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"Impostor" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published in Astounding SF magazine, 3 June 1953.
Spence Olham, a member of a team designing an offensive weapon to destroy invading aliens known as the Outspacers, is confronted by a colleague and accused by security officer Major Peters of being an android impostor designed to sabotage Earth's defenses. The impostor's spaceship was damaged and has crashed just outside the city. The android is supposed to detonate a planet-destroying bomb on the utterance of a deadly code phrase. Olham, in an attempt to clear his name and prove his humanity, manages to escape his captors and return to Earth after they fail to kill him on the Moon. Upon reaching Earth, Olham contacts his wife, Mary, but is soon ambushed by security officers waiting for him by his house. Out of options and with Major Peters' forces closing in, Olham decides to prove he is a human by finding the crashed Outspacer spaceship and recovering the android's body from the wreckage. The discovery of a bloody knife by the wreckage indicates to Olham that Peters was correct and that the real Spence Olham had already been killed. The android, now aware of the truth of its existence, proclaims "If that's Olham, then I must be..." [1] causing the bomb to detonate, the explosion visible even to the Outspacers of Alpha Centauri.
The story was adapted in 1962 as an episode of the British science fiction television series Out of This World . Like most episodes of the show, it was wiped and is now lost, although an audio-only recording has survived and is available on DVD.
Impostor , a feature film based on the story, was released in 2002 starring Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe and Vincent D'Onofrio.
The story was widely anthologised, including in the Slovak as "Votrelec" in Stratený robot (1 January 1986) Mladé Letá.
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.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a 1968 dystopian science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It is set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, where Earth's life has been greatly damaged by a nuclear global war, leaving most animal species endangered or extinct. The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who has to "retire" six escaped Nexus-6 model androids, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids.
"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.
Life, the Universe and Everything is the third book in the six-volume Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction "trilogy of five books" by British writer Douglas Adams. The title refers to the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
"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.
"Autofac" is a 1955 science fiction novelette by American writer Philip K. Dick that features one of the earliest treatments of self-replicating machines. It appeared originally in Galaxy Science Fiction of November 1955, and was reprinted in several collections, including The Variable Man published in 1957, and Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities published in 1984.
Total Recall 2070 is a science fiction television series influenced by the work of Philip K. Dick. It was first broadcast in 1999 on the Canadian television channel CHCH-TV and later the same year on the American Showtime channel. It was later syndicated in the United States with some editing to remove scenes of nudity, violence and strong language.
"Null-O" is a 1958 science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It examines the concept of totally unempathic and 'logical' humans ("Null-Os") in a parody of the plot and concepts of The Pawns of Null-A by A. E. van Vogt. These beings view individual collections of matter, i.e. any object, as subjective structures and see the true state of reality as an 'undifferentiated world of pure energy'. They can also move their ears independently, giving them excellent hearing. After attaining positions of power they proceed with a plan to ultimately return everything in the universe to this state. This is to be done by the construction of successively more powerful bombs, ultimately resulting in the rather improbable 'U-bomb' that will homogenise the whole universe. The Null-O plan is halted, however, when the 'ordinary' people of the world, who have survived the nuclear destruction of Earth's surface in the shelters built by their employers, rise up in drilling machines to stop the construction of an 'E-Bomb' designed to destroy Earth, and succeed in destroying both the E-Bomb prototype and the Null-O's themselves.
The Simulacra is a 1964 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The novel portrays a future totalitarian society apparently dominated by a matriarch, Nicole Thibodeaux. It revolves around the themes of reality and illusionary beliefs, as do many of Dick's works. Additionally, it touches on Nazi ideology.
Impostor is a 2001 American science fiction psychological thriller film based upon the 1953 short story "Impostor" by Philip K. Dick. The film starred Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Mekhi Phifer and was directed by Gary Fleder.
A Handful of Darkness is a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Rich & Cowan in 1955 and was Dick's first hardcover book.
The Best of Philip K. Dick is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Del Rey Books in 1977 as a volume in its Classic Library of Science Fiction. Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines Planet Stories, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Space Science Fiction, Imagination, Astounding Stories, Galaxy Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Science Fiction Stories and Startling Stories, as well as the anthologies Dangerous Visions and Star Science Fiction Stories No.3.
Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities: The Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published by the Southern Illinois University Press in 1984 and was edited by Patricia S. Warrick and Martin H. Greenberg. The stories had originally appeared in the magazines Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy Science Fiction, Space Science Fiction, Astounding, Future, Orbit, Science Fiction Stories, Imagination, Amazing Stories, Rolling Stone College Papers and Playboy.
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick is a collection of 118 science fiction stories by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Underwood-Miller in 1987 as a five volume set. See Philip K. Dick bibliography for information about the mass market reprints.
Second Variety is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Gollancz in 1989 and reprints Volume II of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. It had not previously been published as a stand-alone volume. Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines Fantasy Fiction, Fantastic Universe, Space Science Fiction, Imagination, If, Amazing Stories, Science Fiction Quarterly, Startling Stories, Cosmos, Orbit, Astounding and Planet Stories. The 1990 Citadel collection We Can Remember It for You Wholesale is identical except that it has "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" instead of "Second Variety".
We Can Remember It for You Wholesale is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Citadel Twilight in 1990 and reprints Volume II of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick replacing the story "Second Variety" with "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines Fantasy Fiction, Fantastic Universe, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Imagination, If, Amazing Stories, Science Fiction Quarterly, Startling Stories, Cosmos, Orbit, Astounding, and Planet Stories.
Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick is a collection of science fiction stories by Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Random House in 2002. Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines Planet Stories, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Imagination, Space Science Fiction, Astounding, Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Orbit, Galaxy Science Fiction, Fantastic Universe, Amazing Stories, Rolling Stone College Papers, Omni and Playboy.
"The Infinites" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1953 in the May issue of Planet Stories. It has since been republished several times, including in Beyond Lies the Wub in 1988 and in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick.
A body cavity bomb (BCB) is an explosive device hidden inside the body of a person in order to commit a suicide attack. While this concept has been used many times in fiction, it is almost unknown in real life. A body cavity bomb is only known to have been used once, in a failed assassination attempt.
