Philip K. Dick 1 hr 26 min read

The claws were bad enough, nasty crawling little death-robots. But when they began to imitate their creators, it was time for the human race to make peace, if it still could.

Philip K. Dick's 1953 story is a landmark of paranoid, post-apocalyptic AI-SF, the basis for the film Screamers. Tense, chilling, unforgettable. Read it for prime early PKD, a war-blasted world where self-improving killer machines have learned to wear a human face, and no one can be trusted.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 26 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).

Illustrated by

Alex Ebel