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The Hood Maker
Teeps were feared because they were telepaths - but the telepaths had a fear too!
“The Hood Maker” was published in Imagination in June 1955. It can be found in We Can Remember It For You Wholesale: The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 2 on pp. 237–248.
-- Philip K. Dick Review
“The Hood Maker” was published in Imagination in June 1955. It can be found in We Can Remember It For You Wholesale: The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 2 on pp. 237–248.
-- Philip K. Dick Review
12 pages, Periodical
First published June 1, 1955
128 people want to read
About the author
Philip K. Dick
2,006 books22.5k 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 - 20 of 20 reviews
November 17, 2018
Rating: 4* of five
The story was a tense, quick hit of paranoia. It's the development of PKD's longtime obsession with the development of the surveillance state that he, earlier than most, saw in its darkest and most accurate outlines. In the story, the teeps (telepathic humans) are surveillance agents for a frighteningly invasive US government, one that PKD was already fearful of by 1953 during the McCarthy era. He'd wig the fuck out at the internet age plus the NSA and its multivarious powers. The same refrain appears in the story as does in internet discourse: "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear! We're not interested in your petty life, we want to *protect* you by knowing everything about you."
No more true now than it was then.
The episode...a dark, grimy thing...is the opposite. The teeps are an oppressed minority. They're here for different reasons than are the PKD story teeps. The dramatis personae are shifted around as well. Motivations are skewed off the story beam.
But none of that is the source of my lack of passionate love for the episode. It's true that the high point of my watching experience is, so far, "Human Is." This episode isn't up to that standard for multiple reasons. One of the biggest is the sheer filthiness of the lighting, the whackbashthud of the Symbolic Fog, the Endlessly Flickering Lights, the rattletrap Vauxhalls practically disintegrating before our eyes. It's like an awkward hommage to Blade Runner made on a shoestring.
One of the key images running through the episode is of Richard Madden's cop character as a child standing in a trout stream fishing with his dad. Beautiful, fast-running water with all sorts of greenery and places for the quarry to hide. GET IT? HUH? DO YA GET IT already because believe you me you'll be seeing it again! And again! And yet again!
It doesn't help my opinion of the director much that Holliday Grainger's teep/partner cop character wades in this hommage-à-Millais scene with her red Ophelia hair:
It's just too damned unsubtle to be effective, though I give the writer and the producers big props for flipping the script and making the stakes so very much higher: Actual survival. Actual, in-progress survival of two different Homo species. But Ophelia! Mad Ophelia, absent agency and unable to comprehend the death hiding in the water? Betrayed Ophelia, deprived of a sense of up or down by a man's duplicity? BANGBANGBANG on the metal door with only an eye-slit and backlit by flames! UNDERSTAND ME?! ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION NOW?!
*ahem*
Excellent, and I do mean excellent, is the re-envisioned Hoods. The ones PKD described are bland and technological and uninteresting, while these Hoods are genius for their improved metaphorical impact, their stunning cheapness of manufacture for mass distribution thus making them easy for Home Viewer to accept, and their deepening of the thread running through the episode that I most liked: books.
That's right, one and all, this episode more than any previous one in the series (as Amazon is presenting them in the US, not as ITV did in the UK) brings books to the visual and textual fore. Richard Madden's quite nice apartment is *crammed* with books. The Hoods are made from bookish material. They're made in an old book depository.
Okay okay, they went overboard here as well but it's about books so I ain't zingin' 'em on it. And this leads me to a note of *harrumph* about Prime's ordering of the episodes: This is the first episode channel 4 aired in the UK. This strikes me as a better intro to the series in many ways than was "Autofac" (though the young man who's the mostly-nude boytoy of the revolutionary woman is a librarian, and the revolutionary explicitly says that's his appeal for her).
But no matter what, this episode's heaviness, visual, metaphorical, message-laden heaviness, would've come better before the light, deft, peak viewing experience of "Human Is." Watch this one first. Then follow Prime's order.
The story was a tense, quick hit of paranoia. It's the development of PKD's longtime obsession with the development of the surveillance state that he, earlier than most, saw in its darkest and most accurate outlines. In the story, the teeps (telepathic humans) are surveillance agents for a frighteningly invasive US government, one that PKD was already fearful of by 1953 during the McCarthy era. He'd wig the fuck out at the internet age plus the NSA and its multivarious powers. The same refrain appears in the story as does in internet discourse: "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear! We're not interested in your petty life, we want to *protect* you by knowing everything about you."
No more true now than it was then.
The episode...a dark, grimy thing...is the opposite. The teeps are an oppressed minority. They're here for different reasons than are the PKD story teeps. The dramatis personae are shifted around as well. Motivations are skewed off the story beam.
But none of that is the source of my lack of passionate love for the episode. It's true that the high point of my watching experience is, so far, "Human Is." This episode isn't up to that standard for multiple reasons. One of the biggest is the sheer filthiness of the lighting, the whackbashthud of the Symbolic Fog, the Endlessly Flickering Lights, the rattletrap Vauxhalls practically disintegrating before our eyes. It's like an awkward hommage to Blade Runner made on a shoestring.
One of the key images running through the episode is of Richard Madden's cop character as a child standing in a trout stream fishing with his dad. Beautiful, fast-running water with all sorts of greenery and places for the quarry to hide. GET IT? HUH? DO YA GET IT already because believe you me you'll be seeing it again! And again! And yet again!
It doesn't help my opinion of the director much that Holliday Grainger's teep/partner cop character wades in this hommage-à-Millais scene with her red Ophelia hair:
It's just too damned unsubtle to be effective, though I give the writer and the producers big props for flipping the script and making the stakes so very much higher: Actual survival. Actual, in-progress survival of two different Homo species. But Ophelia! Mad Ophelia, absent agency and unable to comprehend the death hiding in the water? Betrayed Ophelia, deprived of a sense of up or down by a man's duplicity? BANGBANGBANG on the metal door with only an eye-slit and backlit by flames! UNDERSTAND ME?! ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION NOW?!
*ahem*
Excellent, and I do mean excellent, is the re-envisioned Hoods. The ones PKD described are bland and technological and uninteresting, while these Hoods are genius for their improved metaphorical impact, their stunning cheapness of manufacture for mass distribution thus making them easy for Home Viewer to accept, and their deepening of the thread running through the episode that I most liked: books.
That's right, one and all, this episode more than any previous one in the series (as Amazon is presenting them in the US, not as ITV did in the UK) brings books to the visual and textual fore. Richard Madden's quite nice apartment is *crammed* with books. The Hoods are made from bookish material. They're made in an old book depository.
Okay okay, they went overboard here as well but it's about books so I ain't zingin' 'em on it. And this leads me to a note of *harrumph* about Prime's ordering of the episodes: This is the first episode channel 4 aired in the UK. This strikes me as a better intro to the series in many ways than was "Autofac" (though the young man who's the mostly-nude boytoy of the revolutionary woman is a librarian, and the revolutionary explicitly says that's his appeal for her).
But no matter what, this episode's heaviness, visual, metaphorical, message-laden heaviness, would've come better before the light, deft, peak viewing experience of "Human Is." Watch this one first. Then follow Prime's order.
July 2, 2019
First published in Imagination (1955), “The Hood Maker” is not only a good idea well plotted and executed, but it also contains the classic Dickian themes of total surveillance, paranoia, telepathy, the arrogance of totalitarian elites, and Nature’s often surprising—and subtle—capacity for revenge.
Set in a repressive society where the thoughts of all citizens are subject to examination by telepathic human mutants, a rebel inventor has devised a method by which a person may conceal disloyal hood: a hood that can protect the wearer from telepathic invasion. When Doctor Franklin receives such a hood in the mail, he puts it on. And then—very quickly—everything begins to change.
My favorite Dick stories are the ones that are filled with stunning inventions, mind-blowing twists and turns, and “The Hood Maker” is a little too conventional for my taste. Still, the issues raised are good ones, the plotting is artful, and the ending is surprising and satisfying.
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June 8, 2018
Torn between three and four stars, mostly because it made me smile-and laugh a little-and I enjoyed the lovely and very lively paranoia that exists in this society, but again the problem of too short and not explored more rose its ugly head.
Atmospheric in such a short space of time, and dropped straight in to the chase, it is-I feel I'm almost qualified enough to say-very Dickesque, and I like that a lot.
But there are little things, maybe not enough explanation in some places and maybe too much in others. And maybe dystopian societies are feeling a bit overdone (yeah, I know this was written years ago before it became Netflix's favourite genre-and by extension /yours/).
Atmospheric in such a short space of time, and dropped straight in to the chase, it is-I feel I'm almost qualified enough to say-very Dickesque, and I like that a lot.
But there are little things, maybe not enough explanation in some places and maybe too much in others. And maybe dystopian societies are feeling a bit overdone (yeah, I know this was written years ago before it became Netflix's favourite genre-and by extension /yours/).
October 12, 2020
What is the first thing you think of with the word “hood”? Something to protect, or something to conceal? Certainly a car hood protects the engine, and a lens hood protects the lens. The most usual type of hood, as an article of clothing, is to protect from inclement weather. It can also be a mark of esteem; as in academic or religious robes, or an indication of modesty, to conceal the hair, or lack of it. What else?
In the 1960s TV series “Thunderbirds”, which has recently been rebooted, “The Hood” is the dastardly villain, a master of disguise. He frequently wears a mask. Gerry Andersen, the creator of Thunderbirds, once explained that the name “Hood” was derived from the term “hoodlum”. Even more recently, youths wearing “hoodies”—jackets with a hood attached—would loiter on the streets, and it was assumed by many that this was for nefarious purposes, if their faces were concealed from routine surveillance cameras.
So in Philip K. Dick’s story from 1955, which, if any, of these connotations, might apply?
The beginning of the story gives us a big clue:
“‘A hood!’
’Somebody with a hood! …
‘Get him!’ The crowd swarmed forward. ‘The old man!’“
Now we know. This will be a story about paranoia, crowd mentality, and tapping into our secret fears of being “different”. It is dead central to Philip K. Dick’s oft-chosen themes, with a plot dominated by an authoritarian government. We see propaganda, telepaths, and surveillance which is well on the way to becoming thought control, all of which raise philosophical and sociological questions in our minds.
In this case, the totalitarian government is “The Free Union”; ironically named, as so many repressive regimes are. Doctor Walter Franklin is the “old man” pounced on with glee by the crowd at the beginning. He is a respectable and loyal member of the establishment and a “Director of the Federal Resources Commission”. He is baffled as to what he can have done wrong.
But in this Free Union, your thoughts are not your own. As a member of the crowd says belligerently:
“What you got to hide? … Nobody’s got a right to hide.” or as government official Clearance Director Ross, puts it:
“An innocent man has no reason to conceal his thoughts. Ninety-nine per cent of the population is glad to have its mind scanned, Most people want to prove their loyalty. But this one per cent is guilty of something.”
And someone in the crowd manages to snatch the offending article: a thin metal band around Doctor Franklin’s head, which conceals his thoughts by blocking out the government probes. But your thoughts are your own, aren’t they? No; not in this “Free Union”. Why would you need to hide your inner thoughts, if you were doing nothing wrong?
But not everyone feels this way. A small group of people prefer to keep their thoughts to themselves, and wear these thin metal strip “hoods”, which they have received as a gift in the post. Who has sent them, and why, is unknown. It is not illegal to wear a hood—or not yet. But there is an “Anti-Immunity Bill” following due process, and when this is law, the state will have carte blanche to probe into people’s private thoughts. Until then, it is left to the crowd of ordinary citizens, who are whipped up to victimise anyone wearing a hood.
In Philip K. Dick’s story there is another small group of people, this time with telepathic powers, commonly called “teeps”. These humans with telepathic powers are believed to be a genetic mutation, caused by an area of land being flooded by radiation. But unconventionally in Science Fiction, these teeps are not victimised, or exploited. They are employed by the Free Union to root out and eliminate its political opponents. The ordinary humans know this, and they obey the law, as they see it practised.
Doctor Franklin is rescued temporarily by the robocops, who advise him to stay indoors for his own safety. But there’s one problem. He now longer has his hood. It has fallen into the hands of a young telepath named Ernest Abbud. Telepaths receive a mild shock when they are in the vicinity of a hood, and it was Abbud who had manipulated the mob, in order to seize the hood from Doctor Franklin, and then scan him the moment the hood was removed.
Abbud reports to his bosses that unfortunately, Franklin has ideologically disloyal tendencies, and subversive thoughts. He is guilty of deviation, and should be picked up. Now Franklin really is on the run. But what disturbs Clearance Director Ross is that the telepath seems to have overstepped his duties, and produced this report without any official request. And what disturbs Abbud, and the rest of the telepaths, is that somebody is making probe screens, to keep them out.
“Before the teeps, loyalty probes had been haphazard. Oaths, examinations, wire-tappings, were not enough. The theory that each person had to prove his loyalty was fine—as a theory. In practice few people could do it. It looked as if the concept of guilty until proved innocent might have to be abandoned and the Roman law restored.”
On the run from arrest for deviation, Franklin is rescued by a young girl in what sounds like a futuristic jet car. She passes him a hood to shield his thoughts and then the car speeds off to meet …
Who is he likely to meet? And why was he selected to receive a hood in the first place? What, if anything, does he have in common with the others who have received hoods? And who is making them?
Doctor Franklin soon has the answer to this first question. Doctor Franklin is doubtful that this can be the case. He knows that Senator Waldo, who is the chief sponsor of the bill, would not be party to anything unethical.
There is a twist near the end, and then a nice further twist.
The Hood Maker is one of several stories Philip K. Dick wrote about the question of the surveillance state. In the middle of the 1950s American Science Fiction abounded with stories about paranoia, either from an alien race, or as this one, aliens already here.
The hood seems like a clever device to evade the ultimate in invasive security systems. Countering this, the repressive governments have telepaths, so there is no need to worry about disloyalty within the government; anyone with subversive thoughts would be discovered. Checkmate.
But complicating this, is the fact that And it is this which makes this story so chilling, and so relevant today. So many times a story by Philip K. Dick seems prophetic. Surveillance cameras are common enough in our society, and it is accepted that those who have nothing to hide, should not fear being recorded in this way. But is this true? Doesn’t it depend on who is behind the camera, and what use they will make of it?
The story also cleverly highlights our perceptions about loyalty. When an accusation is made, we may wonder about it, or be suspicious, thinking “There’s no smoke without fire”. Our own memories may play tricks. Even Doctor Franklin, that paragon of society, began to wonder after he was attacked by the mob, and thought long and hard about any “crimes” he might have committed. Maybe he had done something and did not know it.
“Had he done anything wrong? Was there something he had done he was forgetting? He had put on the hood. Maybe that was it.”
Perhaps what Philip K. Dick is telling us, is that it is not enough that the telepaths were not victimised for their difference, but accepted. Perhaps he is saying that it is inherent in human nature to attempt to take over, for anyone believing that they are a superior sort of human, or a “master race” with an overall obligation and duty. Time and again in political regimes, we see those who believe that they are different, and that their position in the order is a reflection of their natural superiority. Yet those who believe this tend to be the worst sort of despots.
The Hood Maker was first published as a short story of just 18 pages in “Imagination” in June 1955. Recently it was very loosely adapted for the “Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams” series, in 2017 on Channel 4 in the UK. The original stories were subsequently reprinted in a book of the same name.
The adaptor for this episode in the TV series, was the author Matthew Graham, who created the series “Life on Mars” and “Ashes to Ashes”. His is a reinterpretation of The Hood Maker, with a different message. Even the “hoods” are different, being literal hoods that humans wear.
