#philipkdick — Public Fediverse posts

“Again the theme of choosing your #reality emerges, in this case with #society choosing to deliberately blind themselves to the world around them, and the consequences of their actions.” (Sound familiar?) #PhilipKDick #PKD #books #BookSky #scifi #sciencefiction

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5zca2ola2zxpkw37w4f3wxtu/post/3mumu5x2rnk2i

“Again the theme of choosing your #reality emerges, in this case with #society choosing to deliberately blind themselves to the world around them, and the consequences of their actions.” (Sound familiar?) #PhilipKDick #PKD #books #BookSky #scifi #sciencefiction

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5zca2ola2zxpkw37w4f3wxtu/post/3mumu5x2rnk2i

“Again the theme of choosing your #reality emerges, in this case with #society choosing to deliberately blind themselves to the world around them, and the consequences of their actions.” (Sound familiar?) #PhilipKDick #PKD #books #BookSky #scifi #sciencefiction

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5zca2ola2zxpkw37w4f3wxtu/post/3mumu5x2rnk2i

“Again the theme of choosing your #reality emerges, in this case with #society choosing to deliberately blind themselves to the world around them, and the consequences of their actions.” (Sound familiar?) #PhilipKDick #PKD #books #BookSky #scifi #sciencefiction

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5zca2ola2zxpkw37w4f3wxtu/post/3mumu5x2rnk2i

“Again the theme of choosing your #reality emerges, in this case with #society choosing to deliberately blind themselves to the world around them, and the consequences of their actions.” (Sound familiar?) #PhilipKDick #PKD #books #BookSky #scifi #sciencefiction

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5zca2ola2zxpkw37w4f3wxtu/post/3mumu5x2rnk2i

“Science fiction’s history is filled with #bigideas. But #PhilipKDick had an exceptional, if not unmatched, ability 2 think about the biggest #ideas of them all. What if we are not who we think we are? …What if reality itself were not, in any sense, real” #PKD #BookSky reactormag.com/jump-in-the-...

Jump in the Deep End With Phil...

“Science fiction’s history is filled with #bigideas. But #PhilipKDick had an exceptional, if not unmatched, ability 2 think about the biggest #ideas of them all. What if we are not who we think we are? …What if reality itself were not, in any sense, real” #PKD #BookSky reactormag.com/jump-in-the-...

Jump in the Deep End With Phil...

“Science fiction’s history is filled with #bigideas. But #PhilipKDick had an exceptional, if not unmatched, ability 2 think about the biggest #ideas of them all. What if we are not who we think we are? …What if reality itself were not, in any sense, real” #PKD #BookSky reactormag.com/jump-in-the-...

Jump in the Deep End With Phil...

“Science fiction’s history is filled with #bigideas. But #PhilipKDick had an exceptional, if not unmatched, ability 2 think about the biggest #ideas of them all. What if we are not who we think we are? …What if reality itself were not, in any sense, real” #PKD #BookSky reactormag.com/jump-in-the-...

Jump in the Deep End With Phil...

“Science fiction’s history is filled with #bigideas. But #PhilipKDick had an exceptional, if not unmatched, ability 2 think about the biggest #ideas of them all. What if we are not who we think we are? …What if reality itself were not, in any sense, real” #PKD #BookSky reactormag.com/jump-in-the-...

Jump in the Deep End With Phil...

Reality is that which refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.
-- Philip K. Dick

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #PhilipKDick #Reality

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Hammock #KinderhookCreek #NewYork

#PhilipKDick a d'ailleurs écrit un roman à leur sujet.
#meme

I've been reading #PhilipKDick recently; this was 4/5 planned.

