took his hand, eyes moved throughout the room, they split half going to the movies half to the restaurant, he was lacking brains, he lost his head
The Variable Man; the war effort based on statistical predictions and the handy man brought from pre WWI to finish the faster than light bomb instead creating faster than light travel
Second Variety; the war fought by robotic self manufactured creatures that turned on the creators and developed four varieties of human-like robots that got confidence of a human to get to the bunker and kill all inhabitants. And to the moon base
The Skull; the man who was hired to go to past and kill the prophet of the church. That prophet turned out to be himself
The Crystal Crypt; Terrans who stole a Martian city and then betrayed the cause to tell a good cocktail story
Piper in the Woods; the mental disease that destroyed resolve of motivated people and made them into plants
The Defenders. The robots tasked with fighting a war on the surface while the humanity hid under the ground. Instead the robots forced peace and global unification.
Beyond the Door; cuckoo clock bird that killed the buyer
The Hanging Stranger; takeover of the humanity by aliens. Identifying the ones not taken over by having one of them on the street lamp
Mr. Spaceship; the professor that became the ship to start the project of humanity without war
The Gun; the alive gun on a scorched Earth, protecting now destroyed humanities works of art.
Tony and the Beetles; humans taken over Beatlejuice system, the moment the tide breaks in favor of the Beatles
The Eyes Have It; the person who misunderstood literary devices as physical realities. Eyes and limbs separating from rest of the body: have her heart, took his hand, eyes moved throughout the room, they split half going to the movies half to the restaurant, he was lacking brains, he lost his head
The Variable Man; the war effort based on statistical predictions and the handy man brought from pre WWI to finish the faster than light bomb instead creating faster than light travel
Second Variety; the war fought by robotic self manufactured creatures that turned on the creators and developed four varieties of human-like robots that got confidence of a human to get to the bunker and kill all inhabitants. And to the moon base
The Skull; the man who was hired to go to past and kill the prophet of the church. That prophet turned out to be himself
The Crystal Crypt; Terrans who stole a Martian city and then betrayed the cause to tell a good cocktail story
Piper in the Woods; the mental disease that destroyed resolve of motivated people and made them into plants
The Defenders. The robots tasked with fighting a war on the surface while the humanity hid under the ground. Instead the robots forced peace and global unification.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 8, 2025
Besides dabbling in some Bradbury in high school, I've never delved very far into the annals of sci-fi. No better place to start than with ol' Tricky Dick, right?
This short story collection is overall pretty charming, though some entries really overstay their welcome. I found the themes he touches on here resonant, but the angles at which these stories tackle those themes aren't always in agreement with each other. There is a strong through-line of antiwar sentiment across the collection (which tracks with PKD's Quaker education), but this is undercut by the uncritically expansionist ending of "The Variable Man". Most of these stories also take techno-skeptical, verging on Luddite positions except for "The Defenders", which sees war machines creating a utopia by ignoring the wishes of their blood-thirsty creators. Having all these stories in conversation with each other is interesting, so props to the editor here.
The highlight of the collection for me was "Beyond Lies the Wub", which is goofy and cute and essentially a Django Unchained-style revisionist history for Galapagos tortoises, but in space. "Second Variety" was a true slog though, as anyone paying the barest attention will see the "Gotcha!" twist ages before it lands. The sexlessness of this story (which is also a feature of all the others, no doubt demanded by the 50s magazines these were originally published in) renders our protagonists completely blind to the fact that the killer robot hiding among them is obviously the beautiful woman. Many such cases!
This short story collection is overall pretty charming, though some entries really overstay their welcome. I found the themes he touches on here resonant, but the angles at which these stories tackle those themes aren't always in agreement with each other. There is a strong through-line of antiwar sentiment across the collection (which tracks with PKD's Quaker education), but this is undercut by the uncritically expansionist ending of "The Variable Man". Most of these stories also take techno-skeptical, verging on Luddite positions except for "The Defenders", which sees war machines creating a utopia by ignoring the wishes of their blood-thirsty creators. Having all these stories in conversation with each other is interesting, so props to the editor here.
