Description: With a Preface by the Author and an Introduction by Roger Zelazny. Readers worldwide consider Philip K. Dick to have been the greatest science fiction writer on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dicks works has continued to mount, and his reputation has been enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now presented annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works. This collection draws from the writers earliest short and medium-length fiction (including several previously unpublished stories), written during the years 1952-1955, and features such fascinating stories as Paycheck (adapted as a major motion picture starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman), Beyond Lies the Wub, The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford, The Variable Man, and many others. Here, readers will find Dicks initial explorations of the themes he so brilliantly brought to life in his later work.