Readers worldwide consider Philip K. Dick to have been the greatest science fict
ion writer on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's w
orks has continued to mount, and his reputation has been enhanced by a growing b
ody 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 devo
ted 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unpublished stories), written during the years 1952-1955, and features such fas
cinating stories as "Paycheck " (adapted as a major motion picture starring Ben
Affleck and Uma Thurman), "Beyond Lies the Wub, The Short Happy Life of the Brow
n Oxford, The Variable Man," and many others. Here, readers will find Dick's ini
tial explorations of the themes he so brilliantly brought to life in his later w
ork.
