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Stability
Robert Benton is summoned to a meeting by the Control Office, where he is that a patent application he filed for an invention has been unsuccessful, as the invention could threaten Stability. Benton is surprised, because as far as he was aware he had not filed any such application. Returning home with a set of plans and prototype device given "back" to him by the office, he discovers it to be a time machine.
Activating the device, Benton finds himself transported to an unknown point in history and confronted with what appears to be a living city contained in a glass globe. Despite being warned not to by a mysterious voice claiming to be a "guardian" against evil, Benton feels compelled to take the globe; it then telepathically informs him how to use the machine to return to his own time. Benton does so, but travels to a point in time shortly before he originally left, and deposits his "invention" and the plans at the Control office as a patent application, creating a bootstrap paradox.
After Benton leaves, the Controllers deduce what has happened and go to Benton's home in order to end the threat to Stability. Discovering Benton and the city, one Controller recounts hearing an ancient story of an evil city that had been enclosed in glass for the protection of everyone else. The Controllers attempt to take the globe from Benton, but it breaks, releasing a strange mist, and Benton loses consciousness.
Benton awakes to find himself living in a city where the human inhabitants exist only to service "their Machines". However, neither he nor anyone else has any memory of things being any different; as far as they are aware, life has always been like this.
Activating the device, Benton finds himself transported to an unknown point in history and confronted with what appears to be a living city contained in a glass globe. Despite being warned not to by a mysterious voice claiming to be a "guardian" against evil, Benton feels compelled to take the globe; it then telepathically informs him how to use the machine to return to his own time. Benton does so, but travels to a point in time shortly before he originally left, and deposits his "invention" and the plans at the Control office as a patent application, creating a bootstrap paradox.
After Benton leaves, the Controllers deduce what has happened and go to Benton's home in order to end the threat to Stability. Discovering Benton and the city, one Controller recounts hearing an ancient story of an evil city that had been enclosed in glass for the protection of everyone else. The Controllers attempt to take the globe from Benton, but it breaks, releasing a strange mist, and Benton loses consciousness.
Benton awakes to find himself living in a city where the human inhabitants exist only to service "their Machines". However, neither he nor anyone else has any memory of things being any different; as far as they are aware, life has always been like this.
12 pages
First published January 1, 1987
1 person is currently reading
68 people want to read
About the author
Philip K. Dick
2,016 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 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 26, 2020
It is rare to find an early piece by a superior writer which contains the essence of all the great work which is to come. It is rare, but it does happen, and such a work is Philip K. Dick’s story “Stability.”
Written in 1947, but not published until years later, “Stability” begins with a typical SF premise: what would happen in a society that decides it has reached an ideal point of progress and attempts to freeze itself there? What happens when a civilization imposes an artificial stability?
The story begins with this premise, but it sure doesn’t end there. Before the reader is done, he will have his mind blown—in typical Dick fashion—by time travel devices, cosmic watchers, telepathy, a tiny city contained in a ball of glass, and end up with a profound loss of memory in a society instantly and radically transformed. (Was it really? Or has it always been this way, after all?)
My favorite part of the story, though, is the lyrical beginning, when our hero Robert Benton takes a morning soar on artificial wings, floating over the city at dawn. The beauty of this passage sticks with the reader, and lends a special richness—and poignancy—to the story’s disturbing conclusion.
March 9, 2016
Hell of a ride through space and time: that has left me completely dazzled.
June 28, 2017
The City That Never Slept
A friend of mine once told me that Joseph Conrad was one of his favourite authors, and when I, highly pleased with the display of so much taste, asked him which novel or story he liked best, he replied that up to now he had not read anything by the man but when he saw Conrad’s books in a shelf and weighed one or two of them in his hands, he decided that Conrad would make a good favourite author.
A few days ago, I had a similar experience with Philip K. Dick. I came across a book by him, and without ever having read any of his tales or novels, I was struck by the sudden insight, or even conviction that he and I might more likely than not get on very, very well together. And when a little later I came across a sentence like
it all became crystal-clear to me: Philip K. Dick was one of my favourite authors, and I lost no time entering him into my GR of favourite authors. There was a vacant space, anyway, because last winter I chucked out Zola of that list, finding that he no longer really impressed me with his somehow wooden presentations of the French bourgeoisie of his day and age. And yesterday, when evening approached and the house became quieter, I thought it a good opportunity to finally start reading something by this new favourite author of mine, and Stability was the first story that attracted my attention. Twenty minutes later I knew that once again I had proved a splendid judge on writers.