#Ubik was a re-read; I was determined to do a closer reading & figure out WTF was going on! It was def. worth the effort.

https://thewallflowerdigest.co.uk/books/book-reviews/5-star-books/ubik-by-philip-k-dick/

#CloseReading #BookBlog #BookReview #PhilipKDick

📚✨ Oh, look! Another trip down the rabbit hole of Philip K. Dick's brain, now featuring R. Crumb's scribbles of cosmic confusion. 🌌🤪 Can’t tell if this is an homage or just a vivid #hallucination shared by everyone involved. 🌀📖
https://philipdick.com/resources/miscellaneous/the-religious-experience-of-philip-k-dick-by-r-crumb-from-weirdo-17/ #PhilipKDick #RCrumb #CosmicConfusion #SciFiArt #HackerNews #ngated

The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick by R. Crumb (1986)

https://philipdick.com/resources/miscellaneous/the-religious-experience-of-philip-k-dick-by-r-crumb-from-weirdo-17/

Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384224

#HackerNews #PhilipKDick #RCrumb #GraphicNovel #Religion #Comics

Recently finished #Hospital by #HanSong
A bleak tortuous spiraling narrative, heading into liminal madness. Imagine #Kafka and #philipKDick all together in a spooky scenario of perpetual ambiguous nature.
The first installment of a trilogy I’m not sure to follow up soon, but for sure a very impressive first approach to this Chinese author.

It's a bit close to home. Interesting to see how the future was imagined back then. Unsettling how close they got it.

Philip K. Dick: Reality-Bending Science Fiction Stories Audiobook by Philip K. Dick | #Library #Hoopla #Bookstodon #PhilipKDick

https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/20076774

> Listen to Philip K. Dick: Reality-Bending Science Fiction Stories audiobook by Philip K. Dick and read by Saethon Williams online for free with your library card on Hoopla.

It’s the weekend again and I’ve been to the charity shops to find some more books. My haul this time includes "The Three-Body Problem" by Cixin Liu, "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" by Philip K. Dick, "12 Years a Slave" by Solomon Northup, “Sexing The Cherry” by Jeanette Winterson and “Last Human” by Doug Naylor. Not bad for a tenner. #bookhaul #bookstodon #books #reddwarf #cixinliu #philipkdick #solomonnorthup #JeanetteWinterson #dougnaylor #charityshop

Ist ein Ehering ein elektrischer Hering?

#PhilipKDick

Another weekend and another charity shop haul. Three more Arthur C Clarke books: "The Deep Range"; "Childhood's End"; and "The Fountains of Paradise". Also "The Man in the High Castle" by Phillip K Dick. Finally I picked up “The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes” by Arthur Conan Doyle. All in it cost me £11 which I think is pretty good going. #bookhaul #charityshop #arthurcclarke #philipkdick #arthurconandoyle #books #bookstodon

Mettez de la science-fiction et de la fantasy dans votre été !

Réécoutez nos émissions "Sense of Wonder" dans le podcast Actusf. Elles reviennent sur les grands classiques de l'imaginaire !

Rendez-vous sur toutes les plateformes de podcasts (Deezer, Spotify, Ausha).

#sciencefiction #sciencefictionbooks #fantasybooks #fantasybook #ursulakleguin #philipkdick #robertsilverberg #octaviabutler

Par ici : https://podcast.ausha.co/actusf/playlist/sense-of-wonder

I’m finishing up Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy. After that, either the last 75 pages of A Theory of Semiotics by #UmbertoEco or a re-read of The World Jones Made by #PhilipKDick.
#books #BookSky

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5zca2ola2zxpkw37w4f3wxtu/post/3mrznchm2qk25

50 years later Replicants are still running… except now, running the world. Who were once hunted have become the hunters - they are not running away but are Runners after you.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… and this one is going on my watch list too! No time to die before the binge ends!🤖🌧️

https://youtu.be/0Dr8I_RyRCg

#BladeRunner2099 #BladeRunner #RidleyScott #PhilipKDick #cyberpunk #scifi #tvseries #PrimeVideo

With a Replicant uprising serving as the plot, Blade Runner 2099 will air on Amazon Prime Video. It premieres on November 25, 2026.

Amazon will be releasing all right episodes at once. Hopefully it'll be a binge worthy chapter in the Blade Runner universe.