The highlight of the collection for me was "Beyond Lies the Wub", which is goofy and cute and essentially a Django Unchained-style revisionist history for Galapagos tortoises, but in space. "Second Variety" was a true slog though, as anyone paying the barest attention will see the "Gotcha!" twist ages before it lands. The sexlessness of this story (which is also a feature of all the others, no doubt demanded by the 50s magazines these were originally published in) renders our protagonists completely blind to the fact that the killer robot hiding among them is obviously the beautiful woman. Many such cases!
October 5, 2022
This digital version was accessed through Libby / Overdrive
Published as individual short stories and novellas in science fictions magazines in the 1950s this is an audiobook collection with some real prize-winners. As an overview I see these stories as progenitors to a lot of modern science fiction stories with a major focus on war, as this was soon after the end of World War II and outlined the horrors of big bombs and the fear of nuclear tension between the superpowers. The space race definitely influenced the ideas that humans would get to the moon and stars beyond within the next 200 years.
In overview it always puts wry smile on my face when I see anachronistic relics mixed in with visions of the future; Philip K. Dick can imagine a world where there are women in high seats of power, we have colonies on the moon, there is mass demilitarisation, and we use video calls to communicate over long distances, but he seems incapable of conceiving of a world where there are no cigarettes!
Beyond Lies the Wub 4/5
- a brutal but hilariously predictable story about a psychic being that the captain of the ship is intent on eating because it looks like a pig. (22m)
Beyond the Door 3/5
- an Edgar Allen Poe flavoured story about madness and a haunted cuckoo clock (17m)
The Hanging Stranger 4/5
- a creepy paranoid story with hints of invasion of the body snatchers (30m)
Mr. Spaceship 3/5
- a transhumanist anti-war story with the kidnap of a couple tasked to repopulate a new world. It's kind of an interesting one, but with a crummy ending and some flawed thinking (1h:16m)
The Gun 4/5
- a contingent of explorers from a non-military society investigates an alien world where there has been a fusion explosion, and is shot down by an automated gun that is continuing the fight past the extinction of the people (34m)
Tony and the Beetles 4/5
- A boy was born on a planet where humans have subjugated the native inhabitants, but there is uprising and civil unrest as, for the first time in a century, the original owners of the system are starting to win the war. Also contains.. bigotry, slurs and more cigarettes. (35m)
The Eyes Have It 5/5
- A dry comedic piece about the horror of metaphorical language being interpreted literally (8m)
3½/5?
- Humans are trapped in our own system by an alien Empire, and we are biding our time to wage war. Number crunching machines run the odds on a constant basis and human politicians are waiting for the machine to show the odds are in our favour before we attack our oppressors. We have tried to make FTL (faster than light) spaceships that would allow us to pop out of our dimension and then return bypassing the boundaries of the alien forces, but as the FTL drive returned, it exploded, so scientists plot to send a FTL bomb into the enemy star.... meanwhile, a man is accidentally stolen from the past and brought through to his future. He is a savant fixer, and seems to have the uncanny ability to work the bugs out of anything, but because he is an unknown quantity the computers can't factor him into their statistics. (Statistics don't even work like this which is pretty daft). The story is long and involved, and the pace is hobbled by needless battle scenes and a few elements that are unlikely. It has long distance video communication, vaporizing mountains, and energy force fields. The plot is topped off by a couple of twists that are typical to Dick's works. (3h:08m)
Second Variety 5/5
- OOf I got to sleep late that night because I just didn't want to put it down. After finishing I had to look up the story and see if it had a film adaptation - turns out that's Screamers (1995). It felt a lot like a John Carpenter movie, with it's post-apocalyptic setting, small party, paranoia, and tension. Humans have built killer robots and they have been given the ability to build and repair themselves. Now they are starting to build new versions which are Androids, designed to infiltrate military bases. A soldier finds a small boy in the wastes and when he gets to a base the boy is shot, showing that he is an android killbot; Variety 3. A previous version is disguised as a wounded soldier known as Variety 1..so what happens when you have four survivors and any of them could be the missing Second Variety?... (1h:51m)
The Skull 4/5
- I was laughing the whole way through this because it's clear that this was a progenitor of stories like 12Monkeys, Predestination, Sea of Tranquility, Terminator and all sorts of time travel stories. A man from Earth's future with no military, is sent back in time to kill the man who started the religion that caused the end of war on Earth, and caused most of human innovation to slow to a crawl... you can guess what happened. (56m)
The Crystal Crypt 3/5
- with magical machines such as the infallible lie detector, and a matter shrinker, this tells the story of an attack on a Martian city, the escape of the Terrans from Mars, and what happens when you run your mouth about your secret mission. A bit long winded for something that's basically a simple concept. (51m)
Piper in the Woods 3/5
- a guy thinks he's a plant, and a doctor tries to figure out why. There's some discussion of whether this tendency is to do with burning out because of being in a high stress modern environment. I think the story is about 50% too long (41m)
The Defenders 4/5
- Pushing Asimov's laws of Robotics to a absolute limit, humans are living underground due to a horrible nuclear war and they have entrusted their war effort to the robots that can still roam the surface without dying due to radiation. Some people are beginning to question whether the reports that the machines are giving them are actually true, and they set up a party to go and see for themselves. (2h:23m)
Published as individual short stories and novellas in science fictions magazines in the 1950s this is an audiobook collection with some real prize-winners. As an overview I see these stories as progenitors to a lot of modern science fiction stories with a major focus on war, as this was soon after the end of World War II and outlined the horrors of big bombs and the fear of nuclear tension between the superpowers. The space race definitely influenced the ideas that humans would get to the moon and stars beyond within the next 200 years.