In Stability we get, all in a nutshell, some initial moments of beauty in an otherwise seemingly dystopian society, which is based on keeping up a concept of stability seeing that civilization has apparently reached its peak and will not improve on a noteworthy scale. For this reason, any major changes are to be forestalled, and this also involves making sure that the few new inventions that are still being made will not endanger the status quo. Time travel is considered one of the technological advances that will prove dangerous to stability, and therefore the hero of our story, who apparently, strangely without knowing it, has invented a time travel device, is to be prevented from having his invention patented, which will lead to one of those fascinating time travel paradoxes, which are called bootstrap paradoxes. When the protagonist hits on a city that on account of its evil ways was incarcerated into a small glass orb by God Himself, the story takes yet another turn, one into the downright fantastic.
Stability left me thinking for quite a while, because I was asking myself whether it might not have a very conservative message after all, along the lines of how much better it is to bear the ills one has rather than flying to others that one knows not of, or whether it might not be a sarcastic comment on the impossibility of ensuring the end of history, at least when it is understood as a state of beings in which mankind has completely taken control of itself.
A quick Internet research made me realize that Stability was written as early as maybe 1947 but was published forty years later. If all Dick’s stories are like that, I must say that it was very clever of me to rank him among my favourite writers.
A friend of mine once told me that Joseph Conrad was one of his favourite authors, and when I, highly pleased with the display of so much taste, asked him which novel or story he liked best, he replied that up to now he had not read anything by the man but when he saw Conrad’s books in a shelf and weighed one or two of them in his hands, he decided that Conrad would make a good favourite author.
A few days ago, I had a similar experience with Philip K. Dick. I came across a book by him, and without ever having read any of his tales or novels, I was struck by the sudden insight, or even conviction that he and I might more likely than not get on very, very well together. And when a little later I came across a sentence like
”Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”
it all became crystal-clear to me: Philip K. Dick was one of my favourite authors, and I lost no time entering him into my GR of favourite authors. There was a vacant space, anyway, because last winter I chucked out Zola of that list, finding that he no longer really impressed me with his somehow wooden presentations of the French bourgeoisie of his day and age. And yesterday, when evening approached and the house became quieter, I thought it a good opportunity to finally start reading something by this new favourite author of mine, and Stability was the first story that attracted my attention. Twenty minutes later I knew that once again I had proved a splendid judge on writers.
In Stability we get, all in a nutshell, some initial moments of beauty in an otherwise seemingly dystopian society, which is based on keeping up a concept of stability seeing that civilization has apparently reached its peak and will not improve on a noteworthy scale. For this reason, any major changes are to be forestalled, and this also involves making sure that the few new inventions that are still being made will not endanger the status quo. Time travel is considered one of the technological advances that will prove dangerous to stability, and therefore the hero of our story, who apparently, strangely without knowing it, has invented a time travel device, is to be prevented from having his invention patented, which will lead to one of those fascinating time travel paradoxes, which are called bootstrap paradoxes. When the protagonist hits on a city that on account of its evil ways was incarcerated into a small glass orb by God Himself, the story takes yet another turn, one into the downright fantastic.
Stability left me thinking for quite a while, because I was asking myself whether it might not have a very conservative message after all, along the lines of how much better it is to bear the ills one has rather than flying to others that one knows not of, or whether it might not be a sarcastic comment on the impossibility of ensuring the end of history, at least when it is understood as a state of beings in which mankind has completely taken control of itself.
A quick Internet research made me realize that Stability was written as early as maybe 1947 but was published forty years later. If all Dick’s stories are like that, I must say that it was very clever of me to rank him among my favourite writers.
October 24, 2019
Este cuento, que Dick escribió a sus 19 años, no fue publicado en vida del autor, y recién vio la luz en 1987, como pieza inaugural del primer y póstumo volumen de sus cuentos completos. Se entiende que se lo haya incluido en aras de la completitud; también se entiende que Dick no haya querido publicarlo. Es una obra todavía inmadura, de ritmo enclenque y con una mescolanza de temas, entre los que sin embargo pueden distinguirse ya las grandes obsesiones del autor.
September 11, 2018
That was slightly terrifying.
November 15, 2020
#Relato1: "Estabilidad" de Philip K. Dick (libro "Cuentos Completos I")
El título de este relato hace referencia al estado en el que se encuentra la sociedad en la que vive el protagonista, Robert Denton.
