Because the five volumes of “The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick” have been reprinted many times under many different names, I’m referring to them here by their volume number, which is what they are known by in their original 1987 publication by Underwood-Miller.
For those looking to track down a copy, Volume 3 was later subtitled:
- “The Father-Thing” (1989, Gollancz)
- “Second Variety” (1991, Citadel Twilight; the title story was moved to this volume from Volume 2)
- “The Father-Thing” (1999, Orion Books, pictured above)
- “Upon the Dull Earth” (2012, Subterranean Press)
Here are my rankings of the 23 short stories of Volume 3, featuring stories written in 1953 and 1954. The year of writing is first, followed by the year of publication if it differs:
“The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume 3” (1987)
Author: Philip K. Dick
Genre: Science fiction short stories
1. “The Chromium Fence” (1954, 1955)
This is a pitch-perfect, humorous and unfortunately timeless satire of two-party politics and how those parties (with help from the mainstream media) create society’s talking points. Much of the citizenry argues over the two sides of the current hot issue: Purist versus Naturalist, with the former arguing that elimination of sweat glands, bad breath and body hair should be mandatory, and the latter arguing it should not be.
Poor Don is in the extreme-minority third position of “live and let live.” He finds out how unacceptable this is from his party-member relatives and from a psychiatrist robot, which is manufactured by the state and tells him it’s selfish and irresponsible to not choose a side. Ultimately, the state can’t allow him to live if he won’t take a position. It’s an extreme story, of course, but one that is very relatable to those who choose to not vote for Republicans or Democrats in American elections.
2. “The Golden Man” (1953, 1954)
This is the centerpiece of this collection’s many stories of mutants, the next iteration of the human species. In an insightful note at the back of the book, PKD says this story is a reaction to the standard mutant story of the time, which portrayed mutants as 1) good and 2) in charge. So he’s about a decade ahead of what “X-Men” would do, as the Golden Man is 1) not necessarily good and 2) persecuted by authorities.
He’s sympathetic in that he’s targeted for death for being different, but on the other hand, his personality does not evoke a reader’s sympathy because he has no personality. He’s a being who can see into the future and therefore avoid being captured or killed. This amazing trait also means he doesn’t feel emotions we associate with humanity, like hopes, dreams and worries. So the next iteration of sentient life is more advanced than humans in survival skills, and less interesting in the realms of art and culture. This is a strikingly logical extrapolation by PKD, yet one that very few SF stories employ.
3. “War Veteran” (1954, 1955)
The robust and compelling tale starts with a war veteran being ignored by the bustling youthful society around him before arriving at a great record-scratch twist: The war he fought in took place in the future. When people in power figure out the man’s importance, we get a tense, action-packed and twist-laden PDK story.
It has echoes of both Volume 1’s “The Variable Man” — as military officials obsess over probabilities before committing to action — and this collection’s “Tony and the Beetles” — as racism between Terrans, “webfoots” (Venusians) and “crows” (Martians) comes to the fore with the beating of the war drums.
4. “A World of Talent” (1954)
In this future, it’s important for people of various mutant abilities to become a protected class, otherwise they’ll be legally wiped out. Pat emerges as the first Anti-Psi, someone who can block Psi mind-reading abilities. (PKD would later pit these abilities against each other in the 1969 novel “Ubik.”) PKD’s imagination runs wild as he shows us a lot of different mutant powers here, including a guy who can move a section of reality from one point in space to another.
The fate of Pat and Anti-Psis is caught up in the marital struggles of the Psi Curt, who wants to leave his Psi wife, Julie, for Pat. And ultimately it’s Curt and Julie’s Mute (as in mutant with as-yet-undefined powers) son Tim who plays a key role via his ability to move through time. Although it becomes hard to follow once Tim’s time travel comes into play, this is an engaging laying-out of ideas that would coalesce more crisply in “Martian Time-Slip” (1964).
