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The Collected Works of Philip K. Dick: 11 Science Fiction Stories

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"The Collected Works of Philip K. Dick" is a collection of 11 short stories by Philip K. Dick. This book is a perfect collection of exciting science fiction stories from a writer who wrote about the people he loved and placed them in the unique alternate worlds that his mind had created. Included in this book:

1. Beyond Lies the Wub
2. Beyond the Door
3. Mr. Spaceship
4. Piper in the Woods
5. Second Variety
6. The Crystal Crypt
7. The Defenders
8. The Eyes Have It
9. The Gun
10. The Skull
11. The Variable Man

282 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 5, 2012

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About the author

Philip K. Dick

2,007 books22.4k followers
Philip 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

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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
Profile Image for Stuart.
722 reviews338 followers
November 10, 2015
The Collected Works of Philip K. Dick: 11 Science Fiction Stories by Philip K Dick
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
During his lifetime, Philip K Dick published 44 novels, 121 short stories, and 14 short story collections. If you are interested in getting his short stories, you can find many of his earliest stories available in various combinations on Kindle for $0.99 or $1.99 since they are public domain now. For more dedicated fans, you can get the five-volume series The Collected Short Stories of Philip K Dick, which contains over 100 of his short stories (over 2,000 pages) from throughout his career. But what if you want audio versions?

If you search for his short stories on audio, there’s surprisingly little. Considering how cheap some of the e-book collections are, you’d expect much more, but the best overall deal I could find was the $1.99 Collected Works of Philip K. Dick: 11 Science Fiction Stories (narrated by Kevin Killavey), which if you buy on Kindle first, you can then get the Audible version for just $1.99. There is also Minority Report and Other Stories (narrated by Keir Dullea), which contains some of his stories that have become films, including "The Minority Report" (Minority Report), "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" (Total Recall), "Paycheck" (Paycheck), and "Second Variety" (Screamers). If you want to hear some of his most well-known stories from the early 1950s, The Collected Works of Philip K. Dick: 11 Science Fiction Stories is a good solution.

All the typical early PKD themes are well represented, humans vs. robots, Cold War tensions between Americans & Russians (or between Terrans and Martians/Centaurans), the recurrent theme of nuclear destruction of civilization, the slippery nature of reality, and the classic ironic twist at the end. Sure, many of the details feel very dated (they’re over 60 years old, after all!), but they remain pretty effective stories. These ideas were frequently also in his early novels in the 1950s, as he frantically churned out a steady flow of stories and novels to pay the bills. But the quality and originality of these stories is quite high. Here are brief descriptions of the 11 stories in this collection:

Beyond Lies the Wub (1952): A crew of spacemen on Mars are loading up on food supplies and purchase a Wub, which turns out to be highly intelligent, peaceful, and likes to discuss literature, but Captain Franco seems intent on killing and eating the Wub, since it looks like a delicious pig. This was PKD’s first published story, and contains a clever twist at the end that you might miss if you’re not paying attention.

Beyond the Door (1954): A man buys a cuckoo clock and takes it home to his wife, who is closer to her male co-worker. This is not really a SF story, and has more to do with troubled marriages and frustrations.

Mr. Spaceship (1953): This was one of better stories, about a spaceship that has an old man’s consciousness embedded in it to be used in a galactic war, but which has ‘a mind of its own’. It’s a surprisingly touching tale of memory and longing. It’s also an early treatment of a spaceship with a human mind built in, and this theme has inspired many variations in the genre, including the AIs of Iain M. Banks’ CULTURE series, as well as Anne Leckie’s IMPERIAL RADCH trilogy.

Piper in the Woods (1953): This is a SF story with a fantasy feel, as a doctor on Earth examines soldiers returned from an asteroid that insist they are plants. The doctor visits the asteroid and discovers that the soldiers are claiming an indigenous people of “Pipers” in the woods are responsible for opening their eyes to being plants. The doctor searches for them in vain, but the story takes a surprising turn when he gets back to Earth. I’m not sure exactly how any asteroid could have an atmosphere, let alone a forest, but this story does have PKD’s playful tricks.