Se trata de un mundo en el que el Gobierno ha dictaminado que no es imposible inventar nada más, ya que el ser humano ha alcanzado las cotas más altas en inventiva. La sorpresa es que no solo se ha declarado el fin del I+D, sino que además se prohíbe todo aquel invento que pueda hacer tambalearse al estado de "Estabilidad".
El autor nos explica brevemente que cuando se declaró este tipo de Estado, cayó la bolsa, se encarecieron los precios de los alimentos y se provocaron muchos disturbios. Da la sensación de que es un tipo de sociedad que no favorece a nadie, pero que sin embargo permite tener controlada a toda la población.
Nuestro protagonista entra en escena agitando sus alas de quita y pon como si se tratara de su medio de transporte habitual. Se le acaba de denegar el desarrollo de un invento que no recuerda haber presentado. Es a partir de aquí cuando la trama entra de lleno en el conflicto del relato -del cual no desvelaré nada para no hacer spoiler- para acabar ofreciéndonos uno de esos finales entre el terror y la ciencia ficción, al más puro estilo “Más allá del límite”, queda a merced del lector la interpretación de esta historia sobre autoesclavitud y control total de la población.
#UnRelatoCadaDía
https://www.facebook.com/RinconRevuelto
El título de este relato hace referencia al estado en el que se encuentra la sociedad en la que vive el protagonista, Robert Denton.
Se trata de un mundo en el que el Gobierno ha dictaminado que no es imposible inventar nada más, ya que el ser humano ha alcanzado las cotas más altas en inventiva. La sorpresa es que no solo se ha declarado el fin del I+D, sino que además se prohíbe todo aquel invento que pueda hacer tambalearse al estado de "Estabilidad".
El autor nos explica brevemente que cuando se declaró este tipo de Estado, cayó la bolsa, se encarecieron los precios de los alimentos y se provocaron muchos disturbios. Da la sensación de que es un tipo de sociedad que no favorece a nadie, pero que sin embargo permite tener controlada a toda la población.
Nuestro protagonista entra en escena agitando sus alas de quita y pon como si se tratara de su medio de transporte habitual. Se le acaba de denegar el desarrollo de un invento que no recuerda haber presentado. Es a partir de aquí cuando la trama entra de lleno en el conflicto del relato -del cual no desvelaré nada para no hacer spoiler- para acabar ofreciéndonos uno de esos finales entre el terror y la ciencia ficción, al más puro estilo “Más allá del límite”, queda a merced del lector la interpretación de esta historia sobre autoesclavitud y control total de la población.
#UnRelatoCadaDía
https://www.facebook.com/RinconRevuelto
September 10, 2021
My aim is to read all of Philip's books in order, not all at once, but occasionally when i feel the urge to have my head done in a little bit. And this, my blog/review readers, is Philip's very first.
While it's only a little short story, it quite an entertaining one set in a dystopian future with a time machine screwing with people's heads.
A great beginning to a great writer's bibliography.
Available in The Collected Stories: Volume 1 .
While it's only a little short story, it quite an entertaining one set in a dystopian future with a time machine screwing with people's heads.
A great beginning to a great writer's bibliography.
Available in The Collected Stories: Volume 1 .
August 27, 2024
Gosh, it's been a while since I've read any Dick. It always astounds me how he can make you feel uncomfortable and get the brain working in such a small time frame.
This is an excellent little short revolving around a predestination paradox that ultimately leads to horrific consequences for humanity. Was left festering in my brain all day once I'd finished reading it.
This is an excellent little short revolving around a predestination paradox that ultimately leads to horrific consequences for humanity. Was left festering in my brain all day once I'd finished reading it.
November 14, 2020
Stability is a highly unstable story with paradoxical time-shifts. Just another day at the office, would PKD think.
May 6, 2021
Desborda creatividad
March 21, 2023
not as horrible as i expected it to be, but the beginning is still insufferable
December 17, 2023
Estabilidad
Primer cuento inedito del autor, resulto interesante pero desconcertante, promete mucho
Primer cuento inedito del autor, resulto interesante pero desconcertante, promete mucho
October 1, 2024
Stability- a time machine that might (will) create instability.
March 24, 2017
En el mundo dónde la "Estabilidad" lo es todo, han evolucionado hasta el punto de no poder permitirse otra cosa. Entonces Philip nos pasea por viajes en el tiempo, eternos vigilantes de nuestro mundo que viven en una pequeña bola de cristal y poseen la capacidad de comunicarse telepáticamente. Ellos quieren liberarse pero eso implicaría un cambio en la Estabilidad que el gobierno no está dispuesto a otorgar (aunque no sepa nada de estos seres).
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews