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    Beyond Lies the Wub
    Beyond Lies the Wub
    Beyond Lies the Wub
    Ebook16 pages8 minutes

    Beyond Lies the Wub

    By Philip K. Dick

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The slovenly wub might well have said: Many men talk like philosophers and live like fools.

    Excerpt

    They had almost finished with the loading. Outside stood the Optus, his arms folded, his face sunk in gloom. Captain Franco walked leisurely down the gangplank, grinning.

    "What's the matter?" he said. "You're getting paid for all this."

    The Optus said nothing. He turned away, collecting his robes. The Captain put his boot on the hem of the robe.

    "Just a minute. Don't go off. I'm not finished."

    "Oh?" The Optus turned with dignity. "I am going back to the village." He looked toward the animals and birds being driven up the gangplank into the spaceship. "I must organize new hunts."

    Franco lit a cigarette. "Why not? You people can go out into the veldt and track it all down again. But when we run out halfway between Mars and Earth-"

    The Optus went off, wordless. Franco joined the first mate at the bottom of the gangplank.

    "How's it coming?" he said. He looked at his watch. "We got a good bargain here."

    The mate glanced at him sourly. "How do you explain that?"

    "What's the matter with you? We need it more than they do."

    "I'll see you later, Captain." The mate threaded his way up the plank, between the long-legged Martian go-birds, into the ship. Franco watched him disappear. He was just starting up after him, up the plank toward the port, when he saw it.

    "My God!" He stood staring, his hands on his hips. Peterson was walking along the path, his face red, leading it by a string.

    "I'm sorry, Captain," he said, tugging at the string. Franco walked toward him.

    "What is it?"

    The wub stood sagging, its great body settling slowly. It was sitting down, its eyes half shut. A few flies buzzed about its flank, and it switched its tail.

    It sat. There was silence.

    "It's a wub," Peterson said. "I got it from a native for fifty cents. He said it was a very unusual animal. Very respected."

    "This?" Franco poked the great sloping side of the wub. "It's a pig! A huge dirty pig!"

    "Yes sir, it's a pig. The natives call it a wub."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXinXii
    Release dateNov 30, 2015
    ISBN9781612100999
    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 Beyond Lies the Wub

    3.5/5

    7 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Reading this really is more like reading poetry than reading a science fiction novel. You have to stop and let each story roll around in your mind.
    • 2/5
      I know that this is going to be sacrilegious but I did not enjoy this collection very much. Most of the stories were not interesting or easily predictable. It was very easy to know what was going to happen. Plus the stories were also very heavy-handed in their themes: anti-war, anti-government and anti-corporation. When it comes down to it, the theme is not as important to me as the story that is being told. I'm fine with anti-war stories so long as I am interested in the story unfolding. In this case though, the theme is so in the reader's face that it is impossible to ignore. Not necessarily a problem so long as the story could carry it. Unfortunately that was not the case here. And as I mentioned, easily predictable which means no mystery as it unfolds. I was really hoping to like the collection since so many movies are based on Dick's ideas. I've listed the few stories that I did like below but otherwise I can't in good conscience recommend this collection. It was difficult for me to finish reading the book."Roog" - A dog protects his house from the Roog."Expendable" - A man is caught in an insect war.
    • 3/5
      A really short book about what lies within a man's hunger.
    • 4/5
      An excellent collection of Dick's early stories. They're as intelligent and well-written as you'd think, with more of a sense of humour in some of them than I'd expected (I tend to think of Dick as so very *serious*, but I see I've done him an injustice). Unsurprisingly, they have a very 50s flavour, but without feeling too terribly dated.
    • 5/5
      Great stuff I was rather enamoured with Beyond lies the Wub, The Indefatigable Frog and Prize ship. The latter had you thinking about Gullivers travels, then he hits you with the idea of an expanding universe. Interestingly another book in my library The Final Theory written by Mark Mccutcheon puts forward the idea the whole universe and everything in it is expanding and that gravity does not exist, what we think of as gravity is the force of expansion. Synchronicity, maybe.
    • 4/5
      Vintage mid-century SF at its finest. It's filled with lots of intriguing scenarios, a few optimistic and several horrific. Some of my favorite stories in this collection were The Variable Man, Paycheck, Beyond Lies the Wub, and Roog.

    Book preview

    Beyond Lies the Wub - Philip K. Dick

    Beyond Lies the Wub

    By Philip K. Dick

    Copyright © July 1952 by Philip K. Dick

    This edition published in 2010 by eStar Books, LLC.

    www.estarbooks.com

    ISBN:    978-1-61210-099-9

    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

    The wub, sir, Peterson said. It spoke!

    BEYOND LIES THE WUB

    By PHILIP K. DICK

    The slovenly wub might well have said: Many men

    talk like philosophers and live like fools.

    They had almost finished with the loading. Outside stood the Optus, his arms folded,

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