Second Variety (The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Vol. 3) (Vol 3) (Paperback)

by Philip K. Dick (Author), John Brunner (Introduction)
Key Phrases: disposal slot, therapy house, aluminum cane, Big Noodle, David Unger, Mike Foster (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
ea. vol: 400p. Underwood-Miller. 1987. set: $125. ISBN 0-88733-053-3. LC number unavailable. YA Dick is not just a good craftsman of short stories, but a successful writer of short science fiction stories. These vignettes will expand readers' points of view and challenge usual cultural assumptions. This collection traces Dick's growth as a writer, and also the application of major sci/fi themes over the 30 years between his first story in 1952 and his last in 1982. Thermonuclear war, xenophobia, and the tension between man and technology are among the recurring motifs. Each volume contains brief notes that date the stories and offer some context from the author's perspective. The price may seem high, but it compares favorably with the investment many libraries have in Heinlein and Asimov. These books lend themselves to ``cover-to-cover'' reading, an unusual feat for a five-volume collection. Dorcas Hand, Episcopal High School, Bellaire
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Encompassing 34 years and over 100 stories, this collection of the short fiction of the late author provides a retrospective of his contribution to sf literature. Arranged chronologically (with publication history and, in some cases, Dick's own commentaries at the end of each volume), the progression from early stories such as "The Preserving Machine" (1953) to "The Little Black Box" (1964) and "Frozen Journey" (1980) traces the development of one of sf's most eccentric and articulate minds. Highly recommended for any library whose budget can afford the price. JC
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 414 pages
• Publisher: Citadel Press (January 27, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806512261
• ISBN-13: 978-0806512266
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #243,579 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must for the Dick Fan and a Good Introduction to PKD, January 13, 2004

By	Randy Stafford (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There'll Never Be Another Like Him, October 19, 2000

By	El Kabong - See all my reviews

This book, third in a set of five from Citadel Press (who are doing similar definitive collections of Robert Bloch & Theodore Sturgeon), collects all of Dick's short stories, the vast majority of them from the 50s - not coincidentally, the high-water mark of the sf pulps. All are introduced by later-era sf writers like Tom Disch, Norman Spinrad & this volume's John Brunner; unfortunately, all take pains to point out that the true value of these stories was in their raw wealth of ideas, which Dick later cannibalized and expanded upon in his novels. During his short-story tyro period, Dick wrote fast and furious (how does a story a week sound?) and the conventional wisdom states that these tales are too one-dimensional, formulaic and crudely-written to have much artistic quality on their own merits. I strongly disagree. While Dick's later novels are of course worth reading, these early stories literally SEETHE with fevered imagination: it's important to note that he does not employ recurring characters or settings here. He literally starts each story with a blank canvas, which only makes his prolific output that much more astounding. All of his obsessions and central themes are already present, but emerging as they did against the backdrop of the American 50s, the oft-noted 'flaws' in these small gems lend an eerily authentic surrealism and subversive power that his 60s and 70s work (when the world he lived in was already waist-deep in 'science fiction time', to use a Spinrad phrase) somewhat lack. Actually, Dick's COLLECTED STORIES, like much of the most resonant 50s sf, can be savored as much for their horror-story frissons, or their mythic and allegorical properties, as they can as pure speculative fiction. (And one could make the argument that such work, produced under the spectres of McCarthyism, The Bomb, flying-saucer sightings, a growing militarism and the incipient gray-flannelled paranoia festering in the newly-minted utopia of suburbia, was much more daring and revolutionary than similar Dick-inspired work published in the far-less-restrictive, anything-goes 60s). Sure, many of the characters in COLLECTED STORIES read like print versions of Kenneth Tobey and Morris Ankrum, but therein lies their power; they're true to the era in a way that 'better-written', more fully developed protagonists probably couldn't be. Anyway, to cut a long-winded sermon short, readers drawn to either sf or horror, as well as those who nominally detest both genres but do enjoy a touch of strangeness and obsessiveness in their fiction, should run out and buy SECOND VARIETY and the other four books in this series. You may be surprised to find many of these 'one-dimensional' stories, written hastily for money, clinging like burrs to your subconscious long after the work of Great Authors have slid noiselessly from memory. Mandatory reading.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Third Volume Of An Amazing Collection, May 4, 2007

By	Dave_42 "Dave_42" (Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

In May of 1987 Underwood-Miller published a five volume set titled "The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick". The third volume of the collection was subtitled "The Father-Thing". In April of 1991 the Carroll Group republished the third volume changing the subtitle to "Second Variety". In addition to the change of title this volume now contains the story "Second Variety" which was originally in the second volume of the Underwood-Miller set. It seems clear that they made these changes in order to take advantage of the release of "Total Recall", which was around the time of the Carroll Group's re-release of the second volume of the series, and that did have the cascading effect of destroying the chronological approach that the original set of books used, but that doesn't change the fact that this is an excellent series of books and well worth owning by anyone who loves science fiction. Ultimately, this book contains the same stories as volume 3 in the original set, with the addition of "Second Variety" as the last story in the book.

There are 24 stories in this book, with a greater number of longer stories than were in the first two volumes of the series. While Dick's short stories are excellent, the novelette length gives him a bit more room to really explore some of his ideas, something which he uses to great effect in several of this book's stories. One theme which appears in several of the stories here is that of mutation. Dick clearly rejected John W. Campbell Jr.'s idea that mutations should always be viewed as good and leading humanity into the future. This idea is central to stories like "The Golden Man" , "A World of Talent", and "Psi-man Heal My Child", though that is not to say that Dick viewed mutations as bad either, simply that he used a more balanced and realistic approach to the subject.

Another theme which appears in several stories in this volume is that of humanity losing control of their technology, and we see this in such stories as "The Last of the Masters",
"To Serve the Master", and the title story "Second Variety", which was the basis for the 1996 film "Screamers". Along the same lines, we see mankind on the brink of elimination in stories like "Tony and the Beetles", and "Pay for the Printer" along with several of the stories which I had already mentioned. It is not surprising that Dick revisited many of these ideas over and over, as most authors do. Dick also had an incredible output of stories during the early fifties was incredible, with nearly all of the stories in the first three volumes were written between 1952 and 1954, so again one would expect a fair amount of repeated themes. What is surprising is that he manages to make the stories fresh by taking the reader in different directions each time.

This is a great volume in a great collection of Philip K. Dick's work. While changed slightly from the original collection, which was ranked 3rd on the Locus poll for collections in 1988, the completeness of the collection is still in tact. Outside of the stories I have already listed, there are other very good ones as well, such as "The Father-Thing", "Foster, You're Dead", and "Shell Game". The longer stories in this volume put it in front of the first two volumes in terms of the overall quality, but the whole series is certainly worthwhile.