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    Upon The Dull Earth
    Upon The Dull Earth
    Upon The Dull Earth
    Ebook37 pages23 minutes

    Upon The Dull Earth

    By Philip K. Dick

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Enter the fascinating and uncanny world of Philip K. Dick with Upon the Dull Earth, a gripping and mind-bending science fiction and fantasy short story drawing inspiration from Shakespeare's "The Two Gentlemen of Verona."

    Venture into the unknown as you follow Silvia, who possesses an extraordinary ability to summon mysterious and powerful angel-like creatures. Desperate to confirm their true nature and their relation to her destiny, Silvia's journey challenges our notions of reality and our understanding of ancestral ties. As Silvia's strange talents disturb her family and her boyfriend, Rick, events quickly spiral out of control, leading to heart-wrenching consequences. Driven by loss and longing, Rick's obsessive quest to bring Silvia back from a higher realm scatters chaos, confusion, and transformation in his wake. Can they navigate the shifting landscape of this higher reality, or will their desires ultimately bring about the world's annihilation?

    From the visionary mind behind blockbuster films such as Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report, Upon the Dull Earth showcases Dick's favorite themes, while unraveling a unique and terrifying twist that will leave you questioning the very essence of reality. Don't miss this haunting classic that will linger with you long after the final page.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateJan 18, 2016
    ISBN9781473379503
    Author

    Philip K. Dick

    Over a writing career that spanned three decades, PHILIP K. DICK (1928–1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned to deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film, notably Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, as well as television's The Man in the High Castle. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, including the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and between 2007 and 2009, the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

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    Reviews for Upon The Dull Earth

    3.5/5

    12 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Nice package of inventive storytelling. Nothing that really stood out, but I guess most of his central themes will have bene endlessly picked over by now so will have lost their freshness / shock value.
    • 4/5
      All 3 variety anthologies seem to favour Dick's earlier work - perhaps drawing on a deeper pool of short stories - but are none the worse for it.

      PD is insightful, funny and simultaeneously deeply disturbing. References to the Cold War resonate throughout his work. These may be lost on the younger reader - but this will have a special place on my bookshelf for some time.

    Book preview

    Upon The Dull Earth - Philip K. Dick

    1.png

    Upon The Dull Earth

    (1953)

    By

    Philip K. Dick

    Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

    This book is copyright and may not be

    reproduced or copied in any way without

    the express permission of the publisher in writing

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

    A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

    Philip K. Dick

    Philip Kindred Dick was born on December 16 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. The death of his twin sister, Jane, six weeks after their birth profoundly affected the writer in later life and is said to account for the recurring theme of the ‘phantom twin’ in many of his works.  

    Dick and his family moved to the Bay Area of San Francisco when he was young, and later on to Washington DC following his parents divorce. Dick attended Elementary school and then a Quaker school before the family moved back to California. It was around this time that Dick began to take an active interest in the science fiction genre, reading his first magazine ‘Stirring Science Stories’, at age twelve.

    Dick attended High School in Berkeley, California, where he and fellow science fiction author Ursula K.Le Guin were members of the same graduating class (1947) but were unknown to each other at the time. After graduation, he briefly attended the University of California in Berkeley, taking classes in History, Psychology, Philosophy, and Zoology. Through his studies in Philosophy, he came to believe that existence is based on internal perceptions which do not necessarily correspond to external reality; he described himself as an acosmic pantheist, believing in the universe only as an extension of God. Dick ultimately concluded the world is not entirely real and there is no way to confirm whether what we see is truly there at all. This question from his early studies persisted as a theme in many of his novels.

    Dick married five times between 1959 and 1973, and had three children. He sold his first story in 1951 and from that point on he wrote full-time, selling his first novel in 1955. The 1950s were a difficult and impoverished time for Dick. He once said We couldn’t even pay the late fees on a library book. He published almost exclusively works of science fiction, but was said to covet a career in mainstream American literature.  

    In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote an estimated 121 short stories, most of which

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