The Short Stories, Volume 2

Philip Kindred Dick was born in 1928. Widely considered one of the greatest science fiction writers, his talents were immense but he lived almost his whole life on the edge of poverty. Born prematurely on December 16, 1928 his twin sister died which caused a shadow over the rest of his life. Many of his works would refer to the 'phantom twin'. Bizarrely her tiny body was buried in Colorado where her parents also had Philip's name inscribed on the tombstone. Eventually upon his death in 1982 he too was interred in the same plot. Philip sold his first short story in 1951 and then became a full time writer selling his first novel in 1955. He wrote continually and whilst considered a genius of the science fiction genre he was ignored by the mainstream. Now of course much of his work is turned into films and he is rightly lauded. All his work is at times visionary, and haunting dealing with many themes. Dick wrote of his work. "In my writing I even question the universe; I wonder out loud if it is real, and I wonder out loud if all of us are real." In this collection we deal with short stories he wrote for various science fiction magazines.