Source: https://youtu.be/0Dr8I_RyRCg?is=lJuoKuLfI7Ok97ZF

#Movies #Film #Cinema #BladeRunner #BladeRunner2099 #PhilipKDick #RidleyScott #MichelleYeoh #HunterSchafer #Vangelis #Deckard #VoightKampffTest #CyberPunk #CassetteFuturism #NeoNoir

Two Cyberpunk shows are coming and I am super excited. This is probably my favourite sub-genre of SF.

Blade Runner 2099 was shifted from 2027 to November 2026 likely due to the fact that Neuromancer was announced as coming in January 2027.

For Neuromancer I’m only concerned that the lead doesn’t look sick and wasted enough as Case. I can get over that.

Unfortunately, I’ve already seen people on ShitTube saying Neuromancer’s Molly shouldn’t be a person of colour and apparently Blade Runner 2099 is terrible and garbage because of women.

No one has seen either show.

I really fucking just can’t with these toxic arseholes masquerading as fans.

Me, ima watch the shit out of both, fuck the haters.

#Neuromancer #BladeRunner2099 #BladeRunner #Cyberpunk #WilliamGibson #PhilipKDick

Read Martian Time Slip by Phillip Dick. Though I am a big fan of his, I have never read this one before. It caught my eye by having an autistic as the sci-fi aspect of the story.

The character Manfred is a type 2/3 non verbal who is used by a rich developer for time travel and seeing into the future and past. Dick has some interesting theories about the inner workings of autistics. Despite being published in 1964 it has a compassion for autistics. This might be because back them it was linked with schizophrenia and Dick was also schizophrenic.

Highly recommended for those who read autistic characters in fiction.

#actuallyautistic #sciencefiction #philipkdick

#NowWatching : #TotalRecall (1990)

This morning I read the #PhilipKDick story ("We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"), so now I've gotta watch the movie. 😂

Plus, anything from 1990 is guaranteed to have some peak #Schwarzenegger , and for #Verhoeven , it sits between #Robocop and #StarshipTroopers , so I'm expecting a lot from him as well.

🍿 🎥

#film #cinema #movies #fridaynightmovies #90smovies #90sfilms

Et voici notre sélection des trois infos en imaginaire du 15 juillet !

- La Horde du contrevent d'Alain Damasio est au théâtre ! On vous dit tout sur Actusf.
- On vous fait découvrir une maison d'édition qui publie du fantastique dans de petits livres. Rendez-vous dans notre podcast.
- Metal Hurlant sort en août un numéro spécial Philip K.Dick !

#sciencefiction #sciencefictionfan #sciencefictionseries #philipKDick #LaHordeducontrevent #alainDamasio #fantasy #fantastique #fantastiquebook

Un numéro de Métal Hurlant sur Philip K.Dick !

Rendez-vous chez vos marchands de journaux le 26 août prochain.

On vous donne les infos sur Actusf !

#MetalHurlant #PhilipKDick #sciencefiction

https://www.actusf.com/detail-d-un-article/un-num%C3%A9ro-de-m%C3%A9tal-hurlant-sur-philip-k-dick

L'âme mécanique, pourquoi j'ai choisi l'écriture à épisodes ?

Réponse : https://go.harold-cath.be/k

Illustration Felis Dsouza@pexels

#SFFF #philipkdick #robotique #ia #valleederangeante #etsidemain

Recenzje fantastyczne:
»[Recenzja] „Transmigracja Timothy’ego Archera” Philip K. Dick«

To historia o charyzmatycznym amerykańskim biskupie (właśnie Timothym Archerze) prowadzącym zaawansowane badania dotyczące Nowego Testamentu. Jeśli skupić się wyłącznie na fabule, cała opowieść jest prosta: po śmierci syna i kochanki Archer, dręczony wątpliwościami dotyczącymi prawdziwej natury Jezusa wyrusza w podróż, podczas której ma nadzieję znaleźć wyjaśnienia wątpliwości, jakie od dłuższego czasu go nawiedzają...

https://www.fahrenheit.net.pl/ksiazki/recenzje/fantastyczne/recenzja-transmigracja-timothyego-archera-philip-k-dick/

#Fahrenheit_zin #HannaFronczak #recenzja #PhilipKDick #LechJęczmyk #DomWydawniczyRebis #WojciechSiudmak #Rebis #GrzegorzDziamski #TransmigracjaTimothyegoArchera #TheTransmigrationofTimothyArcher

#fotovorschlag 'USA'

Ich bin kein großer Fan der USA und heutzutage schon gar nicht, aber ich mag einige US-amerikanische Schriftsteller sehr gerne.
Dazu gehört auch der alte Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) mit seinen Science Fiction Romanen und Short Stories, der das Genre sehr beeinflusst hat.

#schriftsteller #lektüre #sciencefiction #philipkdick #zukunftsvisionen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ganymede_Takeover

finished this today, really cool ideas but the characters were a little cartoonish. The other author wrote the short story that "They Live" (the film) was based on

#books #booksRead #sciFi #SF #philipKDick

Fantapolemiche del weekend

https://leargenteetesteduovo.com/2026/06/30/fantapolemiche-del-weekend/

Movie TV Tech Geeks #Movie #Books #SciFi #PhilipKDick 10 Most Influential Sci-Fi Books of All Time http://dlvr.it/TTDPkk

Après une série #PhilipKDick j'enchaîne sur un classique que j'avais envie de découvrir avec Le Roi en jaune de #RobertWChambers
#LectureduMoment #Lecture #bookstodon #livrestodon

Après une série #PhilipKDick j'enchaîne sur un classique que j'avais envie de découvrir avec Le Roi en jaune de #RobertWChambers
#LectureduMoment #Lecture #bookstodon #livrestodon

Après une série #PhilipKDick j'enchaîne sur un classique que j'avais envie de découvrir avec Le Roi en jaune de #RobertWChambers
#LectureduMoment #Lecture #bookstodon #livrestodon

Après une série #PhilipKDick j'enchaîne sur un classique que j'avais envie de découvrir avec Le Roi en jaune de #RobertWChambers
#LectureduMoment #Lecture #bookstodon #livrestodon

Après une série #PhilipKDick j'enchaîne sur un classique que j'avais envie de découvrir avec Le Roi en jaune de #RobertWChambers
#LectureduMoment #Lecture #bookstodon #livrestodon

Fantastic Fiction: Fascism: We live in worrying times. Fascism is on the rise across Europe and America, according to the consensus of many commentators. In this post, I will highlight SF that has speculated on the rise and acti… (#Babylon5 #ClaireNorth #KenMacLeod #LorraineWilson #LucyFerris #MarghanitaLaski #MarisaCrane #MurrayConstantine #NanaKwameAdjeiBrendan #OctaviaButler #PhilipKDick #SJGroenwegen #UptonSinclair #WardMoon)

Full post: https://seattlein2025.org/2025/04/18/fantastic-fiction-fascism/

We live in worrying times. Fascism is on the rise across Europe and America, according to the consensus of many commentators. In this post, I will highlight SF that has speculated on the rise and activities of fascism. In a later blog post, I’ll discuss science fiction that has thought about ways to resist.

Science fiction in the 1930s had its fair share of authoritarian dictators. Upton Sinclair’s It Can’t Happen Here is a famous warning novel that feels all too relevant. In Sinclair’s vision, a populist demagogue takes power on the promise to halt immigration and make America great once more. But there is a lesser-known standout work that tried to warn the world of what was to come. Published under the alias Murray Constantine, Swastika Night (1937) projects a future in which the Nazis and Japanese won and have divided the world. Jews have been eradicated, Christians live in reservations, women are reduced to a voiceless and a near-invisible drudge caste, and the world is ruled by Teutonic knights. One aspect of the book that jumps out is the degree to which women have collaborated in their own oppression—a scenario that looked ridiculous to me on first read, but isn’t as funny in a world of “trad wives.”

