External links
 | This article about a science fiction short story (or stories) published in the 1980s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
"Rautavaara's Case" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published in 1980 in Omni magazine and subsequently in the 1985 short story collection I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon . The story was also included on We Can Remember It For You Wholesale , volume five of the Collected Short Stories of Philip K. Dick in 2003.
The story is about Agneta Rautavaara, a young Finnish technician, who dies in an accident while working on a space vessel with two other technicians. However, a rescue team from Proxima Centauri gets there in time to save Rautavaara's brain and impose artificial life support on it. In her damaged brain, Rautavaara goes through a series of experiences that draw on the conceptions of afterlife held by herself on the one hand and the Proxima Centauri natives on the other.
A theme of the story is whether it is ethically right to keep a human on life-support if they exist only as a mind, with their body paralyzed or otherwise destroyed.
| | This article about a science fiction short story (or stories) published in the 1980s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
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.
Ubik is a 1969 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The story is set in a future 1992 where psychic powers are utilized in corporate espionage, while cryonic technology allows recently deceased people to be maintained in a lengthy state of hibernation. It follows Joe Chip, a technician at a psychic agency who begins to experience strange alterations in reality that can be temporarily reversed by a mysterious store-bought substance called Ubik. This work expands upon characters and concepts previously introduced in the vignette "What the Dead Men Say".
"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.
Proxima Centauri is the nearest star to Earth after the Sun, located 4.25 light-years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus. This object was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes. It is a small, low-mass star, too faint to be seen with the naked eye, with an apparent magnitude of 11.13. Its Latin name means the 'nearest [star] of Centaurus'. Proxima Centauri is a member of the Alpha Centauri star system, being identified as component Alpha Centauri C, and is 2.18° to the southwest of the Alpha Centauri AB pair. It is currently 12,950 AU (0.2 ly) from AB, which it orbits with a period of about 550,000 years.
"Faith of Our Fathers" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in the anthology Dangerous Visions (1967).
"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.
"If There Were No Benny Cemoli" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in the December, 1963 issue of Galaxy magazine with illustration by Lutjens.
Paul S. Williams was an American music journalist, writer, and publisher who created Crawdaddy!, the first national US magazine of rock music criticism, in January 1966. He was a leading authority on the works of musicians Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, and Neil Young, and science fiction writers Theodore Sturgeon and Philip K. Dick, for whose literary estate he served as executor. Williams was also the founder of the Philip K. Dick Society, which helped to publish Dick's work and establish his legacy.
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.
"Impostor" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published in Astounding SF magazine, 3 June 1953.
"Expendable" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction issue of July 1953. The plot centers on an unnamed human being caught in the middle of the ongoing, million year conflict between the degenerate descendants of the insects and humans.
"Proxima Centauri" is a science fiction short story by American writer Murray Leinster, originally published in the March 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. Unusually for the time, the story adhered to the laws of physics as they were known by showing a starship that was limited by the speed of light and took several years to travel between the stars. In his comments on the story in Before the Golden Age, Isaac Asimov thought that "Proxima Centauri" must have influenced Robert A. Heinlein's later story "Universe" and stated that it influenced his own Pebble in the Sky.
I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon is a book by American writer Philip K. Dick, a collection of 10 science fiction short stories and one essay. It was first published by Doubleday in 1985 and was edited by Mark Hurst and Paul Williams. Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines Fantasy and Science Fiction, Worlds of Tomorrow, Amazing Stories, Interzone, Rolling Stone College Papers, The Yuba City High Times, Omni 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.
The Little Black Box is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Gollancz in 1990 and reprints Volume V 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 Worlds of Tomorrow, Galaxy Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Famous Science Fiction, Niekas, Rolling Stone College Papers, Interzone, Playboy, Omni and The Yuba City High Times.
The Eye of the Sibyl is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Citadel Twilight in 1992 and reprints Volume V of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, omitting the story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines Worlds of Tomorrow, Galaxy Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Famous Science Fiction, Niekas, Rolling Stone College Papers, Interzone, Playboy, Omni and The Yuba City High Times.
Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer 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.
Rautavaara is a municipality of Finland.
"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.
Nebula Award Stories Sixteen is an anthology of award winning science fiction short works edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr. It was first published in hardcover by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in August 1982; a paperback edition was issued by Bantam Books in September 1983. British editions were issued by W. H. Allen (hardcover) and Star (paperback) in 1983; the latter under the variant title Nebula Winners Sixteen.