"Breakfast at Twilight" | |
---|---|
Short story by Philip K. Dick | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Science fiction short story |
Publication | |
Published in | Amazing Stories |
Publication type | Periodical |
Media type | |
Publication date | July 1954 |
"Breakfast at Twilight" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was received by the Scott Meredith Literary Agency on January 17, 1953 and first published in Amazing Stories , July 1954. [1] It appears in the second volume reprint of Philip K. Dick's short stories Second Variety .
After experiencing a terrifying explosion, a middle-class American family finds their home in the middle of a wasteland. American soldiers burst in looking for survivors and supplies, under the family's amazed and frightened eyes. The soldiers are just as surprised, finding the home filled with items that are no longer available, and carrying away their food.
The soldiers explain that their home is one of the few to survive the ongoing nuclear war, which is now largely automated with underground factories on both sides of the conflict building missiles and destroying the other country square by square. The soldiers and family soon realize the home is out of its own time continuum, apparently having been blasted into the future by the force of the bombs. They find that the date is not long in the future; the war starts shortly after the time they left.
The soldiers tell the family a second wave of missiles will be arriving, intended to destroy anything that survived the first wave, and offer to take the family into a shelter. After some discussion, they refuse, considering it better to chance that the second wave will blast them back to their own time than live in this largely lifeless future.
The gambit succeeds and the family finds themselves in their own time, but with their house destroyed. Neighbors rush to the home, where the father, Tim McLean, agrees that the problem was an exploding central heating system. Then he comments, "I should have got it fixed ... I should have had it looked at a long time ago. Before it got in such bad shape ... before it was too late", a metaphor for the start of the war which may now be unavoidable.
Reviewer Steven Owen Godersky proclaimed in his review that "Phil Dick's third major theme is his fascination with war and his fear and hatred of it. One hardly sees critical mention of it, yet it is as integral to his body of work as oxygen is to water." [2]
Philip Kindred Dick, often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer and novelist. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. His fiction explored varied philosophical and social questions such as the nature of reality, perception, human nature, and identity, and commonly featured characters struggling against elements such as alternate realities, illusory environments, monopolistic corporations, drug abuse, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness. He is considered one of the most important figures in 20th-century science fiction.
The Man in the High Castle is an alternative history novel by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1962, which imagines a world in which the Axis Powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the life of several characters living under Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany as they rule a partitioned United States. The eponymous character is the mysterious author of a novel-within-the-novel entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a subversive alternative history of the war in which the Allied Powers are victorious.
"Second Variety" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in Space Science Fiction magazine, in May 1953. Set in a world where war between the Soviet Union and United Nations has reduced most of the world to a barren wasteland, the story concerns the discovery, by the few remaining soldiers left, that self-replicating robots originally built to assassinate Soviet agents have gained sentience and are now plotting against both sides. It is one of many stories by Dick examining the implications of nuclear war, particularly after it has destroyed much or all of the planet.
"The Minority Report" is a 1956 science fiction novella by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in Fantastic Universe. In a future society, three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these "precogs" allow a division of the police called Precrime to arrest suspects before they can commit any actual crimes. When the head of Precrime, John Anderton, is himself predicted to murder a man whom he has never heard of, Anderton is convinced a great conspiracy is afoot.
The Berserker series is a series of space opera science fiction short stories and novels by Fred Saberhagen, in which robotic self-replicating machines strive to destroy all life.
"The Variable Man" is a science fiction novella by American writer Philip K. Dick, which he wrote and sold before he had an agent. It was first published in the British magazine Space Science Fiction Vol. 2 No. 2, July 1953, and in the American version in September 1953, with the US publication illustrated by Alex Ebel. Despite the magazine cover dates it is unclear whether the first publication was in the UK or in the United States where magazines tended to be published farther ahead of their cover dates than in the UK. The Variable Man can be found in several collections of Dick's short stories, including The Variable Man and The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford.
Screamers is a 1995 science fiction horror film starring Peter Weller, Roy Dupuis, and Jennifer Rubin, and directed by Christian Duguay. The screenplay, written by Dan O'Bannon with a rewrite by Miguel Tejada-Flores, is based on Philip K. Dick's 1953 short story "Second Variety", and addresses themes commonly found in that author's work: societal conflict, confusion of reality and illusion, and machines turning upon their creators. The film received generally negative response from critics at the time of its release. A sequel Screamers: The Hunting, was released in 2009, to mixed reviews.
"Exhibit Piece" is a 1954 science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. The story is an early exploration of the concept of shifting realities, a common theme in Dick's subsequent works. The protagonist is a future historian of the 20th century who finds himself shifting in time from the future to that time period. At first, it is unclear whether he is merely a man from the past imagining a future life, or vice versa.
"The Last of the Masters" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Philip K. Dick. The original manuscript of the story was received by the Scott Meredith Literary Agency on July 15, 1953, and the story was published by the Hanro Corporation in the final issue of Orbit Science Fiction in 1954. It has since been reprinted in several Philip K. Dick story collections, beginning with The Golden Man in 1980.
"Roog" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was his first sold work, although not his first published story.
The bibliography of Philip K. Dick includes 44 novels, 121 short stories, and 14 short story collections published by American science fiction author Philip K. Dick during his lifetime.
"Adjustment Team" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published in Orbit Science Fiction with illustration by Faragasso. It was later reprinted in The Sands of Mars and Other Stories (Australian) in 1958, The Book of Philip K. Dick in 1973, The Turning Wheel and Other Stories in 1977, The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick in 1987 (Underwood–Miller), 1988, 1990, Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick in 2002 and in The Early Work of Philip K. Dick, Volume One: The Variable Man & Other Stories in 2009.
Life during Wartime is a science fantasy novel written by American author Lucius Shepard. His second novel, it was published by Bantam Books in 1987, in which year it was nominated for the Philip K Dick Award. In 1990, it won the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis.
Second Variety is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Citadel Twilight in 1991 and reprints Volume III of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick with the addition of the story "Second Variety". Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines If, Science Fiction Adventures, Science Fiction Stories, Orbit, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Imagination, Future, Galaxy Science Fiction, Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Satellite, Science Fiction Quarterly, Imaginative Tales and Space Science Fiction. There is huge overlap with the 1997 The Philip K. Dick Reader: stories 1–20 and 24 are identical.
Martian Time-Slip is a 1964 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The novel uses the common science fiction concept of a human colony on Mars. However, it also includes the themes of mental illness, the physics of time and the dangers of centralized authority.
"Mr. Spaceship" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in Imagination in January 1953, and later in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. It has since been republished several times, including in Beyond Lies the Wub in 1988.
"The Crystal Crypt" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in the January 1954 edition of Planet Stories and later published in Beyond Lies the Wub in 1988.
"The Builder" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published in the magazine Amazing Stories, in December, 1953-January 1954, with illustration by Ed Emshwiller. Dick had submitted many short stories to magazines and made approximately fifteen sales before becoming a client of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency. This was his first SMLA submission, received by SMLA on July 23, 1952. His second SMLA submission was Meddler, received by SMLA on July 24, 1952. The SMLA file card for "The Builder" shows it was submitted to mainstream magazines The Atlantic Monthly and Harper's before it was submitted to Amazing Stories and has an SMLA sub-agent's notation, "IT ISN'T SCIENCE FICTION".
"War Game" is a 1959 short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published in the magazine Galaxy Science Fiction, in December 1959, and has since been re-published in two anthologies and at least twenty-four collections.