Second Variety (1953): This is another standout story, a surprisingly tense and chilling story about a future nuclear war which has reduced civilization to rubble, but the war continues thanks to “claws”, which are self-replicating robots that essentially attack any human being and slice them to bits with whirring blades. They were made by the US against the Russians, but they have apparently begun to made newer versions of themselves to be more effective killing machines, including humanoid forms. The entire time I listened to this I was reminded of James Cameron’s TERMINATOR films, since they ‘claws’ ruthlessly try to infiltrate the remnants of humanity hidden in bunkers, and wreak havoc when they get in. The story focuses on several characters who are trying to identify the unknown “second variety” of humanoid robots, and we can see all the classic paranoia over who is human and who is robot, which would later be explored in greater depth in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Bladerunner. This was apparently made into a film called Screamers (1995), but the reviews are universally negative so I don’t plan on watching it.

The Crystal Crypt (1954): This is another story about future war, this time between the Earth and Mars. It’s more of an espionage piece, very much a product of the Cold War, as several Earth agents seeks to get off Mars and back to Earth with a very valuable bargaining chip, and attempt to stay ahead of Martian forces that have lie-detecting abilities. The method by which they get this valuable object is so completely far-fetched it borders on ridiculous, so I wasn’t that impressed by this story.

The Defenders (1953): This was an excellent story, again about a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR, which has forced all of humanity deep underground. However, the war is carried out by lethal robots built by both sides that can withstand the radiation above ground. Humanity continues to toil away producing more and more advanced weaponry for the robots to carry on the battle. However, after several years some Americans become suspicious about real conditions outside the bunkers, and get a huge surprise when the sneak outside for a peek. This is a classic PKD tale in which the apparent reality is completely untrue, and questions whether robots created for war will continue to do so forever.

The Eyes Have It (1953): This is brief and humorous story that basically plays on the literal nature of expressions like “give her a hand”, “doesn’t have a brain in his head”, “his stomach was completely empty”, etc. It’s fun but not particularly substantial.

The Gun (1952): This is an effective story about space explorers who find a planet that seems devoid of life, but then their ship is shot down and they crash land. They discover a giant automated gun that seems to be guarding the skies. They manage to destroy it and steal the treasure it protects, but there is a twist at the end I won’t reveal.

The Skull (1952): This one was a bit confusing at first, but involves a prisoner and hunter being given the chance at freedom if he agrees to go back in time and kill a man who began a religious movement that ended warfare. It’s ironic that the future society wants to eliminate this, claiming that war is useful for getting rid of worthless people in society. And while they cannot reveal the identity of the target, they give him his skull to help recognize him. He goes back to 1960 and a very paranoid small-town community that is extremely suspicious of strangers, and are quick to think he is a Communist spy. The story is as much about the Red Scare paranoia as time travel, but it has the inevitable twist that I thought was fairly predictable.

The Variable Man (1953): This is the longest story in the collection, a novella about a future war between the growing Terran empire and the larger but deteriorating Centauran Empire. Terrans wish to expand beyond the Solar System, but the Centaurans are keeping them contained, so a war erupts as both sides develop an endless series of weapons to counter each other in a frantic arms race. The Terrans discover a technology that allows FTL travel, but because of faults it destroys the object when it comes out of FTL speed. They hope to use this as a bomb to destroy the Centauran star, but need technical help to complete the weapon. So who do they turn to? Well, how about an uneducated fix-up man from 1913 accidentally transported in a time bubble? SAY WHAT? Yes, this made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but this man (yes, the Variable Man of the title) has a natural knack for mechanical things, and apparently can intuitively figure out what is wrong with the FTL bomb and fixes it up by mucking around with the circuitry. WTF???? Well, nobody ever said PKD was a future science expert.