Immediately after the Second World War, in the UK, people were trying to envisage a better future. Others were pushing back. In Marghanita Laski’s Tory Heaven; or, Thunder on the Right (1948), the ultra-right wing launch a coup and re-create their “natural order.” On a desert island, five people have constructed a meritocracy. When they are rescued, protagonist James Leigh-Smith (think Jacob Rees-Mogg) prays, “God, let it be as it might have been. Alter the clock, fix the election, do it any way you please, but let me see the England of all decent Conservatives’ dreams.” He finds himself in a country in which everyone is assigned to their correct social class, with the aristocracy and gentry given fixed incomes and told what to think, what to enjoy, who to marry, etc. It doesn’t end well. James discovers that while he has been given a place, it is conditional on his absolute support. He isn’t, as he thought, one of the rulers.

After the war, there were a slew of alternative history novels warning that “it could have happened here,” of which my favorites are Ward Moore’s Bring the Jubilee (1953) about a Confederate America, or Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle (1962), one of the works from the 1961-1962 era being celebrated in Seattle. However, these books are consolatory in that it didn’t happen here. I’m more interested in texts that say, “If this goes on, this is where we are heading.”

Recent examples of warning novels include Octavia Butler’s Parable (or Earthseed) series, where the second book tracks the rise of right-wing fundamentalist Christians. In the television series Babylon 5, the space station becomes one of the holdouts against a fascist earth, but the series neatly ignores that the station is not a democracy. It is at best a benevolent military meritocracy. Lucy Ferris’s The Misconceiver (1997) is told through the voice of an underground abortionist in a world in which the right has rolled back all freedoms for women, gay people, and non-whites. Most recent warning books are focused on race and sexual freedoms, but some take up fundamental and systemic issues that warn of rising facism. Ken MacLeod’s Corporation Wars series (2016-17) envisages bitter war around the fundamental ideological differences between fascism and humanism, a future divided between those who see only themselves as truly human and those who still feel humanity is (or should be) structured around collectivity and the acknowledgement of others’ realities.

Since the 2016 U.S. election, and the extreme behaviour of the (many) British prime ministers in the past decade, fascism has felt ever more threatening in the Anglosphere. Lorraine Wilson’s This Is Our Undoing (2021) is set in a fractured and fascist Europe and explores the interrelationship between the personal and the political. In Marisa Crane’s I Keep My Exoskeleton To Myself (2023) and Chain-Gang All-Stars (2023) by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, the carceral state has found new ways to abuse and exploit the underclass. In The Disinformation War (2023), SJ Groenwegen takes on the disinformation that has infected the landscape of social media. Claire North’s Notes from the Burning Age (2021) explores the rise of authoritarian nationalism in a post-collapse future after a time of rebuilding and prosperity.

We have been warned. This time round we know what’s coming.

With thanks to Facebook friends for suggestions.

Farah Mendlesohn is a con-runner, a retired history professor, a charity manager, co-editor of the Hugo Award-Winning Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, author of the Hugo-nominated The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein, and is currently working on a short book about Joanna Russ’s The Female Man (preorder Considering The Female Man by Joanna Russ, or, As the Bear Swore). Farah has chaired three Eastercons, has served in various capacities in Worldcons and Eastercons, and is part of the World Fantasy 2025 team. (Farah/they/she)

Book Review: Star Science Fiction Stories No. 3, ed. Frederik Pohl (1955)

• Richard Powers’ cover for the 1955 edition

3.5/5 (collated rating: Good)

Ballantine Books’ illustrious science fictional program started with a bang–Star Science Fiction Stories. According to Mike Ashley’s Transformations: The Story of Science-Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970 Frederik Pohl’s anthology series of original (mostly) stories was “intended as both a showcase of Ballantine’s authors and a lure to new writers.” Paying better rates than magazines, the Star series foreshadowed the explosion of original anthologies that would provide a sustained challenge to the eminence held in the 50s by the magazine.

I’ve selected the third volume of the six-volume series.1 It contains an illustrative cross-section of 50s science fiction. Philip K. Dick’s “Foster, You’re Dead” (1955), Richard Matheson’s “Dance of the Dead” (1955), and Jack Williamson’s “Guinevere for Everybody” (1955) are not to be missed.

Recommended.

Brief Plot Summaries/Analysis

“It’s Such a Beautiful Day” (1955), Isaac Asimov, 3.5/5 (Good): The anthology starts off with an effective Isaac Asimov satire of the suburban experience. The creation of suburbia in the 1950s (and subsequent mass white flight) generated increased commutes between home and urban work. The home became a bunker to protect the American family from any threat (fallout shelters, a community away from diversity and interaction with “the other,” etc.).2

Asimov speculates that new, almost instantaneous, transportation portals will isolate the family completely from the external world. A minor glitch in the transportation system instills a change in the young Richard Hanshaw, Jr. He isn’t as willing to trust the portal — and decides to trek to school by foot. His teacher calls mother in shock and suggests psychological treatment. An intriguing, and gentle, satire on American conceptions of normalcy, the new-fangled post-War emergence of psychology as a therapeutic practice, and the suburban experience.3

“The Strawberry Window” (1955), Ray Bradbury, 3/5 (Average): The story follows a family on Mars. The father, Will, spends his day constructing the settlement town. He’s possessed by the dream of Mars and humanity’s conquest of the stars: “It’s not just us come to Mars, it’s the race, the whole darn human race, depending on how we make out in our lifetime. This thing is so big I want to laugh, I’m so scared stiff of it” (31). His long-suffering wife Carrie yearns for the small sounds and big memories that anchor her to Earth. And so Will comes up with a compromise, an expensive compromise.

Ultimately, this is beautiful polish to a banal, almost jingoistic, defense of humanity’s supposed destiny to expand and conquer: “There’s nothing better than Man with a capital M in my book” (32). I am far more interested in the more subversive and quietly critical moments of Bradbury’s other Mars stories. This one is simplistic propaganda of conquest. Despite the enjoyable thematic core (the effects of leaving Earth) and polished telling, I’d classify “The Strawberry Window” amongst his most disappointing and forced. For superior Bradbury that I’ve covered, check out “The Highway” (1950) and “The Pedestrian” (1951).

“The Deep Range” (1955), Arthur C. Clarke, 3/5 (Average): One of the reasons I feel a special attraction to 50s SF is its interest in the working-class experience of the future. Of course, for the reader of the present futuristic trappings suggest a certain glorification of what would be a new form of the mundane daily grind. The heroic blue-collar stories in James Gunn’s fix-up Station in Space (1958) come to mind. In Clarke’s “The Deep Range” humanity farms the seas. Instead of terrestrial herds of sheep or cows, shepherds in submersibles with dolphin assistants protect herds of meat-yielding whales from predatory sharks.

An effective slice-of-working class experience set in an evocative locale. It’s an immersive little story that draws on Clarke’s own interest in scuba diving and underwater adventure. Regardless, I remain uninterested in returning to Clarke’s work in anything more than an anthologized tale here and there.

“Alien” (1955), Lester del Rey, 3/5 (Average): Due to an comically improbable collision at sea, Larry Cross and his alcoholic crewmate Al Simmonds find themselves stranded on an island with an alien which “could swim out of a sunken ship at the bottom of the sea” (51). Al Simmonds is injured and Cross must keep the man alive and figure out the alien’s intentions. A classic SF problem story in which man must figure out a modus operandi in a bizarre new scenario. It’s polished. It’s solid. It’s predictable.