In overview it always puts wry smile on my face when I see anachronistic relics mixed in with visions of the future; Philip K. Dick can imagine a world where there are women in high seats of power, we have colonies on the moon, there is mass demilitarisation, and we use video calls to communicate over long distances, but he seems incapable of conceiving of a world where there are no cigarettes!
Beyond Lies the Wub 4/5
- a brutal but hilariously predictable story about a psychic being that the captain of the ship is intent on eating because it looks like a pig. (22m)
Beyond the Door 3/5
- an Edgar Allen Poe flavoured story about madness and a haunted cuckoo clock (17m)
The Hanging Stranger 4/5
- a creepy paranoid story with hints of invasion of the body snatchers (30m)
Mr. Spaceship 3/5
- a transhumanist anti-war story with the kidnap of a couple tasked to repopulate a new world. It's kind of an interesting one, but with a crummy ending and some flawed thinking (1h:16m)
The Gun 4/5
- a contingent of explorers from a non-military society investigates an alien world where there has been a fusion explosion, and is shot down by an automated gun that is continuing the fight past the extinction of the people (34m)
Tony and the Beetles 4/5
- A boy was born on a planet where humans have subjugated the native inhabitants, but there is uprising and civil unrest as, for the first time in a century, the original owners of the system are starting to win the war. Also contains.. bigotry, slurs and more cigarettes. (35m)
The Eyes Have It 5/5
- A dry comedic piece about the horror of metaphorical language being interpreted literally (8m)
3½/5?
- Humans are trapped in our own system by an alien Empire, and we are biding our time to wage war. Number crunching machines run the odds on a constant basis and human politicians are waiting for the machine to show the odds are in our favour before we attack our oppressors. We have tried to make FTL (faster than light) spaceships that would allow us to pop out of our dimension and then return bypassing the boundaries of the alien forces, but as the FTL drive returned, it exploded, so scientists plot to send a FTL bomb into the enemy star.... meanwhile, a man is accidentally stolen from the past and brought through to his future. He is a savant fixer, and seems to have the uncanny ability to work the bugs out of anything, but because he is an unknown quantity the computers can't factor him into their statistics. (Statistics don't even work like this which is pretty daft). The story is long and involved, and the pace is hobbled by needless battle scenes and a few elements that are unlikely. It has long distance video communication, vaporizing mountains, and energy force fields. The plot is topped off by a couple of twists that are typical to Dick's works. (3h:08m)
Second Variety 5/5
- OOf I got to sleep late that night because I just didn't want to put it down. After finishing I had to look up the story and see if it had a film adaptation - turns out that's Screamers (1995). It felt a lot like a John Carpenter movie, with it's post-apocalyptic setting, small party, paranoia, and tension. Humans have built killer robots and they have been given the ability to build and repair themselves. Now they are starting to build new versions which are Androids, designed to infiltrate military bases. A soldier finds a small boy in the wastes and when he gets to a base the boy is shot, showing that he is an android killbot; Variety 3. A previous version is disguised as a wounded soldier known as Variety 1..so what happens when you have four survivors and any of them could be the missing Second Variety?... (1h:51m)
The Skull 4/5
- I was laughing the whole way through this because it's clear that this was a progenitor of stories like 12Monkeys, Predestination, Sea of Tranquility, Terminator and all sorts of time travel stories. A man from Earth's future with no military, is sent back in time to kill the man who started the religion that caused the end of war on Earth, and caused most of human innovation to slow to a crawl... you can guess what happened. (56m)
The Crystal Crypt 3/5
- with magical machines such as the infallible lie detector, and a matter shrinker, this tells the story of an attack on a Martian city, the escape of the Terrans from Mars, and what happens when you run your mouth about your secret mission. A bit long winded for something that's basically a simple concept. (51m)
