"It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet." So begins this gem of a short story written by the master of sci-fi dystopian fiction, Philip K. Dick.  

Philip K.Dick  was born in 1928 in Chicago, but he grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. Throughout his career, he wrote 33 novels and 121 short stories and he had almost no commercial success during his lifetime. In the science fiction world, he was considered a genius, but he struggled to make a living with low-paying science fiction publishers.  He was so broke at one point that the writer Robert A. Heinlein, who was a great admirer of his work, lent him money to bail him out of IRS troubles and he purchased him an electric typewriter.  

The writer’s life was deeply troubled: he married five times, had a lifetime of financial stress, struggled with substance addiction, severe depression, including a failed suicide attempt and he had a series of mystical experiences where he believed that he had been taken over by the spirit of the prophet of Elijah.  

He died in 1982 after suffering a stroke and his greatest successes then occurred posthumously. Films based on his fiction include Blade Runner, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, The Adjustment Bureau, and The Man in the High Castle.   

I personally think that Philip K. Dick was a writer who was ahead of his time. He was writing about alternate realities, drug abuse, authoritarian governments, and the true nature of a person’s identity, which are all very modern and relevant subjects. 

John Bell is our narrator and he is also the writer, producer, and actor on the award-winning "Bell's in the Batfry" podcast, which can be found at http://thebatfry.libsyn.com/

We are always looking forward to discovering our next writer, so if you are interested in contributing, please send us your short story of fewer than 5,000 words to [email protected]

My name is Cathy McCarthy and I write under the name of C. Mack Lewis. For more information about me, go to https://cmacklewis.com/

You can read the Kirkus Review of my latest book, The Angel Wore Black at  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/c-mack-lewis/the-angel-wore-black/

If you enjoy our podcast, we would love it if you would rate, review, and share our podcast with other lovers of short fiction. 

Thank you for listening!

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com