“Foster, You’re Dead” (1955), Philip K. Dick, 5/5 (Masterpiece): Mike Foster spends his school days practicing survival skills–digging, making knives, weaving baskets–in case of a nuclear attack. The kids snicker at him as he walks past. They don’t own a fallout shelter at home. His father refuses to pay into the NATS (National Security fund). If a bomb hit, Mike wouldn’t even be granted access to the school shelter. He’s possessed by a deep, perpetual, encompassing trauma.4 His walk home is nightmarish. Mechanical newspaper machines shout excitedly about “war, death, amazing new weapons” (67). The public shelter beckons with its neon lights but he has no money in his pocket for entry. And the store with the new shelter model mocks with its advertisements: “a powered heating and refrigeration system” and “self-servicing air-purification network” with “three decontamination stages for food and water” (68). Reluctant to yet again confront his father about their lack of shelter, he gazes at the new model and talks to the salesmen. He imagines that every evening he’d sleep in its encapsulating embrace, womb-like.

One of the absolute best fallout shelter themed SF stories I’ve ever read. It’s a fascinating collision of crisp prose, commentary on the arms race, and an evisceration of the complicity of commercialism in Cold War terror. Joins William Tenn’s “Generation of Noah” (1951), Daniel Galouye’s Dark Universe (1961), Modecai Roshwald’s Level 7 (1959), and Fritz Leiber’s “The Moon Is Green” (1952) amongst the best on the theme.

“Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?” (1953), Gerald Kersh, 3.5/5 (Good): In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries surgical diagrams called “Wound Men” crop up in medical miscellanies in Europe. These illustrations–the human form hacked, slashed, smashed, cut, pierced, bloated–served as an annotated table of contents to guide the reader through various injuries and diseases. Kersh imagines a literary version of himself returning to New York City from WWII interacting with a fantastical manifestation of a Wound Man on board the Cunard White Star liner Queen Mary. Corporal Cuckoo, the “Wound Man” in question, regals the narrator (Kersh) with the history of his scarred and mutilated form that mysteriously heals from every injury.

The reader becomes immersed in a historical military narrative that begins in the early 16th century. There’s a bizarre sense of horror and fantastical displacement. Like some crushed and deformed specimen, Cuckoo becomes an encyclopedic, and culminative, glimpse of humanity’s relentless obsession with death and violence.

Interesting and memorable. I’ll keep on the lookout for more of Kersh’s SFF.

“Dance of the Dead” (1955), Richard Matheson, 4/5 (Good): My third favorite story in the anthology transplants the standard narrative of a young adult straying from the path set out by parents and small town community onto a break-neck road trip in a drug and alcohol drenched near-future. Len, Bud, Barbara, and Peggy race their car towards St. Louis. Bud tries to get Barb to take snuggle–“act of promiscuous love-play; usage evolved during W.W. III” (114)–and take drugs: “Have a jab, Bab” (115). In the kaleidoscope of the new and relentless peer pressure the lessons her mother taught her slowly erode. All her inhibitions come crashing down when the quartet see the transcendent nightmare that is the titular dance of the dead.

Manifesting the SPEED of the car, Matheson’s prose resonates with pulse and hum, snippets of song and signage, slang and youthful lust: “At a hundred miles an hour let me DREAM my DREAMS!” (115). It’s frantic. It’s zappy. It’s vibrant. Recommended for fans of the more linguistically experimental (and bleak) of 50s visions.

“Any More at Home Like You?” (1955), Chad Oliver, 2.75/5 (Below Average): Dangerously close to joke story territory (what I classify stories that rely on a silly last page twist designed to generate a chuckle), Oliver re-imagines the classic flying saucer story. A young “man” named Keith crashes his advanced spacecraft in the swanky Bel-Air neighborhood of LA. He seems friendly. Friendly residents take him in. He meets with politicians. He gives a canned speech at the UN. But what’s the secret behind his sudden appearance? Does he really represent a massive Galactic Civilization as he claims? When the pieces all fit together, there’s a gentle sense to it all mixed in with a little, rather silly, “snip” at humanity’s claims to galactic centrality.

