Second Variety

By Philip K. Dick

Klaus took a look at them, leaning over Hendricks' broad shoulder. "You can see what we're up against. There's another type. Maybe it was abandoned. Maybe it didn't work. But there must be a Second Variety. There's One and Three."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Release date: Aug 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781681463667

Philip K. Dick

Over a writing career that spanned three decades, PHILIP K. DICK (1928–1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned to deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film, notably Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, as well as television's The Man in the High Castle. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, including the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and between 2007 and 2009, the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

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Start Publishing Presents

Second Variety

by Philip K. Dick

Start Publishing LLC

Copyright © 2015 by Start Publishing LLC

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

First Start Publishing eBook edition July 2015

Start Publishing is a registered trademark of Start Publishing LLC

Manufactured in the United States of America

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ISBN 13: 978-1-68146-366-7

Second Variety

 The Russian soldier made his way nervously up the ragged side of the hill, holding his gun ready. He glanced around him, licking his dry lips, his face set. From time to time he reached up a gloved hand and wiped perspiration from his neck, pushing down his coat collar.

Eric turned to Corporal Leone. Want him? Or can I have him? He adjusted the view sight so the Russian’s features squarely filled the glass, the lines cutting across his hard, somber features.

Leone considered. The Russian was close, moving rapidly, almost running. Don’t fire. Wait. Leone tensed. I don’t think we’re needed.

The Russian increased his pace, kicking ash and piles of debris out of his way. He reached the top of the hill and stopped, panting, staring around him. The sky was overcast, drifting clouds of gray particles. Bare trunks of trees jutted up occasionally; the ground was level and bare, rubble-strewn, with the ruins of buildings standing out here and there like yellowing skulls.

The Russian was uneasy. He knew something was wrong. He started down the hill. Now he was only a few paces from the bunker. Eric was getting fidgety. He played with his pistol, glancing at Leone.

Don’t worry, Leone said. He won’t get here. They’ll take care of him.

Are you sure? He’s got damn far.

They hang around close to the bunker. He’s getting into the bad part. Get set!

The Russian began to hurry, sliding down the hill, his boots sinking into the heaps of gray ash, trying to keep his gun up. He stopped for a moment, lifting his fieldglasses to his face.

He’s looking right at us, Eric said.

The Russian came on. They could see his eyes, like two blue stones. His mouth was open a little. He needed a shave; his chin was stubbled. On one bony cheek was a square of tape, showing blue at the edge. A fungoid spot. His coat was muddy and torn. One glove was missing. As he ran his belt counter bounced up and down against him.

Leone touched Eric’s arm. Here one comes.

Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of mid-day. A metal sphere. It raced up the hill after the Russian, its treads flying. It was small, one of the baby ones. Its claws were out, two razor projections spinning in a blur of white steel. The Russian heard it. He turned instantly, firing. The sphere dissolved into particles. But already a second had emerged and was following the first. The Russian fired again.

A third sphere leaped up the Russian’s leg, clicking and whirring. It jumped to the shoulder. The spinning blades disappeared into the Russian’s throat.

Eric relaxed. Well, that’s that. God, those damn things give me the creeps. Sometimes I think we were better off before.

If we hadn’t invented them, they would have. Leone lit a cigarette shakily. I wonder why a Russian would come all this way alone. I didn’t see anyone covering him.

Lt. Scott came slipping up the tunnel, into the bunker. What happened? Something entered the screen.

An Ivan.

Just one?

Eric brought the view screen around. Scott peered into it. Now there were numerous metal spheres crawling over the prostrate body, dull metal globes clicking and whirring, sawing up the Russian into small parts to be carried away.

What a lot of claws, Scott murmured.

They come like flies. Not much game for them any more.

Scott pushed the sight away, disgusted. Like flies. I wonder why he was out there. They know we have claws all around.

A larger robot had joined the smaller spheres. It was directing operations, a long blunt tube with projecting eyepieces. There was not much left of the soldier. What remained was being brought down the hillside by the host of claws.

Sir, Leone said. If it’s all right, I’d like to go out there and take a look at him.

Why?

Maybe he came with something.

Scott considered. He

Reviews for Second Variety

[randystafford · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There would be little point in giving a synopsis of each of the 24 stories in this book. That would give a false sense of repetition since many feature images of ash and overturned bathtubs -- the aftermath of nuclear war -- or struggles between mutants and normal humans, each fearing their extinction. But they don't seem any more repetitious than a skilled musician working variations on a theme for that is what many are. These stories, written in 1953 and 1954 -- with one exception, are arranged chronologically, so the student of Dick can see him play with an idea for two or three stories in a row.Along the way we get the humor, intricate plotting, and sudden reversals in our moral sympathies characteristic of Dick. And there are the machines that so often are a force of death in Dick though they behave more and more like life. Such is the case with the title story, one of Dick's most paranoid and basis for the movie Screamers. When sophisticated weapons take on human guise and began to stalk man, what Dick calls his grand theme, knowing who is human and who only pretends to be, is starkly exhibited.Other famous stories are "The Golden Man" with its purging of mutants before they infect the human gene pool, "The Father-Thing" which is what a boy realizes has replaced his real father, and "Sales Pitch", a story which anticipates, with its all purpose android advertising its virtues through rather thuggish means, the work of Ron Goulart. There are some memorable stories not so well known. "Foster, You're Dead" was originally conceived as a protest against a remark by President Eisenhower that citizens should be responsible for their own bomb shelters. Its young hero lives terrified in a world where making knives from scratch and digging underground shelters are parts of the school curriculum and each new year brings the newest model of bomb shelter, terrified because his father can't afford to buy one for the family. "War Veteran" reads like a futuristic _Mission Impossible_ episode. The spirit of Charles Fort may be at work in "Null-O", a satire on the absurd philosophy that no distinctions between things are valid, a philosophy practiced by "perfect paranoids". (Fort may have inspired the weakest and first story in the collection, "Fair Game", with its van Vogtian plotting giving way at the end to a silly twist.)Dick fans will see "Shell Game", with its colony of paranoids, as sort of a test run for Dick's Clans of the Alphane Moon, and the time jumping child of "A World of Talent" is reminiscent of Manfred Steiner in Dick's Martian Time-Slip. This collection also features one of Dick's occasional fantasies, "Upon the Dull Earth".Any admirer of Dick will want to read this collection, and those needing an introduction to his work will find no bad stories in this exhibit of 14 months in Dick's career.

[rosenectur · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Awesome- This book is a short story collection by P K. Dick. P.K. Dick has been the writer who inspired all sorts of sci-fi movies. This book claimed to have the story that inspired the movie "Next" in it. (I haven't seen the movie so I couldn't tell you if the story fit or not.) It amazed me how many different types of dystopia he came up with. Dick has imagined the end of civilization probably hundreds of different ways (and disturbing ways.) Some of his stories have a haunting quality that keep me thinking long after I've read them.