5. “Psi-Man Heal My Child!” (1954, 1955)
The post-Bomb future of 2017 finds people living in communes, and a collection of people with mutant abilities (the Guild) living outside the various walls. Largely a think-piece, the story’s central POV is that of Jack, who can jump through time in the fashion of Wolverine in “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (2014) – by swapping places with younger versions of himself.
Jack believes that people with psi powers, who could theoretically force national governments to not start World War III back in the 1960s, should not exercise that force. People need to decide for themselves to give power to people with psi abilities, Jack says. As a framing story, we follow one commune family that faces an ultimatum: to stay and rely on the commune’s doctors to treat their cancer-stricken baby, or to leave and seek mutant help, but not be allowed to return. It makes for a good debate between the devil you know and the fearsome unknown, and it’s a metaphor for how so many bad governments (and specific leaders) hold power for so long.
6. “Tony and the Beetles” (1953)
This one gets a little lecture-y, but it’s still a strong portrayal of human nature (particularly adult human nature) in group identity politics, along with the rubber-band effect when a war machine encroaches too far. Terrans have taken over most of the territory around Betelgeuse, which is (conveniently for the sake of terminology) populated by sentient Beetles, but enough time has passed that everyone accepts the new normal. So human Tony is best friends with several Beetles.
But then the Beetles turn the tide of the war, and Tony’s friends are free to hate him … and/or they learn to hate him. There’s a pointed parallel to European colonists’ near-total wiping out of Native Americans as we’re forced to ask “At what point do past atrocities cease to effect the present?” After reading this story, I reflected that the isolation of Native American cultures (not having allies who are politically or militarily stronger in other countries) cuts in our favor as Americans of European ancestry. And that while the conquering of their lands is a horrible historical event, the near totality of the conquering is a good thing for the maintenance of the modern normal.
7. “Foster, You’re Dead” (1953, 1955)
See review in “Electric Dreams” post.
8. “The Last of the Masters” (1953, 1954)
This is a fun flipping of conventions: Anarchists dominate the world, but an entrenched little government exists in a mountain community. It’s run by robots, programmed in the ideal way to govern. The story takes place a century after the anarchists have mostly prevailed on the world stage, and it seems like the two ideological factions could live in peace, yet the conflict is painted as inevitable.
As with “Souvenir” from Volume 2, this little government “prevents” war by always waging war, so it aims to fight the anarchists if they get too close. As we read the story, we wonder how the anarchists won a century ago, and we see the answer paralleled in this new clash: The anarchists rely on the humans of the government/military to simply not want to fight anymore, as they realize freedom is more appealing than their staid existence. In a rare approach for PKD, the story plays out with intense action and shifting allegiances.
9. “The Crawlers” (1953, 1954)
In a deliciously dark illustration of human nature blended with post-Bomb society, PKD imagines mutants are born to human parents who live in an irradiated area. The offspring are slugs with baby faces. These mutants are peaceful, but they repulse the normal humans, who sometimes kill the mutants but mostly try to avoid them. One somewhat surprising wrinkle is PKD’s rather moderate portrayal of the military. Instead of destroying the mutant colony, the military relocates it to an island in the Caribbean (which, granted, it has stolen from the natives).
10. “Shell Game” (1953, 1954)
PKD has fun with the nature of paranoia in this story that has echoes of “The Thing from Another World” (and the movie’s source novella, “Who Goes There?,” by John W. Campbell). A colony on a miserable world spends most of its time defending itself from invaders.
Finally realizing there’s never been any physical evidence of an invasion, they investigate if they are paranoid and indeed learn that they are descended from mental patients. The amusing thing is that — even armed with this evidence — it’s still their nature to be paranoid, so they doubt the evidence and imagine various reasons why it may have been fabricated, and who fabricated it.
11. “The Hanging Stranger” (1953)
See review in “Electric Dreams” post.
12. “Exhibit Piece” (1953, 1954)
See review in “Electric Dreams” post.
