PKD-13: Thirteen Short Stories (Illustrated & Annotated)

by Philip K. Dick

Overview

13 classic stories by science fiction author Philip K. Dick.

Includes:

130 footnotes
16 original illustrations
"About the Author" segment
List of movies based on Philip K. Dick's works
List of Philip K. Dick's awards and nominations

Expertly formatted for easy reading.

BEYOND LIES THE WUB

The slovenly wub might well have said: Many men talk like philosophers and live like fools.

THE GUN

Nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead. Only the gun showed signs of life . . . and the trespassers had wrecked that for all time. The return journey to pick up the treasure would be a cinch . . . they smiled.

THE SKULL

Conger agreed to kill a stranger he had never seen. But he would make no mistakes because he had the stranger's skull under his arm.

THE DEFENDERS

No weapon has ever been frightful enough to put a stop to war -- perhaps because we never before had any that thought for themselves!

MR. SPACESHIP

A human brain-controlled spacecraft would mean mechanical perfection. This was accomplished, and something unforeseen: a strange entity called --

THE PIPER IN THE WOODS

Earth maintained an important garrison on Asteroid Y-3. Now suddenly it was imperiled with a biological impossibility -- men becoming plants!

SECOND VARIETY

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!

THE EYES HAVE IT

A little whimsy, now and then, makes for good balance. Theoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fictionist, we thought, could have written this story, in just this way....

THE VARIABLE MAN

He fixed things -- clocks, refrigerators, vidsenders and destinies. But he had no business in the future, where the calculators could not handle him. He was Earth's only hope -- and its sure failure!

THE HANGING STRANGER

Ed had always been a practical man, when he saw something wrong he tried to correct it. Then one day he saw IT hanging in the town square.

TONY AND THE BEETLES

A ten-year-old boy grows up fast when history catches up with the human race.

BEYOND THE DOOR

Larry Thomas bought a cuckoo clock for his wife -- without knowing the price he would have to pay.

Did you ever wonder at the lonely life the bird in the 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.

THE CRYSTAL CRYPT

Terror was rampant on the final Mars-Earth run. For black-clad Leiters were on the prowl ... and the grim red planet was not far behind.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940151461450
Publisher:	Xanamania Publishing
Publication date:	03/25/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Philip Kindred Dick (PKD) was born December 16, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. His fraternal-twin sister, Jane Charlotte, was born twenty minutes later. Due to a lack of proper medical care, Jane died six weeks later and he barely survived. The trauma of Jane's death would torment the author throughout the rest of his life, and elements of a "phantom twin" and dualism would feature prominently in his writing.

In October 1951, PKD sold his first short story, "Roog," to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, to be published in the November 1953 issue. He would work long hours writing more stories. Additional sales to magazines such as Astounding and Galaxy followed. After he was fired from his Art Music job, he became a full-time writer. PKD hired an agent, Scott Meredith, and was writing and publishing an ever increasing volume of work: four stories in 1952, thirty in 1953, and twenty-eight in 1954. Unfortunately, writing SF stories did not pay well and he felt humiliated barely being able to support himself and his second wife, Kleo. He would live in poverty or near poverty until the 1970s. He continued his voracious reading of literature, with a focus on metaphysical and theological works. He attended the 1954 Science Fiction Worldcon, where he met and befriended a young SF writer named Harlan Ellison. The two would later become close friends.

PKD continued his prolific writing streak, writing over eighty stories and thirteen novels (seven mainstream, six SF) from 1951 to 1958. He was dismayed that while his SF novels would quickly be published, publishers were uninterested in his mainstream novels. He changed his focus from writing stories to writing novels. Two consistent themes emerged in PKD's work: What is human? and What is real?

In the late 1970s, PKD's earnings would increase greatly. He earned $101,000 in 1978 and $75,000 in 1979. In 1981, Ridley Scott directed the classic SF film Blade Runner, based on PKD's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Hollywood studios continued to buy options for films based on his other works.

Philip K. Dick died on March 2, 1982, aged 53, after suffering a stroke and a heart attack. His ashes are buried in Fort Morgan, Colorado, next to his twin sister Jane. He was married and divorced five times and fathered three children: Laura Archer (born February 25, 1960), Isolde Freya (born March 15, 1967), and Christopher Kenneth (born July 25, 1973).