Matthew Graham explains in his introduction, that this is because he originally misread the story, many years earlier:
“When I read The Hood Maker, I missed the point made on the first page that the ‘hood’ in question, worn by a man named Franklin and designed to protect him from mind-reading, was not in fact an actual hood but a concealed metal headband … but the image of a man walking through a crowded city street wearing a hood over his head was burnt into my mind. It seemed so ethereal and so disturbing.” So he decided to go ahead and keep his version of the hood.
And I come back to my original thought. Does a hood protect, or does it conceal? Am I entitled to keep my own secrets?
Online we are often confronted with requests for information. Sometimes I am assured, by some websites that this is for “security”. Really? Whose? Or that it is to “to protect me”. How exactly does it do that?
Philip K. Dick yet again raises uncomfortable questions in today’s world, in another remarkable prescient story.
“Nobody should lead mankind. It should lead itself.”
In the 1960s TV series “Thunderbirds”, which has recently been rebooted, “The Hood” is the dastardly villain, a master of disguise. He frequently wears a mask. Gerry Andersen, the creator of Thunderbirds, once explained that the name “Hood” was derived from the term “hoodlum”. Even more recently, youths wearing “hoodies”—jackets with a hood attached—would loiter on the streets, and it was assumed by many that this was for nefarious purposes, if their faces were concealed from routine surveillance cameras.
So in Philip K. Dick’s story from 1955, which, if any, of these connotations, might apply?
The beginning of the story gives us a big clue:
“‘A hood!’
’Somebody with a hood! …
‘Get him!’ The crowd swarmed forward. ‘The old man!’“
Now we know. This will be a story about paranoia, crowd mentality, and tapping into our secret fears of being “different”. It is dead central to Philip K. Dick’s oft-chosen themes, with a plot dominated by an authoritarian government. We see propaganda, telepaths, and surveillance which is well on the way to becoming thought control, all of which raise philosophical and sociological questions in our minds.
In this case, the totalitarian government is “The Free Union”; ironically named, as so many repressive regimes are. Doctor Walter Franklin is the “old man” pounced on with glee by the crowd at the beginning. He is a respectable and loyal member of the establishment and a “Director of the Federal Resources Commission”. He is baffled as to what he can have done wrong.
But in this Free Union, your thoughts are not your own. As a member of the crowd says belligerently:
“What you got to hide? … Nobody’s got a right to hide.” or as government official Clearance Director Ross, puts it:
“An innocent man has no reason to conceal his thoughts. Ninety-nine per cent of the population is glad to have its mind scanned, Most people want to prove their loyalty. But this one per cent is guilty of something.”
And someone in the crowd manages to snatch the offending article: a thin metal band around Doctor Franklin’s head, which conceals his thoughts by blocking out the government probes. But your thoughts are your own, aren’t they? No; not in this “Free Union”. Why would you need to hide your inner thoughts, if you were doing nothing wrong?
But not everyone feels this way. A small group of people prefer to keep their thoughts to themselves, and wear these thin metal strip “hoods”, which they have received as a gift in the post. Who has sent them, and why, is unknown. It is not illegal to wear a hood—or not yet. But there is an “Anti-Immunity Bill” following due process, and when this is law, the state will have carte blanche to probe into people’s private thoughts. Until then, it is left to the crowd of ordinary citizens, who are whipped up to victimise anyone wearing a hood.
In Philip K. Dick’s story there is another small group of people, this time with telepathic powers, commonly called “teeps”. These humans with telepathic powers are believed to be a genetic mutation, caused by an area of land being flooded by radiation. But unconventionally in Science Fiction, these teeps are not victimised, or exploited. They are employed by the Free Union to root out and eliminate its political opponents. The ordinary humans know this, and they obey the law, as they see it practised.
Doctor Franklin is rescued temporarily by the robocops, who advise him to stay indoors for his own safety. But there’s one problem. He now longer has his hood. It has fallen into the hands of a young telepath named Ernest Abbud. Telepaths receive a mild shock when they are in the vicinity of a hood, and it was Abbud who had manipulated the mob, in order to seize the hood from Doctor Franklin, and then scan him the moment the hood was removed.
Abbud reports to his bosses that unfortunately, Franklin has ideologically disloyal tendencies, and subversive thoughts. He is guilty of deviation, and should be picked up. Now Franklin really is on the run. But what disturbs Clearance Director Ross is that the telepath seems to have overstepped his duties, and produced this report without any official request. And what disturbs Abbud, and the rest of the telepaths, is that somebody is making probe screens, to keep them out.
“Before the teeps, loyalty probes had been haphazard. Oaths, examinations, wire-tappings, were not enough. The theory that each person had to prove his loyalty was fine—as a theory. In practice few people could do it. It looked as if the concept of guilty until proved innocent might have to be abandoned and the Roman law restored.”
On the run from arrest for deviation, Franklin is rescued by a young girl in what sounds like a futuristic jet car. She passes him a hood to shield his thoughts and then the car speeds off to meet …
Who is he likely to meet? And why was he selected to receive a hood in the first place? What, if anything, does he have in common with the others who have received hoods? And who is making them?
Doctor Franklin soon has the answer to this first question. Doctor Franklin is doubtful that this can be the case. He knows that Senator Waldo, who is the chief sponsor of the bill, would not be party to anything unethical.
There is a twist near the end, and then a nice further twist.
The Hood Maker is one of several stories Philip K. Dick wrote about the question of the surveillance state. In the middle of the 1950s American Science Fiction abounded with stories about paranoia, either from an alien race, or as this one, aliens already here.
The hood seems like a clever device to evade the ultimate in invasive security systems. Countering this, the repressive governments have telepaths, so there is no need to worry about disloyalty within the government; anyone with subversive thoughts would be discovered. Checkmate.
But complicating this, is the fact that And it is this which makes this story so chilling, and so relevant today. So many times a story by Philip K. Dick seems prophetic. Surveillance cameras are common enough in our society, and it is accepted that those who have nothing to hide, should not fear being recorded in this way. But is this true? Doesn’t it depend on who is behind the camera, and what use they will make of it?
The story also cleverly highlights our perceptions about loyalty. When an accusation is made, we may wonder about it, or be suspicious, thinking “There’s no smoke without fire”. Our own memories may play tricks. Even Doctor Franklin, that paragon of society, began to wonder after he was attacked by the mob, and thought long and hard about any “crimes” he might have committed. Maybe he had done something and did not know it.
“Had he done anything wrong? Was there something he had done he was forgetting? He had put on the hood. Maybe that was it.”
Perhaps what Philip K. Dick is telling us, is that it is not enough that the telepaths were not victimised for their difference, but accepted. Perhaps he is saying that it is inherent in human nature to attempt to take over, for anyone believing that they are a superior sort of human, or a “master race” with an overall obligation and duty. Time and again in political regimes, we see those who believe that they are different, and that their position in the order is a reflection of their natural superiority. Yet those who believe this tend to be the worst sort of despots.
The Hood Maker was first published as a short story of just 18 pages in “Imagination” in June 1955. Recently it was very loosely adapted for the “Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams” series, in 2017 on Channel 4 in the UK. The original stories were subsequently reprinted in a book of the same name.
The adaptor for this episode in the TV series, was the author Matthew Graham, who created the series “Life on Mars” and “Ashes to Ashes”. His is a reinterpretation of The Hood Maker, with a different message. Even the “hoods” are different, being literal hoods that humans wear.
Matthew Graham explains in his introduction, that this is because he originally misread the story, many years earlier:
“When I read The Hood Maker, I missed the point made on the first page that the ‘hood’ in question, worn by a man named Franklin and designed to protect him from mind-reading, was not in fact an actual hood but a concealed metal headband … but the image of a man walking through a crowded city street wearing a hood over his head was burnt into my mind. It seemed so ethereal and so disturbing.” So he decided to go ahead and keep his version of the hood.
And I come back to my original thought. Does a hood protect, or does it conceal? Am I entitled to keep my own secrets?
Online we are often confronted with requests for information. Sometimes I am assured, by some websites that this is for “security”. Really? Whose? Or that it is to “to protect me”. How exactly does it do that?
Philip K. Dick yet again raises uncomfortable questions in today’s world, in another remarkable prescient story.
“Nobody should lead mankind. It should lead itself.”
June 15, 2020
An innocent man has no reason to conceal his thoughts.
In Philip K. Dick's 1955 vision of the surveillance state every person's mind is probed by telepathic mutants - the teeps.
The teeps are employed by Clearance and are invaluable to the Government's efforts in the detection and punishment of disloyalty.
Before the teeps, loyalty probes had been haphazard. Oaths, examinations, wire-tappings, were not enough. The theory that each person had to prove his loyalty was fine - as a theory. In practice few people could do it. It looked as if the concept of guilty until proved innocent might have to be abandoned and the Roman law restored.
Some people use hoods that keep the teeps out of their minds. Because they either have something to hide or, you know, they just want to keep their thoughts to themselves.
Doctor Walter Franklin, Director of the Federal Resources Commission, is one of those people.
From the first page he's on the run. But why? Who's the mysterious Hood Maker? Why did he send a hood to Franklin? And how did the teeps get to Franklin?
An interesting premise, but the execution fell a little flat. Sure, there's the inevitable tension between the teeps and the people that aren't comfortable with sharing their every thought. A struggle for power ensues and gets resolved interestingly enough. But there was just something missing here.
The Electric Dreams episode, that's based on PKD's short story, basically got the same reaction from me. It switches the roles of the oppressed and the oppressors, adds a love story to the mix and has a convincing Holliday Grainger in one of the lead roles (the other went to Richard Madden). But just like the short story it ultimately lacked in terms of execution of Dick's basic idea. It takes us to a few places where we think about what it means if you can't keep your thoughts to your own and also about the burden it can be to read others' minds. But in my opinion this could have been explored further. Ultimately it was more about the building of trust between two people that are very different. But, to be honest, it wasn't all that interesting.
The PKD short story: 2.5/5
The Electric Dreams Episode: 5/10
March 4, 2018
“An innocent man has no reason to conceal his thoughts. Ninety-nine per cent of the population is glad to have its mind scanned. Most people want to prove their loyalty. But this one per cent is guilty of something.”
PKD’s The Hood Maker, published in “Imagination” in June 1955, made me think of how often I have already heard people – some of whom not showing any other signs of blatant dumbness – say things like, “I don’t have any problems with a higher surveillance network because it increases public security, and after all, I have got nothing to hide.” Some of these would not even outcry over a ban on notes and coins since it is so much easier to pay with your credit card. In The Hood Maker, a totalitarian government – but never fear, folks, it’s probably a benignant one that strives for tolerance and equality – has managed to do away with the presumption of innocence, thus making it mandatory for citizens to prove their loyalty when called upon to do so. It is supported by a group of the so-called teeps, people who survived a radiation-accident and who mutated into telepaths with the ability to read people’s minds. Within a few seconds, every thought, even the most secret one, of a person can be scanned by a teep, but recently somebody has been spreading metal hoods made from a mysterious alloy that make it impossible for a teep to get into the recesses of a person’s mind. The government, of course, sees this as a serious problem, but at the same time, they also become more and more uneasy with regard to the growing self-confidence of the teeps, who seem to be following aims of their own, the major one being the replacement of non-teeps in governmental or other key positions.
The Hood Maker is not only cleverly plotted, with a really ironic and un-teep-ical ending, but it also offers a lot of food for thought and deep insight into the human mindset the way it might develop in an atmosphere of surveillance, thought and speech control and propaganda. There is one character, for instance, who is actually sure of not having harboured any criminal thoughts, let alone done anything disloyal, but once he is on the government’s wanted list, he starts to think like this:
The beauty in this ugly business is that once you have to defend yourself without being accused of any particular crime, all sorts of might-be-transgressions you could already have forgotten seem possible to you, and you start to waver and doubt yourself. Does this seem unrealistic to you? Have you never found yourself in a situation where you felt it necessary to stand up for your opinion and knew it was outside the mainstream? It often requires courage, patience and self-confidence to do this, although we are living in a society that allows people to voice their own views. Now consider how much more insecure a person living in a totalitarian system might feel about having inadvertently committed a “thoughtcrime”. PKD also shows that mechanisms or institutions that have the task to monitor public, and maybe even private life, are not above the danger of getting out of control because in all cases, there are human beings behind these, and human beings have to tendency to overreach themselves in their desire for power. What this fine story boils down to is the old question of who is to guard the guardians, and the answer is given by PKD in these words:
PKD’s The Hood Maker, published in “Imagination” in June 1955, made me think of how often I have already heard people – some of whom not showing any other signs of blatant dumbness – say things like, “I don’t have any problems with a higher surveillance network because it increases public security, and after all, I have got nothing to hide.” Some of these would not even outcry over a ban on notes and coins since it is so much easier to pay with your credit card. In The Hood Maker, a totalitarian government – but never fear, folks, it’s probably a benignant one that strives for tolerance and equality – has managed to do away with the presumption of innocence, thus making it mandatory for citizens to prove their loyalty when called upon to do so. It is supported by a group of the so-called teeps, people who survived a radiation-accident and who mutated into telepaths with the ability to read people’s minds. Within a few seconds, every thought, even the most secret one, of a person can be scanned by a teep, but recently somebody has been spreading metal hoods made from a mysterious alloy that make it impossible for a teep to get into the recesses of a person’s mind. The government, of course, sees this as a serious problem, but at the same time, they also become more and more uneasy with regard to the growing self-confidence of the teeps, who seem to be following aims of their own, the major one being the replacement of non-teeps in governmental or other key positions.
The Hood Maker is not only cleverly plotted, with a really ironic and un-teep-ical ending, but it also offers a lot of food for thought and deep insight into the human mindset the way it might develop in an atmosphere of surveillance, thought and speech control and propaganda. There is one character, for instance, who is actually sure of not having harboured any criminal thoughts, let alone done anything disloyal, but once he is on the government’s wanted list, he starts to think like this:
”Franklin wrecked his brain desperately. What could he do? They could bring him up before a Clearance Board. No accusation would be brought: it would be up to him to clear himself, to prove he was loyal. Had he ever done anything wrong? Was there something he had done he was forgetting? He had put on the hood. Maybe that was it. There was some sort of an Anti-Immunity Bill up in Congress to make wearing of a probe screen a felony, but it hadn’t been passed yet –“
The beauty in this ugly business is that once you have to defend yourself without being accused of any particular crime, all sorts of might-be-transgressions you could already have forgotten seem possible to you, and you start to waver and doubt yourself. Does this seem unrealistic to you? Have you never found yourself in a situation where you felt it necessary to stand up for your opinion and knew it was outside the mainstream? It often requires courage, patience and self-confidence to do this, although we are living in a society that allows people to voice their own views. Now consider how much more insecure a person living in a totalitarian system might feel about having inadvertently committed a “thoughtcrime”. PKD also shows that mechanisms or institutions that have the task to monitor public, and maybe even private life, are not above the danger of getting out of control because in all cases, there are human beings behind these, and human beings have to tendency to overreach themselves in their desire for power. What this fine story boils down to is the old question of who is to guard the guardians, and the answer is given by PKD in these words:
”’Nobody should lead mankind. It should lead itself.’”
September 24, 2017
There's nothing like a TV or movie adaptation to drum up interest in the original source material, and since the new Electric Dreams series is based on short stories it's easy enough to slip them into a hectic reading schedule! ;)
I rather enjoyed the TV episode, The Hood Maker, shown last week on (British) TV. I rather liked the short story it was based on, too, but was surprised at how different the two were - in a, what's the point in adapting something if you're going to change that much of it? So, the basic premise - some humans ('teeps') having developed telepathic abilities, putting them at odds with 'normals' - is the same. But while the TV show finds a more human angle, the original is a little wider-scale.
Interesting to compare the two, too.
I rather enjoyed the TV episode, The Hood Maker, shown last week on (British) TV. I rather liked the short story it was based on, too, but was surprised at how different the two were - in a, what's the point in adapting something if you're going to change that much of it? So, the basic premise - some humans ('teeps') having developed telepathic abilities, putting them at odds with 'normals' - is the same. But while the TV show finds a more human angle, the original is a little wider-scale.
Interesting to compare the two, too.
May 16, 2022
This was truly quite a let-down. Phillip K. Dick had such potential with this one, and yet it was quite underwhelming.
I read this short story merely for the fact that I had watched the Electric Dreams episode based on this short story and loved it.
I expected this to be like the episode, hence the fact that they even created it. But it was much, much worse.
I will say that PKD has a talent for world-building, and that is a clear given. I could definitely imagine this world in which PKD was writing about and did feel very much immersed in the story. An A goes for world-building.
However, I have some complaints.
This story didn't really feel like sci-fi. Yes, evidently it is in fact sci-fi. But it didn't feel like it. Other than the fact that there were "robot cars" and they were living in this outer-worldly nation, everything else just felt...real...in a sense. I don't know if I am wording that correctly or not but, I don't know.
I think PKD could have added a lot more aspects of science fiction in this to immerse the characters even more.
Also, the characters were overly dull. They had not a single ounce of personality. I could feel any emotions towards them which sort of ruined the experience overall.
We (the readers) were kind of dumped with all these names all at once and were expected to understand what was going on.
Now, this is the part where I compare the episode to the story.
In the show (episode 1 originally, although Amazon claims it to be episode 5), there are two clear characters, Honor and Ross (both beautifully played by Holliday Grainger and Richard Madden). In the episode, the characters have a lot of depth and personality.
In the short story, only Ross is mentioned and there isn't even a character named Honor.
The short story moves along very quickly, giving minimal to no information. Yes, I understand that it is a SHORT story, however, PKD was kind of just putting in filler words when he could have expanded it to a much larger scale.
The short story barely mentions Ross, and the episode has him in every scene.
The episode also has a much better twist and ending than the story did.
I think I'm going to do a review where I read the entirety of the Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams collection of short stories and compare it to the show.
Anyways, this is just a long ramble on how I liked the episode more than the story. If you can, I highly suggest watching the episode and skipping through the story.
I read this short story merely for the fact that I had watched the Electric Dreams episode based on this short story and loved it.
I expected this to be like the episode, hence the fact that they even created it. But it was much, much worse.
I will say that PKD has a talent for world-building, and that is a clear given. I could definitely imagine this world in which PKD was writing about and did feel very much immersed in the story. An A goes for world-building.
However, I have some complaints.
This story didn't really feel like sci-fi. Yes, evidently it is in fact sci-fi. But it didn't feel like it. Other than the fact that there were "robot cars" and they were living in this outer-worldly nation, everything else just felt...real...in a sense. I don't know if I am wording that correctly or not but, I don't know.
I think PKD could have added a lot more aspects of science fiction in this to immerse the characters even more.
Also, the characters were overly dull. They had not a single ounce of personality. I could feel any emotions towards them which sort of ruined the experience overall.
We (the readers) were kind of dumped with all these names all at once and were expected to understand what was going on.
Now, this is the part where I compare the episode to the story.
In the show (episode 1 originally, although Amazon claims it to be episode 5), there are two clear characters, Honor and Ross (both beautifully played by Holliday Grainger and Richard Madden). In the episode, the characters have a lot of depth and personality.
In the short story, only Ross is mentioned and there isn't even a character named Honor.
The short story moves along very quickly, giving minimal to no information. Yes, I understand that it is a SHORT story, however, PKD was kind of just putting in filler words when he could have expanded it to a much larger scale.
The short story barely mentions Ross, and the episode has him in every scene.
The episode also has a much better twist and ending than the story did.
I think I'm going to do a review where I read the entirety of the Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams collection of short stories and compare it to the show.
Anyways, this is just a long ramble on how I liked the episode more than the story. If you can, I highly suggest watching the episode and skipping through the story.
March 18, 2025
"What secrets do we have the right to keep? Should all our thoughts be sacred even if they are dark or dangerous ones?"
"An innocent man has no reason to conceal his thoughts... Most people want to prove their loyalty. But this one percent is guilty of something."
"His mind would belong to him again, private, secret, to think as he wished, endless thoughts for no one else's consumption but his own."
"There's always some group that wants to lead mankind--for its own good, of course... And because they're superior, it's natural they should lead. Make all the decisions for us... They're human beings with a special ability. But that doesn't give them a right to tell us what to do. It's not a new problem... Nobody should lead mankind. It should lead itself."
"An innocent man has no reason to conceal his thoughts... Most people want to prove their loyalty. But this one percent is guilty of something."
"His mind would belong to him again, private, secret, to think as he wished, endless thoughts for no one else's consumption but his own."
"There's always some group that wants to lead mankind--for its own good, of course... And because they're superior, it's natural they should lead. Make all the decisions for us... They're human beings with a special ability. But that doesn't give them a right to tell us what to do. It's not a new problem... Nobody should lead mankind. It should lead itself."
February 23, 2018
A crowd attacks an old man after someone pointed out that he was wearing a hood. The shout out “Nobody’s got a right to hide.” They seize his hood and later the police help him on his way.
September 26, 2017
I read it because I really liked the adaptation but it turned out that the source material is almost completely different. The writers of the TV episode kept the general idea about the state using telepaths to interrogate the public and set it around the right-to-privacy debate as well as kept names of a few characters but all else was pretty much discarded. Even the approach to telepaths is changed. In the short story, the telepaths are much more accepted because of the idea that if you’ve got nothing to hide, then there’s no problem being read by telepaths, whereas in the TV version it's kind of switched and people are mostly against telepaths and being read by them. Both versions were interesting. However, the TV episode serves more as an inspiration for an updated, more fresh type of a fan-fiction and I think I actually prefer the new, TV version.
January 30, 2024
"The Hood Maker" by Philip K. Dick introduces readers to yet another dystopian future, a recurring theme in the author's works that invites contemplation on the nature of society and human behavior. As I immersed myself in the narrative, I couldn't help but wonder whether Dick's portrayal of these dark futures stemmed from genuine concerns or if they served as compelling backdrops for his sci-fi tales.
While not my favorite among Dick's works, "The Hood Maker" remains a captivating exploration. The story prompts the age-old question that lingers with every Dick narrative: "What if?" The speculative nature of his storytelling encourages readers to consider the potential consequences of societal choices and technological advancements.
Dick's ability to weave intricate plots within dystopian settings is evident once again, creating an atmosphere that intrigues despite any reservations about personal preferences. "The Hood Maker" serves as a testament to Dick's knack for thought-provoking storytelling, leaving readers with lingering questions about the possible trajectories of our own reality.
While not my favorite among Dick's works, "The Hood Maker" remains a captivating exploration. The story prompts the age-old question that lingers with every Dick narrative: "What if?" The speculative nature of his storytelling encourages readers to consider the potential consequences of societal choices and technological advancements.
Dick's ability to weave intricate plots within dystopian settings is evident once again, creating an atmosphere that intrigues despite any reservations about personal preferences. "The Hood Maker" serves as a testament to Dick's knack for thought-provoking storytelling, leaving readers with lingering questions about the possible trajectories of our own reality.
August 19, 2018
“The Hood Maker”: Another classic P. K. Dick story, this one about having your mind read and therefore zero privacy … unless you rebel!
...
“Nobody’s got a right to hide.”
...
“Had he done anything wrong? Was there something he had done he was forgetting? He had put on the hood. Maybe that was it.”
…
'An innocent man has no reason to conceal his thoughts. Ninety-nine per cent of the population is glad to have its mind scanned. Most people WANT to prove their loyalty. But this one per cent is guilty of something.' (p118)
…
'The total probe on Franklin. All levels – completely searched and recorded.' [ordered Clearance Director Ross]
'We found considerable disloyalty. Mostly ideological rather than overt. … When he was twenty-four he found some old books and musical records. He was strongly influenced. …' - Abbud
...
“Nobody’s got a right to hide.”
...
“Had he done anything wrong? Was there something he had done he was forgetting? He had put on the hood. Maybe that was it.”
…
'An innocent man has no reason to conceal his thoughts. Ninety-nine per cent of the population is glad to have its mind scanned. Most people WANT to prove their loyalty. But this one per cent is guilty of something.' (p118)
…
'The total probe on Franklin. All levels – completely searched and recorded.' [ordered Clearance Director Ross]
'We found considerable disloyalty. Mostly ideological rather than overt. … When he was twenty-four he found some old books and musical records. He was strongly influenced. …' - Abbud
April 17, 2024
I love this story, I just wish there were more of it. Philip K. Dick became very interested in the idea that there would be people who could read other people's thoughts. CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb was kind of on the same page around the same time, so the idea wasn't coming from nowhere. Dick also likes to focus, not on the people with the power, but on the hapless individuals impacted - the everyman trying to live his life and learning you can't even try and keep your thoughts private without being mobbed in these trying telepathic times.
April 8, 2018
Another story from PKD, written in the 50's that is even more relevant in today's world. The Hoodmaker questions the actions of the information gathering powers and talks about the individual's rights to privacy. Was he a prophet or are these recurring themes?
August 1, 2020
Yes! I liked this one a lot. Dystopian tale with a paranoid government. Scanners, hoods, and mutants. The 'rebellion' and the whole scenery makes me wonder that this could be even transfered to a full-length novel.
Very nice! And with a lot of action-packed scenes. Highly recommend.
Very nice! And with a lot of action-packed scenes. Highly recommend.
September 16, 2017
An interesting little story about the right to privacy in a networked environment
April 4, 2018
TEEPS!!!!!! Maybe in the same universe as Ubik?
January 27, 2024
YES! THIS IS WHAT POLITICAL SCI-FI SHOULD BE!
September 29, 2024
Incredibly good and now I'm excited to watch the episode for this on Phillip K Dick's Electric Dreams.
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