13. “Pay for the Printer” (1954, 1956)
In this post-Bomb yarn, the human race has largely forgotten how to build things, as new items are 3D-printed from original items. With the printers falling apart, some people are re-learning how to build things from raw materials. It’s a depressing idea, but one main character is hopeful about the future as the knowledge of building and creating spreads; they have nowhere to go but up, I suppose.
14. “Null-O” (1953, 1958)
PKD creates a chilling story by giving us the POV of the villains. Because of their brain chemistry, the goal of Null-O mutants is to destroy everything. And since that’s the only thing that concerns them, they do what it takes to rise to positions of power, invent new bombs (PKD has fun with adding new letters to the front of the word “bomb”) and work on destroying the Earth piece by piece.
15. “Sales Pitch” (1953, 1954)
See review in “Electric Dreams” post.
16. “To Serve the Master” (1953, 1956)
PKD unleashes so many ideas in this story that an overarching theme doesn’t emerge for me, but it’s still an engrossing read. Applequist, who lives in a rigid society run by Companies, discovers a damaged robot left over from the century-ago war and nurses it back to health. The robot tricks Applequist into sympathizing with it by telling a false narrative of the mysterious war.
So Applequist may have doomed the human race by resurrecting the robot. (There’s no good reason why Applequist couldn’t have learned the real history from his fellow community members.) But on the other hand, human existence doesn’t seem all that wonderful during this time. And as a final wrinkle that seems more random than clever, it’s suggested that Applequist himself — in a parallel to Volume 2’s “Impostor” — was a robot all along and didn’t know it.
17. “Upon the Dull Earth” (1953, 1954)
In this creepy yarn in PKD’s “religion treated as fact” subgenre, a woman excitedly prepares herself for the afterlife only to be snatched up too soon. Silvia and her boyfriend, Rick, finally convince the gods to let her return to Earth, only to learn the hard way why the gods said it’s a dangerous and difficult process. It’s twisted enough when Silvia takes over the body of one innocent living person, but in a “Twilight Zone”-style experience, Rick finds that is merely the start of the horror.
18. “The Father-Thing” (1953, 1954)
See review in “Electric Dreams” post.
19. “The Turning Wheel” (1953, 1954)
PKD blends a lot of his favorite themes here, toying with religion-as-factual-information, the pitfalls of central planning, and a flipping of the script on racism. A future communist state can see “the divine plan,” and therefore maps out static lives for all citizens, but it is challenged by cults that don’t understand the plan. Indeed, it’s the cults who actually innovate. The cults here are made up of “Caucs” (Caucasians), who are looked down on by the ruling class, who have Asian names.
20. “Strange Eden” (1953, 1954)
This is indeed a strange story in terms of its message. It could almost be read as an accidental STD fear piece decades before such fears emerged. A surveyor lands on a planet and has sex with an immortal woman who notes that the experience will change him, and indeed, he and his colleague mutate into peaceful lion-type creatures. But their sentience seems to be preserved, so the ultimate message is strange rather than notably positive or negative.
21. “Misadjustment” (1954, 1957)
This one packs in too many complex ideas. If I’m reading it right, it’s a chronicle of precogs in power trying to set up enough checks and balances for a fair system of governance. The final sentence then delivers a twist: These precogs are nuts. So if everyone in a position of power is crazy and doesn’t know it, those checks and balances are useless. “Crazy” can of course be expanded to “misinformed” or “corrupt,” and modern readers will find a lot to relate to.
22. “The Eyes Have It” (1953)
PKD has fun with language, imagining how a metaphor-laden tale would play to a man who does not understand metaphors. This is one of PKD’s lighter efforts.
23. “Fair Game” (1953, 1959)
PKD plays with perspective as he puts mankind in the position of fish and inexplicable gods in position of mankind. So by the end, we get a sense of what it’s like to be plucked from our lives and thrown into the frying pan. The concept is good, but the logistics are hard to decipher.