Piper in the Woods 3/5
- a guy thinks he's a plant, and a doctor tries to figure out why. There's some discussion of whether this tendency is to do with burning out because of being in a high stress modern environment. I think the story is about 50% too long (41m)
The Defenders 4/5
- Pushing Asimov's laws of Robotics to a absolute limit, humans are living underground due to a horrible nuclear war and they have entrusted their war effort to the robots that can still roam the surface without dying due to radiation. Some people are beginning to question whether the reports that the machines are giving them are actually true, and they set up a party to go and see for themselves. (2h:23m)
October 18, 2024
Beyond Lies the Wub (4/5):
Quite a basic concept and fairly predictable, but not too long and it is a fun story.
Beyond the Door (2/5):
This one didn't really interest me, I feel like the ending wasn't fully justified.
The Hanging Stranger (4/5):
This was an interesting story, didn't go the way I initially thought it would and the ending was nice.
Mr. Spaceship (3/5):
The ending was fairly poor and kind of came out of nowhere. I would have been more interested to have explored what it was like for the guy to be a ship.
The Gun (2/5):
The gun itself is kind of absurd, the introduction of a myth that is apparently known to all races comes out of nowhere to clumsily make a point about what is valuable.
Tony and the Beetles (3/5):
This was an interesting story told from the viewpoint of a human child born on a conquered alien world.
The Eyes Have It (4/5):
Very short, funny story.
The Variable Man (2/5):
This was way too long for what it is. It introduced a number of interesting concepts, but quickly abandoned them in favour of the next.
Second Variety (4/5):
This was a generally engaging and interesting story that explored a concept in an interesting way. The final twist did get dragged out a bit at the end and was kind of obvious; it left me a little exasperated with the main character for not figuring it out sooner.
The Skull (3/5):
The twist was obvious from the start, but it was still overall a good story.
The Crystal Crypt (1/5):
There is pretty much nothing interesting in this story. Most of it is just a description of people doing something for very poorly defined motives, and it is framed by a narrative of someone catching them, but in reality he just walks in and the first people he speaks to confess.
Piper in the Woods (2/5):
Started out intriguing, but the ending was predictable and the explanation pretty empty.
The Defenders (3/5):
This was quite an interesting story, although I wish there had been more at the beginning about them living underground, that would have made the reveal to the characters more significant to the reader.
Quite a basic concept and fairly predictable, but not too long and it is a fun story.
Beyond the Door (2/5):
This one didn't really interest me, I feel like the ending wasn't fully justified.
The Hanging Stranger (4/5):
This was an interesting story, didn't go the way I initially thought it would and the ending was nice.
Mr. Spaceship (3/5):
The ending was fairly poor and kind of came out of nowhere. I would have been more interested to have explored what it was like for the guy to be a ship.
The Gun (2/5):
The gun itself is kind of absurd, the introduction of a myth that is apparently known to all races comes out of nowhere to clumsily make a point about what is valuable.
Tony and the Beetles (3/5):
This was an interesting story told from the viewpoint of a human child born on a conquered alien world.
The Eyes Have It (4/5):
Very short, funny story.
The Variable Man (2/5):
This was way too long for what it is. It introduced a number of interesting concepts, but quickly abandoned them in favour of the next.
Second Variety (4/5):
This was a generally engaging and interesting story that explored a concept in an interesting way. The final twist did get dragged out a bit at the end and was kind of obvious; it left me a little exasperated with the main character for not figuring it out sooner.
The Skull (3/5):
The twist was obvious from the start, but it was still overall a good story.
