An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a flesh-like material. Historically, androids were completely within the domain of science fiction and frequently seen in film and television, but advances in robot technology now allow the design of functional and realistic humanoid robots.
Philip Kindred Dick, often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer. 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.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a dystopian science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968. The novel 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.
The Man in the High Castle (1962), by Philip K. Dick, is an alternative history novel wherein 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 political intrigues between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany as they rule the partitioned United States. The titular character is the author of a novel-within-the-novel entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, itself also an alternative history of the war.
Fredric Brown was an American science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer. He is known for his use of humor and for his mastery of the "short short" form—stories of 1 to 3 pages, often with ingenious plotting devices and surprise endings. Humor and a postmodern outlook carried over into his novels as well. One of his stories, "Arena", was adapted to a 1967 episode of the American television series Star Trek.
"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 to examine the implications of nuclear war, particularly after it has destroyed much or all of the planet.
Science fiction is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, dinosaurs, mutants, interstellar travel, time travel, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition.
Bruce Bethke is an American author best known for his 1983 short story Cyberpunk which led to the widespread use of the term, including for the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. His novel, Headcrash, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1995 for SF original paperback published in the US.
Radell Faraday Nelson was an American science fiction author and cartoonist most famous for his 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning", which was later used by John Carpenter as the basis for his 1988 film They Live.
"Autofac" is a 1955 science fiction short story 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.
"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.
"The Defenders" is a 1953 science fiction novelette by American author Philip K. Dick, and the basis for Dick's 1964 novel The Penultimate Truth. It is one of several of his stories to be expanded into a novel. The story was first published in the January 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.
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.
It! The Living Colossus is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Initially a statue animated by a hostile extraterrestrial, he first appeared in the science-fiction anthology series Tales of Suspense #14, in a story drawn by Jack Kirby. He was revived in Astonishing Tales #21 by writer Tony Isabella and artist Dick Ayers as the protagonist of a short-lived feature, in which he was animated by a wheelchair-using special-effects designer.
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 Philip K. Dick Reader is a collection of science fiction stories by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Citadel Twilight in 1997. 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, Imaginative Tales, Fantastic Universe and Space Science Fiction. It is identical in content and order to the edition of volume 3 of the Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick produced by the same publisher apart from the substitution of three stories in positions 21-23 of 24 and the omission of the end notes in the Collected Stories edition. At press time, stories 21 and 24 had already been made into successful movie adaptations and stories 22 and 23 had been optioned.
"The Great C" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine in 1953. It has since been republished several times in collections such as Beyond Lies the Wub in 1988. Parts of the work, along with Planet for Transients, were later used in the full-length novel Deus Irae. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which a young man is sent from his tribe every year to visit a godlike computer capable of mass destruction and try to stump it with three questions. The story was adapted into an animated virtual reality film in 2018 by Secret Location.
AI takeover—the idea that some kind of artificial intelligence may supplant humankind as the dominant intelligent species on the planet—is a common theme in science fiction. Famous cultural touchstones include Terminator and The Matrix.
"The Impossible Planet" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in the October 1953 issue of Imagination. It has been reprinted over 30 times, including Brian Aldiss's 1974 Space Odysseys anthology. It was also published in Dutch, French, German and Italian translations. The writer originally submitted it to the Scott Meredith Literary Agency on February 11, 1953, with the title "Legend."