If you’re new to Oliver, I recommend tracking downs his two generation ship short stories–“Stardust” (1952) and “The Wind Blows Free” (1957). This one was not for me.

“The Devil on Salvation Bluff” (1955), Jack Vance, 3.25/5 (Above Average): As my last Vance review came in 2021–The Languages of Pao (1958), I looked forward to this anthology as a way to return to his fiction. “The Devil on Salvation Bluff” imagines a religious colony (everyone calls each other “Brother” or “Sister”) on a planet named Glory without clear scientific or societal patterns. If anything, disorder, irregularity, and chaos is the pattern. Regardless, the community attempts to impose an almost monastic order on their lives. The colonists brings with them a massive clock, build communities in precise patterns, and carve up the landscape with linear canals and irrigation.

In classic missionary fashion, the colonists attempt to impose their religion and regularity on the humanoid inhabitants of Glory, nicknamed Flits, that spend their days indulging in their passions, seemingly random rituals, and goat herding. Using salt as a bribe, they momentarily convince the Flits to settle in a new village created by the colonists. After Brother Raymond and Sister Mary kidnap the chief of the Flits to identify the psychosis they think might underline their impulsive, random, and occasionally destructive actions, the true psychological truth of the planet emerges. Vance suggests that dogmatic religion must shift and change to adapt to the moment.

Fits in with an intriguing cluster of often brilliant 50s stories exploring the clash of Earth religion and the SFnal new–Ray Bradbury’s “The Man” (1949), Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Star” (1955), James Blish’s A Case of Conscience (novella 1953, novelized 1958), Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz (stories 1955-1957, novelized 1959), etc.

Somewhat recommended.

“Guinevere for Everybody” (1955), Jack Williamson, 4.5/5 (Very Good): An artificially created Guinevere stands “chained” in a “vending machine” tempting sleepy passengers in an airport with her plaintive calls (169). “You like me, huh?” she asks strangers as they pass (170). “Won’t you by me?” she cajoles (170). The implication is clear. The reason for her sudden appearance in train stations, and others of her model, far less so. Chimberley represents General Cybernetics, a company building “managerial computers” to replace human workers (171). Chimberley attempts the origins of “THE VITAL APPLIANCE!” with her all too human sex appeal, and disturbing tendency to spout advertisements for other products (170). He, little more than a cypher manifesting the displacement of the mechanical age, feels drawn to her as “his best friends were digital computers” (171). He discerns that she is a recent product created, produced, and distributed by one of these vast managerial computers. Giddy with excitement he sees her as “something human management would never have had the brains or the vision to accomplish” (172). He purchases her from the vending machine and sets off to find the producing facility. But a line has been crossed, and another.

This story bothered me (in a good way) far more than it should. Williamson integrates little comments about how the mechanical (think AI unleashed on the US government) ignores the human experience. And how Chimberley, alone, adrift, insular, feels fulfilled by a programmed device that is but a fragment of a capitalistic assault on the consumer. This disturbed satirical gem took me by surprise. I will be on the lookout for more 50s Williamson short stories.

Notes

1. Eight if we count the one-volume Star Science Fiction Magazine (1958) and Star Short Novels (1954). ↩︎
2. There is a ton of scholarship on both of these ideas that I have referenced in various reviews in the past. Here is a short list! Elaine Tyler May’s Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988, rev. 2017); Thomas Bishop’s Every Home a Fortress: Cold War Fatherhood and the Family Fallout Shelter (2020); Laura McEnaney’s Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties (2000); and Robert A. Beauregard’s When America Became Suburban (2006). ↩︎
3. For “normalcy” see Anna G. Creadick’s Perfectly Average: The Pursuit of Normality in Postwar America (2010); For the growth of psychology as medical practice in the post-War moment see Ellen Herman’s The Romance of American Psychology: Political Culture in the Age of Experts (1995). ↩︎
4. I am reminded of studies of childhood trauma conducted on the students of Abo Elementary, New Mexico, a school built underground as a fallout shelter. ↩︎

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