Anyway, there is a massive battle between one side allied with the main strategist for the Terran plan, and the Polish scientist who is handling the FTL bomb on the other side, and a good part of the story is occupied with a pretty intense and extended running battle between these forces, with the poor fix-it guy the target of the Terran strategist because the entire strategy rests on the calculation of favorable odds by a super-computer, and the “Variable Man” is screwing up the calculations. So despite his help being the only reason that the Terrans have a chance, one faction is expending bombs, laser beams, and whole squadrons of soldiers trying to kill him. It’s all very absurd but played straight. And in the end there is another surprise revelation about the fix-it guy’s genius. This story felt the most Golden Age pulpy of the collection, and despite being fast-paced it really stretched my credulity many times.
Profile Image for Don Gagnon.
36 reviews40 followers
December 15, 2017
Excellent collection of eleven entertaining and thought provoking science fiction short stories!

The stories are varied and well written, combining universal themes such as human nature, traveling through time, exploring space, individual freedom and social responsibility, war and peace, love and hate, nature and technology, art and science. . . .
Profile Image for tlmfarmgirl.
84 reviews11 followers
October 12, 2022
I've been listening to these here and there. I have a couple left to listen to. I think a lot of them are interesting and give you something to think about for a while afterwards.
232 reviews
August 10, 2018
I like Philip K Dick. I couldn’t get through this Audible version. It might be me, the stories rambled and bled together. Not able to start and stop a story. Might be best to dedicate time slot to listen to each story beginning to end.
Profile Image for Richard Wiedeman.
Author 2 books2 followers
April 30, 2024
Very much enjoyed this collection, in particular “Beyond Lies the Wub” (short story, 1952) and “The Variable Man” (novella, 1953). It was fun to see the young writer’s voice developing (he was in his mid-20s).
87 reviews
April 22, 2024
I really enjoyed these. Was fun set of short sci Fi stories. Defn was a neat take on some stuff. Will read more from this Author.
Profile Image for Olivia Avon.
14 reviews
January 29, 2021
Excellent short sci fi collections. I liked the ones that made me think a bit more than usual. The stories include varieties of types. Definitely a good collection. If you want to read old days' sci fi that would make you wonder just what if, and if you are looking to enter a short journey, this is a good book.
Profile Image for Jeff.
59 reviews
October 24, 2013
As much as PKD was a ground-breaking, genre-establishing Master of SF, his work shows the weight of the passage of a generation. In this age of computer literacy. space exploration, and AI, these stories beg to be re-written to keep up with science and a more sophisticated readership.
For example, a person cannot just jump into a spaceship, turn it on, and drive it from the Earth to the Moon, as if it were a sports car, with no accounting for telemetry, gravity, gravitational acceleration, orbital landing approach, etc., etc. etc.
Every single one of these stories contains at least one obvious lapse of science in a supposedly scientific context.
And what's worse, if the obvious science were taken into account, it would have made for much more believable endings.

What is more interesting is how the characters and their actions in the stories reflect a much simpler and more trusting time they were written in. The security that the survival of barracks, cities, and planets depends on is almost on the order of "my word is my bond".

However, some of the ideas are timeless, and still inspire the imaginations of science fiction writers and movie producers everywhere.

Who will take up the mission of upgrading PKD's stories?

233 reviews
March 25, 2016
Like Philip Dick's body of work in general, this collection is wildly uneven. There a few really outstanding stories, some that are okay, and a number of real dogs. In my opinion, the last story, 'The Variable Man' should never have been included. It's long, about a quarter or more of the total length of the book, and pretty terrible.
Profile Image for Claudia.
58 reviews
March 25, 2015
Great Sci-fi Shorts!

Phillip K. Dick is an outstanding science fiction author. I have enjoyed numerous full length novels and this short story collection does not disappoint! Highly recommended for those who do not have the time for a full length book without sacrificing quality.
3 reviews
December 4, 2012
This is a great collection of 11 Philip K. Dick stories for Kindle. The stories themselves are superb. One of the best science fiction collections available on Amazon. Recommended to all.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews

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