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Progeny
Ed Doyle hurried. He caught a surface car, waved fifty credits in the robot driver's face, mopped his florid face with a red pocket-handkerchief, unfastened his collar, perspired and licked his lips and swallowed piteously all the way to the hospital.
15 pages, ebook
First published November 1, 1954
About the author
Philip K. Dick
1,934 books23.1k 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 wor
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 wor
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 20, 2019
First published in If (November 1954), “Progeny” is a rather conventional story—at least by Philip K. Dick standards—which shows the destruction of the human family through government-controlled child-raising practices, the absolute reliance on aptitude tests, and the cold ministrations of robot care-givers and tutors.
The heart of the tale is the meeting between Ed Doyle—free-wheeling entrepreneur from the fringes of the known universe—and his son Peter, whom he has not seen since the boy’s birth over nine years before. (Children are not allowed to visit their parents—or any other humans for that matter—for the first nine years of their lives.) Ed is somebody the reader recognizes at once, but Peter—with his cold unresponsive manner and private jokes—is certainly a new kind of human—if he is human at all.
But Peter thinks his father is peculiar too. As he says to his robot mentor upon his return: “He was very emotional. There was a distinct bias through everything he said and did. A distortion present, virtually uniform.”
Oh, and the story has a very nice ending—something characteristically Dickian that resonates in a number of ways. It involves the sense of smell...but I’ll let you discover that for yourself.
April 16, 2012
NOTE: 1st READ
A robot doctor and a promising young boy with complete understanding of each other.
NOTE: 2nd READ
though this is the second time reading this for me, I still really really liked it.
It definitely had that classic PKD feel-to-it too, and just for that reason alone is worth the read.
...maybe, just maybe... who is to say?
October 6, 2017
“[…] They know what to do. They’re developing a real methodology for dealing with children. For the growth period. Attitude development. Training.”
The future as it is envisaged in PKD’s short story Progeny is indeed bleak in that robots have taken over in all areas of human life and see to it that things are done most efficiently and that nobody gets harmed. This starts in everyday situations like when you are about to jaywalk, you will find a barrier appear in front of you and a robot’s voice will tell you to watch out so that you will not harm yourself and others. But it also plays a role in child rearing because in the world Dick describes here, parents are no longer allowed to have any contact with their children until they are grown up, and the children are cared for and trained by robots. There is even a reason given for this procedure in the story, and in a cold, technocratic kind of way it makes sense to a certain degree:
But the product, as we see it in nine-year-old Peter Doyle in this story, strikes us as extremely inhuman in that Peter has been trained from an early age to be a biochemist one day and he is absolutely void of emotion and of any quality that we may want to find in a child. I don’t know if Dick knew anything about the experiments the Staufer emperor Frederick II. had carried out on new-born children in order to find out what the human protolanguage might be. Frederick forbade anyone to talk or interact in any way with these new-borns but he saw to it that all their physical needs would be provided for. Instead of starting to talk Latin, or Greek, or Aramaic, all those children died, and one might assume that they did so for want of interaction with other human beings.
Peter, however, does not die, at least not in the literal sense, but he becomes a kind of human robot himself, clever, polite, efficient but unable to understand human emotions. The only feeling he experiences is bemusement, mingled with scorn, with regard to his father’s unrational behaviour during his first visit after nine years. Towards his robot-tutor, Peter even utters his wish that he might simply be allowed to spend all his life among robots and not to have to mix with people at all.
The story was written as early as 1954, and while me might set aside the danger of our children be brought up by robots, yet the decline of the family that is hinted at here might ring familiar to us. Be it because many parents no longer bother about their children and hide their lack of interest or fear of conflicts and commitment behind an ideology of laisser faire, or be it because government-paid social orthopaedists pry deeper and deeper into people’s private lives and claim the right to tell people how they should raise their children, insisting that they do this on scientifically proven principles or along the lines of political correctness. All the while, what is going to be lost is spontaneity, individuality and the readiness to stretch a point now and then, letting boys be boys, and girls be girls, and letting children play in the streets and sort out conflicts on their own.
The twist in the tale, by the way, a seemingly innocuous made by Peter, will probably remain with you for quite a while.
