Showing results by author "Philip Dick" in All Categories

Ed Loyce is a store owner who is faced with a strange sight: someone is hanging from a lamppost. Furthermore, alien insects have taken over yet no one seems to consider things to be out of the ordinary. Ed goes to the police to sort things out and to find out what is going on, only to be thoroughly surprised. The science fiction short story "The Hanging Stranger" by Philip K. Dick from 1953 was adapted into an episode for the television series "Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams". The story is read by the versatile B.J. Harrison. B. J.

Did you ever wonder at the lonely life the bird in a cuckoo clock has to lead--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.

Encircled by the Centaurian Empire, the growing Terran system is being suppressed and prevented from expanding. Terra is desperate to break free, and a war with Proxima Centauri ensues. It’s a battle of technology, with the two sides just barely staying ahead of one another. Then Thomas Cole arrives from 1913.

"The Variable Man" is a science fiction story by Philip K. Dick. Excerpt: At this moment, 9:30 AM, May 7, 2136, the statistical ratio on the SRB machines stood at 21-17 on the Centauran side of the ledger. All facts considered, the odds favored a successful repulsion by Proxima Centaurus of a Terran military attack. 21-17 on the Centauran side. But a month ago it had been 24-18 in the enemy's favor. Things were improving, slowly but steadily. Centaurus, older and less virile than Terra, was unable to match Terra's rate of technocratic advance.

"Second Variety" is a science fiction story about self-producing and developing, speaking robots, which aim to extinct the human race, by Philip K. Dick. Excerpt: It was interesting, the use of artificial forms in warfare. How had they got started? Necessity. The Soviet Union had gained great initial success, usual with the side that got the war going. Most of North America had been blasted off the map. Retaliation was quick in coming, of course. The sky was full of circling disc-bombers long before the war began; they had been up there for years.

In "The Crystal Crypt", Earth and Mars are poised on the verge of war. On the last spaceship to leave Mars for Earth, law enforcement officials are looking for three fugitives who somehow made a great Martian city disappear. Unable to find the perpetrators, the officials allow the ship to disembark for Earth. A businessman named Thacher strikes up a conversation with a young woman and two men who reveal a very interesting secret to him about the mysterious case.

In "Beyond the Door", a man buys a cuckoo clock for his wife who has always wanted one. When he catches her cheating on him, the man throws his wife out of the house with her lover. Though he never really cared for the clock, he keeps winding it because he dislikes the silence. But the cuckoo clock, who preferred the wife's company, begins to plot against its owner.

Mr. Spaceship is set in the distant future, where humanity is at war with "Yuks", an alien life form which does not use mechanical spaceships nor constructions. Instead, it relies on life forms. The war has been going on for a long time, and humanity has not been able to come up with a solution against the life form-based ships and mines that the Yuks use. One day, a team of researchers led by our hero Philip Kramer decides to build a spaceship which is powered by a human brain!

"Second Variety" is a short story by Philip K. Dick, first published in Space Science Fiction magazine, in 1953. A nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the West has reduced much of the world to a barren wasteland. The war continues, however, among the scattered remains of humanity. The Western forces have developed "claws", which are autonomous self-replicating robots to fight on their side. It is one of Dick's many stories in which nuclear war has rendered the Earth's surface uninhabitable.

Tony Rossi is 10 years old and lives on a planet in the Betelgeuse system with his parents. Tony's race has inhabited the planet as conquerors for eons, but today as Tony goes to town to play with his Pac-udeti friends, there is a difference. The normally submissive Pac-udeti have developed an attitude. The war has taken a turn, and the long subjugated Pac-udeti are winning.

This audiobook contains stories from the pen of Philip K. Dick, a science-fiction writer of the 50's. The stories are: "Beyond Lies the Wub", "The Gun" & "Beyond the Door".

In "Crystal Crypt", taken from the 1954 Planet Stories, the war between Mars and Terra is about to erupt and Earth has only merchants and salesmen to fight; can they carry out their mission? Will Earth be defeated, or can these non-military people scrape together a defense in time? As usual, Philip Dick gives us a rousing, highly entertaining, and exciting story with a great ending.

"The Skull" is a skilful mesh of time travel, unscrupulous governments, prisoners, and religion - with an assassin thrown in for good measure. Enjoy!

Aliens have invaded the Earth! Horrible one-celled creatures disguised as normal human beings! Well, at least that is what it seems to the author. Yes, "The Eyes Have It" is a whimsical story, making gentle fun of certain writing styles, but only a top-flight science-fictionist like Philip Dick , we thought, could have written this story, in just this way.

The terrible destruction of total nuclear war between the Western and Eastern Blocks has succeeded in sterilizing the surface of the earth. No living creature can now exist there and all humans, on both sides, have fled to the hives built miles below the surface where they constantly work to produce the war materials necessary to carry on the battle. For eight years now, the actual fighting between these super powers has been conducted by robots known as Ledeys.

"His eyes followed her around the room." We know what is meant by that statement - or do we? Imagine the eyes literally following her around the room like a puppy. Our protagonist believes he has found an alien species that has invaded Earth. A rather humorous short story by Philip K. Dick.

Travelers from another solar system are drawn to a planet because of a nuclear blast on the planet. The only survivor of the blast appears to be an intelligent gun protecting a treasure. Philip K. Dick leaves us asking the question could this planet be ours?

Un’esplosione in un impianto nucleare scaglia otto persone in un universo impazzito in cui le leggi non sono più quelle conosciute, dove i miracoli esistono e si può volare in Paradiso appesi al manico di un ombrello, oppure si può far scomparire il mare o il cielo con la forza del pensiero, e dove una casa può trasformarsi in un mostro orrendo pronto a divorare i suoi abitanti. Come in una scatola cinese, i protagonisti attraversano una sorta di inferno dantesco popolato dai peggiori incubi della loro psiche, in un itinerario di scoperta e formazione.

Thors Provoni è una figura leggendaria per quasi tutta la razza umana: partito per le stelle in cerca di aiuto per la Terra, però, è ormai dato per disperso nelle profondità cosmiche. Non è ancora stata trovata alcuna prova dell'esistenza di una qualsiasi altra razza intelligente e comunque, anche se esistesse, resta da verificare se sia disposta a venire in soccorso dell'homo sapiens su un pianeta in cui questi non è altro che un cittadino di seconda classe.

Odissea nello spazio, viaggio attraverso lo specchio, sfida alla realtà e ai suoi simulacri, all'identità e al potere che vuole plasmarla, questo libro mostra il percorso che conduce a una sia pur provvisoria verità come tortuoso e difficile. E nella narrativa dickiana non esiste un intervento divino che salvi Rachmael dalla falsa utopia di Bocca di Balena, come un novello Giona. Ma almeno, il fatto che il protagonista si ponga la domanda su quale sia la via della conoscenza – What way? – 'implica che una risposta, seppure parziale o insoddisfacente, possa ancora esistere.'