The Crystal Crypt (1/5):
There is pretty much nothing interesting in this story. Most of it is just a description of people doing something for very poorly defined motives, and it is framed by a narrative of someone catching them, but in reality he just walks in and the first people he speaks to confess.
Piper in the Woods (2/5):
Started out intriguing, but the ending was predictable and the explanation pretty empty.
The Defenders (3/5):
This was quite an interesting story, although I wish there had been more at the beginning about them living underground, that would have made the reveal to the characters more significant to the reader.
December 28, 2022
2.5 stars, rounding up. About halfway through the audiobook, I put it on 1.75 speed, which I almost never do. But many of these stories play like episodes of Star Trek. The original series, too, not TNG. Simple morality tales, talk of Terra and Sol, and laughable ideas of what future technology would be like. Beyond Lies the Wub could easily be a Star Trek episode. The "vid phone" the size of a combine harvester made me chuckle, as did the computer machines that are fed variables and return odds. Psst, Philip: the real future of computers is that they become pocket on-demand televisions. Most of them these days do not even come with a native calculator app. But I digress.
The worst, and most interminable story in this collection is Variable Man. It is the worst offender in the laughable technology area, and also laughable is the idea of a guy in a horse-drawn buggy being a tech genius who "gets machines" the way Charlie from Always Sunny "gets keyboards". Some of the other stories are so forgettable that I am forgetting them.
The two standouts, for me, are Second Variety and The Skull. Second Variety is a replicant tale, close to the spirit of Philip K. Dick as he is remembered now. The Skull has a man travel in time only to realize shocking things about his past and future, with the skull being a prominent and satisfying plot point.
Overall, there are glimmers of imagination and distinctiveness, but they are few and far between compared to his later work. (Though not the latest work, when he went off the rails a bit...)
The worst, and most interminable story in this collection is Variable Man. It is the worst offender in the laughable technology area, and also laughable is the idea of a guy in a horse-drawn buggy being a tech genius who "gets machines" the way Charlie from Always Sunny "gets keyboards". Some of the other stories are so forgettable that I am forgetting them.
The two standouts, for me, are Second Variety and The Skull. Second Variety is a replicant tale, close to the spirit of Philip K. Dick as he is remembered now. The Skull has a man travel in time only to realize shocking things about his past and future, with the skull being a prominent and satisfying plot point.
Overall, there are glimmers of imagination and distinctiveness, but they are few and far between compared to his later work. (Though not the latest work, when he went off the rails a bit...)
December 5, 2023
I went into this anthology of short stories by Philip K. Dick blind, and while they explored some interesting concepts and themes, overall, they had a sameness that caused them to bleed into each other. The majority of them were about white colonists on alien planets wagging war against the native species.
Tell me you’ve never interacted with Black and brown folk without telling me.
Nowhere was this more egregious than in the short where a colonist boy is attacked by his former bug-alien friends after news breaks they’ve gotten the upper hand in the war between them and the human colonists. And even in the stories set on Earth, warfare and war loomed large, often between humans and a villainous alien empire.
As for the stories that dealt with time travel and a sci-fi version of foretelling the future, they were predictable to a fault and lacked any vigor. If these stories were a color, they’d be dull gray.
While they helped to pass a few shifts at work, after listening to them, I have no desire to explore any more of Dick’s shorts. Perhaps, I’ll have better luck with his novels.
In general, I thought this anthology was meh. I give The Early Stories of Philip K. Dick 3 out of 5 stars. His style isn’t to my taste, but it might more to yours. Snag this audiobook anthology when it’s on sale.
Tell me you’ve never interacted with Black and brown folk without telling me.
Nowhere was this more egregious than in the short where a colonist boy is attacked by his former bug-alien friends after news breaks they’ve gotten the upper hand in the war between them and the human colonists. And even in the stories set on Earth, warfare and war loomed large, often between humans and a villainous alien empire.
As for the stories that dealt with time travel and a sci-fi version of foretelling the future, they were predictable to a fault and lacked any vigor. If these stories were a color, they’d be dull gray.
While they helped to pass a few shifts at work, after listening to them, I have no desire to explore any more of Dick’s shorts. Perhaps, I’ll have better luck with his novels.
In general, I thought this anthology was meh. I give The Early Stories of Philip K. Dick 3 out of 5 stars. His style isn’t to my taste, but it might more to yours. Snag this audiobook anthology when it’s on sale.
April 26, 2020
Reading Philip K Dick is like sitting down with an old friend and listening is just as good. I have read and own most of his books which kept me great company. He is definitely one of my favourite authors. A deep thinker he was one of the futurists who imagined how things could be in the future and I think a very good understanding of what it is to be human, in all its aspects, good and bad, light and dark. I don't know if he ever thought of himself as a futurist, but if he came back to life today, I don't think he would be terribly surprised with what he would find. You've probably seen movies inspired by his work, like Blade Runner, Minority Report, and Total Recall to name a few.
Having said that, this book is not his finest work, but any Philip K Dick book is worth spending time with IMHO
Having said that, this book is not his finest work, but any Philip K Dick book is worth spending time with IMHO
July 18, 2019
Philip K Dick, PKD, developed such a recognizable style of writing stories, such a signature style of weirdness, that is is called Dickian. These stories are pre-dickian. Each one could have been made into an episode of The Twilight Zone, but they aren't quite Dickian. I've been a PKD fan, off and on, for may years. It was refreshing to read these, some of which I had read before, becase they were pre-Dickian - so much better than some of his late, post-Dickian, super weird stuff.
Many of these stories, maybe most of them, involved war. And everybody smoked.
Many of these stories, maybe most of them, involved war. And everybody smoked.
August 20, 2024
A staple in classic science fiction. These short stories seem to lay the groundwork for many tv shows and books today. Many are merely an introduction to a scenario or topic and most end on a twist. Over half revolve around war or conflict. Details of how or why aren't part of these stories. The reader is dropped into the setting then quickly left wondering how the situation would play out. This is a good collection of short stories, perfect if you like your SciFi in short bursts.
November 23, 2023
It is interesting to contrast PKD's earlier works against his more refined (more bizarre?) later works. "The Defenders" clearly was a springboard for "The Penultimate Truth". I enjoyed this as an audiobook during my drives to/from work, and especially enjoyed "Beyond Lies the Wub", "The Skull", "The Eyes Have It", and "Second Variety".
May 3, 2021
My favorites were "The Hanging Stranger" and "The Defenders." Many stories deal with themes of human conflict and identity which are clearly influenced by and critical of the hostile, militaristic mentality of the Cold War.
May 11, 2021
A nice collection of short stories from Phillip K. Dick’s early years. Some are humorous, some are morose, but all provide a bit of his thoughts on the human condition. Well worth investigating.
The audio version is a pretty good interpretation.
The audio version is a pretty good interpretation.
March 5, 2025
A collection of short stories is always a mixed bag, but this had some really good ones in there that left me longing for more. There's some great, original sci-fi ideas in there. Looking forward by reading more from this author.
July 27, 2025
Wonderful
I have read each of these stories before in other publications. They are all worth rereading. Science fiction with a touch of terror in some. If you are a fan if you just like good stories you should really give this collection a read.
I have read each of these stories before in other publications. They are all worth rereading. Science fiction with a touch of terror in some. If you are a fan if you just like good stories you should really give this collection a read.
May 10, 2017
The stories were rough and you can tell that they were from his early days, but you can see the originality that led to his later, more polished works.
June 19, 2018
Interesting mix of stories with some real gems in here. How many of these stories have or will become movies? Writing isn’t that polished but many clever ideas and new ways of looking at things
November 14, 2019
Great set of stories. It's easy to see how his works have influenced modern sci fi based on this collection.
August 21, 2020
Classic , gets more polished in his later works.
November 26, 2020
Interesting mix of stories, some more memorable than others. Bit of an obsession with the Russians but, given they were written during the McCarthyism period, not a big surprise.
January 4, 2021
He has some good ideas, but the execution is a bit lacking. I found myself disappointed that he didn't do a better job with some of the stories.
January 18, 2021
Some were for more interesting than others. Overall sort of fun.
June 1, 2021
A nice collection from a sci fi master. Some way more fleshed out than others.
June 12, 2021
All stories are entertaining with engaging plots, some more than others but all did keep interest. Well narrated.
July 15, 2021
These were fun stories. I always enjoy PKD short works and this really hit the spot.
July 22, 2021
This human had such an imagination. Love the stories. Especially haunting is Tony and the Beetles. Great story telling. I loved the Wub too.
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