Second Variety and Other Classic Stories

Many thousands of readers worldwide consider Philip K. Dick to have been the greatest science fiction writer on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick’s work has continued to mount and his reputation has been enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now presented annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works. This collection draws from the writer’s earliest short and medium-length fiction (including several previously unpublished stories) during the years 1952-1955, and features such fascinating works as Second Variety, Foster, You’re Dead, The Father-Thing, and many others. Here, readers will find Dick’s initial explorations of the themes he so brilliantly brought to life in his later work. Dick won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel of 1963 for The Man in the High Castle and in the last year of his life, the now-classic film Blade Runner was made from his novel Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep? More recently, Dick’s short story The Minority Report inspired a Steven Spielberg movie as well as a TV series. The classic stories of Philip K. Dick offer an intriguing glimpse into the early imagination of one of science fiction’s most enduring and respected names.