The future as it is envisaged in PKD’s short story Progeny is indeed bleak in that robots have taken over in all areas of human life and see to it that things are done most efficiently and that nobody gets harmed. This starts in everyday situations like when you are about to jaywalk, you will find a barrier appear in front of you and a robot’s voice will tell you to watch out so that you will not harm yourself and others. But it also plays a role in child rearing because in the world Dick describes here, parents are no longer allowed to have any contact with their children until they are grown up, and the children are cared for and trained by robots. There is even a reason given for this procedure in the story, and in a cold, technocratic kind of way it makes sense to a certain degree:
”Naturally, robots could do the best job. Robots could train him scientifically, according to a rational technique. Not according to emotional whim. Robots didn’t get angry. Robots didn’t nag and whine. They didn’t spank a child or yell at him. They didn’t give conflicting orders. They didn’t quarrel among themselves or use the child for their own ends. And there could be no Oedipus Complex, with only robots around.”
But the product, as we see it in nine-year-old Peter Doyle in this story, strikes us as extremely inhuman in that Peter has been trained from an early age to be a biochemist one day and he is absolutely void of emotion and of any quality that we may want to find in a child. I don’t know if Dick knew anything about the experiments the Staufer emperor Frederick II. had carried out on new-born children in order to find out what the human protolanguage might be. Frederick forbade anyone to talk or interact in any way with these new-borns but he saw to it that all their physical needs would be provided for. Instead of starting to talk Latin, or Greek, or Aramaic, all those children died, and one might assume that they did so for want of interaction with other human beings.
Peter, however, does not die, at least not in the literal sense, but he becomes a kind of human robot himself, clever, polite, efficient but unable to understand human emotions. The only feeling he experiences is bemusement, mingled with scorn, with regard to his father’s unrational behaviour during his first visit after nine years. Towards his robot-tutor, Peter even utters his wish that he might simply be allowed to spend all his life among robots and not to have to mix with people at all.
The story was written as early as 1954, and while me might set aside the danger of our children be brought up by robots, yet the decline of the family that is hinted at here might ring familiar to us. Be it because many parents no longer bother about their children and hide their lack of interest or fear of conflicts and commitment behind an ideology of laisser faire, or be it because government-paid social orthopaedists pry deeper and deeper into people’s private lives and claim the right to tell people how they should raise their children, insisting that they do this on scientifically proven principles or along the lines of political correctness. All the while, what is going to be lost is spontaneity, individuality and the readiness to stretch a point now and then, letting boys be boys, and girls be girls, and letting children play in the streets and sort out conflicts on their own.
The twist in the tale, by the way, a seemingly innocuous made by Peter, will probably remain with you for quite a while.
January 16, 2024
It was my first ever Sci-Fi book, and I wasn't disappointed.
I was hesitant to read science fiction because, hey, Sci-Fi is for kids, right? Or so I thought. I didn't think I would enjoy it, but I did. I will be reading more Sci-Fi from now on.
3.75⭐
I was hesitant to read science fiction because, hey, Sci-Fi is for kids, right? Or so I thought. I didn't think I would enjoy it, but I did. I will be reading more Sci-Fi from now on.
3.75⭐
February 9, 2024
Read as part of a Philip K. Dick class I'm taking.
His prose is simple and direct here, and manages to cast a chill by the end. Always impressed what someone can do with so little, just a short story, that all these years later still feels modern (and somewhat inevitable).
His prose is simple and direct here, and manages to cast a chill by the end. Always impressed what someone can do with so little, just a short story, that all these years later still feels modern (and somewhat inevitable).
March 29, 2017
Interesting science fiction short story with a nod to Plato's Republic, where robots raise our children so they are not fucked up by human parents ...
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July 25, 2022Utterly chilling.
Like some of Phil's other stories it leaves me to wonder around about consciousness in its possible iterations.
Like some of Phil's other stories it leaves me to wonder around about consciousness in its possible iterations.
March 1, 2018
PKD already setting the stage for the hopeless future where robots control everything.
I remember hearing stories as a child about how the children from the Soviet Union were ripped apart from the parents as babies and raised in big schools. This short-story covers that theme. Highly recommended!
I remember hearing stories as a child about how the children from the Soviet Union were ripped apart from the parents as babies and raised in big schools. This short-story covers that theme. Highly recommended!
June 21, 2020
Child-raising programs in a post-human period where everything in the child's environment is just another calculated factor. Scary.
November 20, 2023
I enjoyed this dystopian story about a future clash between robots and humankind. Thought-provoking, metaphysical and very creepy .
January 9, 2025
The premise of this short story was interesting, but I found I wasn’t as invested in it as some of Philip K Dick’s other stories.
February 1, 2025
Exploration of robots raising children and disgust for their parents
February 17, 2012
Another great short story by the king of the science fiction short stories. This one is similar to themes by Ray Bradbury, about our society, culture and even humanity being overwhelmed and usurped by technology.
Read
September 16, 2011I don't get it. Help?
January 4, 2016
buen final
May 10, 2026
cool, Scifi, short story by a master,well done!!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews