{"product_id":"vintage-pkd-isbn-9781400096077","title":"Vintage PKD","description":"\u003cb\u003eA career-spanning selection of the novels, stories, essays, and letters of Phillip K. Dick: master of science fiction, voice of the counterculture, and genuine visionary.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough his remarkable career, Dick wrote about reality, entropy, deception, and the plight of being alive. He established himself as a writer of the first order, and his dreams of the future have proven to be eerily prophetic. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eVintage PKD \u003c\/i\u003efeatures extracts from\u003ci\u003e The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, VALIS, \u003c\/i\u003eand stories including “The Days of Perky Pat,” “A Little Something for Us Tempunauts,\" and “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon,” along with essays and letters currently unavailable in book form.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A brilliant, idiosyncratic, formidably intelligent writer.... Dick illuminates. He casts light. He gives off a radiance.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003ePHILIP K. DICK was born in Chicago in 1928 and lived most of his life in California. He briefly attended the University of California, but dropped out before completing any classes. In 1952 he began writing professionally, going on to write thirty-six novels, including \u003ci\u003eMartian Time-Slip\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA Scanner Darkly\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eUbik\u003c\/i\u003e, and five short-story collections. He won the 1963 Hugo Award for best novel for \u003ci\u003eThe Man in the High Castle \u003c\/i\u003eand the 1975 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year for \u003ci\u003eFlow My Tears, the Policeman Said\u003c\/i\u003e. Philip K. Dick died in 1982.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    from The Man in the High Castle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     For a week Mr. R. Childan had been anxiously watching the mail. But the  valuable shipment from the Rocky Mountain States had not arrived. As he  opened up his store on Friday morning and saw only letters on the floor by  the mail slot he thought, I'm going to have an angry customer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Pouring himself a cup of instant tea from the five-cent wall dispenser he  got a broom and began to sweep; soon he had the front of American Artistic  Handcrafts Inc. ready for the day, all spick and span with the cash register  full of change, a fresh vase of marigolds, and the radio playing background  music. Outdoors along the sidewalk businessmen hurried toward their offices  along Montgomery Street. Far off, a cable car passed; Childan halted to  watch it with pleasure. Women in their long colorful silk dresses . . . he  watched them, too. Then the phone rang. He turned to answer it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Yes,\" a familiar voice said to his answer. Childan's heart sank. \"This is  Mr. Tagomi. Did my Civil War recruiting poster arrive yet, sir? Please  recall; you promised it sometime last week.\" The fussy, brisk voice, barely  polite, barely keeping the code. \"Did I not give you a deposit, sir, Mr.  Childan, with that stipulation? This is to be a gift, you see. I explained  that. A client.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Extensive inquiries,\" Childan began, \"which I've had made at my own  expense, Mr. Tagomi, sir, regarding the promised parcel, which you realize  originates outside of this region and is therefore-\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But Tagomi broke in, \"Then it has not arrived.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"No, Mr. Tagomi, sir.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    An icy pause.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I can wait no furthermore,\" Tagomi said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"No sir.\" Childan gazed morosely through the store window at the warm bright  day and the San Francisco office buildings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"A substitute, then. Your recommendation, Mr. Childan?\" Tagomi deliberately  mispronounced the name; insult within the code that made Childan's ears  burn. Place pulled, the dreadful mortification of their situation. Robert  Childan's aspirations and fears and torments rose up and exposed themselves,  swamped him, stopping his tongue. He stammered, his hand sticky on the  phone. The air of his store smelled of marigolds; the music played on, but  he felt as if he were falling into some distant sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Well . . .\" he managed to mutter. \"Butter churn. Ice-cream maker circa  1900.\" His mind refused to think. Just when you forgot about it; just when  you fool yourself. He was thirty-eight years old, and he could remember the  prewar days, the other times. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the World's Fair;  the former better world. \"Could I bring various desirable items out to your  business location?\" he mumbled.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    An appointment was made for two o'clock. Have to shut store, he knew as he  hung up the phone. No choice. Have to keep goodwill of such customers;  business depends on them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Standing shakily, he became aware that someone-a couple had entered the  store. Young man and girl, both handsome, well-dressed. Ideal. He calmed  himself and moved professionally, easily, in their direction, smiling. They  were bending to scrutinize a counter display, had picked up a lovely  ashtray. Married, he guessed. Live out in City of the Winding Mists, the new  exclusive apartments on Skyline overlooking Belmont.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Hello,\" he said, and felt better. They smiled at him without any  superiority, only kindness. His displays-which really were the best of their  kind on the Coast-had awed them a little; he saw that and was grateful. They  understood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Really excellent pieces, sir,\" the young man said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Childan bowed spontaneously.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Their eyes, warm not only with human bond but with the shared enjoyment of  the art objects he sold, their mutual tastes and satisfactions, remained  fixed on him; they were thanking him for having things like these for them  to see, pick up and examine, handle perhaps without even buying. Yes, he  thought, they know what sort of store they are in; this is not tourist  trash, not redwood plaques reading Muir Woods, Marin County, PSA, or funny  signs or girly rings or postcards or views of the Bridge. The girl's eyes  especially, large, dark. How easily, Childan thought, I could fall in love  with a girl like this. How tragic my life, then; as if it weren't bad enough  already. The stylish black hair, lacquered nails, pierced ears for the long  dangling brass handmade earrings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Your earrings,\" he murmured. \"Purchased here, perhaps?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"No,\" she said. \"At home.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Childan nodded. No contemporary American art; only the past could be  represented here, in a store such as his. \"You are here for long?\" he asked.  \"To our San Francisco?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I'm stationed here indefinitely,\" the man said. \"With Standard of Living  for Unfortunate Areas Planning Commission of Inquiry.\" Pride showed on his  face. Not the military. Not one of the gum-chewing boorish draftees with  their greedy peasant faces, wandering up Market Street, gaping at the bawdy  shows, the sex movies, the shooting galleries, the cheap nightclubs with  photos of middle-aged blondes holding their nipples between their wrinkled  fingers and leering . . . the honkytonk jazz slums that made up most of the  flat part of San Francisco, rickety tin and board shacks that had sprung up  from the ruins even before the last bomb fell. No-this man was of the elite.  Cultured, educated, even more so than Mr. Tagomi, who was after all a high  official with the ranking Trade Mission on the Pacific Coast. Tagomi was an  old man. His attitudes had formed in the War Cabinet days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Had you wished American traditional ethnic art objects as a gift?\" Childan  asked. \"Or to decorate perhaps a new apartment for your stay here?\" If the  latter . . . his heart picked up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"An accurate guess,\" the girl said. \"We are starting to decorate. A bit  undecided. Do you think you could inform us?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I could arrange to arrive at your apartment, yes,\" Childan said. \"Bringing  several hand cases, I can suggest in context, at your leisure. This, of  course, is our specialty.\" He dropped his eyes so as to conceal his hope.  There might be thousands of dollars involved. \"I am getting in a New England  table, maple, all wood-pegged, no nails. Immense beauty and worth. And a  mirror from the time of the 1812 War. And also the aboriginal art: a group  of vegetable-dyed goat-hair rugs.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I myself,\" the man said, \"prefer the art of the cities.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Yes,\" Childan said eagerly. \"Listen, sir. I have a mural from WPA  post-office period, original, done on board, four sections, depicting Horace  Greeley. Priceless collector's item.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Ah,\" the man said, his dark eyes flashing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"And a Victrola cabinet of 1920 made into a liquor cabinet.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Ah.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"And, sir, listen: \u003ci\u003eframed signed picture of Jean Harlow\u003c\/i\u003e.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The man goggled at him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Shall we make arrangements?\" Childan said, seizing this correct  psychological instant. From his inner coat pocket he brought his pen,  notebook. \"I shall take your name and address, sir and lady.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Afterward, as the couple strolled from his store, Childan stood, hands  behind his back, watching the street. Joy. If all business days were like  this . . . but it was more than business, the success of his store. It was a  chance to meet a young Japanese couple socially, on a basis of acceptance of  him as a man rather than him as a yank or, at best, a tradesman who sold art  objects. Yes, these new young people, of the rising generation, who did not  remember the days before the war or even the war itself-they were the hope  of the world. Place difference did not have the significance for them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It will end, Childan thought. Someday. The very idea of place. Not governed  and governing, but people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And yet he trembled with fear, imagining himself knocking at their door. He  examined his notes. The Kasouras. Being admitted, no doubt offered tea.  Would he do the right thing? Know the proper act and utterance at each  moment? Or would he disgrace himself, like an animal, by some dismal faux  pas?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The girl's name was Betty. Such understanding in her face, he thought. The  gentle, sympathetic eyes. Surely, even in the short time in the store, she  had glimpsed his hopes and defeats.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His hopes-he felt suddenly dizzy. What aspirations bordering on the insane  if not the suicidal did he have? But it was known, relations between  Japanese and yanks, although generally it was between a Japanese man and  yank woman. This . . . he quailed at the idea. And she was married. He  whipped his mind away from the pageant of his involuntary thoughts and began  busily opening the morning's mail.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His hands, he discovered, were still shaking. And then he recalled his two  o'clock appointment with Mr. Tagomi; at that, his hands ceased shaking and  his nervousness became determination. I've got to come up with something  acceptable, he said to himself. Where? How? What? A phone call. Sources.  Business ability. Scrape up a fully restored 1929 Ford including fabric top  (black). Grand slam to keep patronage forever. Crated original mint trimotor  airmail plane discovered in barn in Alabama, etc. Produce mummified head of  Mr. B. Bill, including flowing white hair; sensational American artifact.  Make my reputation in top connoisseur circles throughout Pacific, not  excluding Home Islands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    To inspire himself, he lit up a marijuana cigarette, excellent Land-O-Smiles  brand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In his room on Hayes Street, Frank Frink lay in bed wondering how to get up.  Sun glared past the blind onto the heap of clothes that had fallen to the  floor. His glasses, too. Would he step on them? Try to get to bathroom by  other route, he thought. Crawl or roll. His head ached but he did not feel  sad. Never look back, he decided. Time? The clock on the dresser.  Eleven-thirty! Good grief. But still he lay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I'm fired, he thought.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Yesterday he had done wrong at the factory. Spouted the wrong kind of talk  to Mr. Wyndam-Matson, who had a dished-in face with Socrates-type nose,  diamond ring, gold fly zipper. In other words, a power. A throne. Frink's  thoughts wandered groggily.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Yes, he thought, and now they'll blacklist me; my skill is no use-I have no  trade. Fifteen years' experience. Gone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And now he would have to appear at the Laborers' Justification Commission  for a revision of his work category. Since he had never been able to make  out Wyndam-Matson's relationship to the pinocs-the puppet white government  at Sacramento-he could not fathom his ex-employer's power to sway the real  authorities, the Japanese. The LJC was pinoc run. He would be facing four or  five middle-aged plump white faces, on the order of Wyndam-Matson's. If he  failed to get justification there, he would make his way to one of the  Import-Export Trade Missions which operated out of Tokyo, and which had  offices throughout California, Oregon, Washington, and the parts of Nevada  included in the Pacific States of America. But if he failed successfully to  plead there . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Plans roamed his mind as he lay in bed gazing up at the ancient light  fixture in the ceiling. He could for instance slip across into the Rocky  Mountain States. But it was loosely banded to the PSA, and might extradite  him. What about the South? His body recoiled. Ugh. Not that. As a white man  he would have plenty of place, in fact more than he had here in the PSA. But  . . . he did not want that kind of place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And, worse, the South had a cat's cradle of ties, economic, ideological, and  god knew what, with the Reich. And Frank Frink was a Jew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His original name was Frank Fink. He had been born on the East Coast, in New  York, and in 1941 he had been drafted into the Army of the United States of  America, right after the collapse of Russia. After the Japs had taken Hawaii  he had been sent to the West Coast. When the war ended, there he was, on the  Japanese side of the settlement line. And here he was today, fifteen years  later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In 1947, on Capitulation Day, he had more or less gone berserk. Hating the  Japs as he did, he had vowed revenge; he had buried his Service weapons ten  feet underground, in a basement, well-wrapped and oiled, for the day he and  his buddies arose. However, time was the great healer, a fact he had not  taken into account. When he thought of the idea now, the great blood bath,  the purging of the pinocs and their masters, he felt as if he were reviewing  one of those stained yearbooks from his high school days, coming upon an  account of his boyhood aspirations. Frank \"Goldfish\" Fink is going to be a  paleontologist and vows to marry Norma Prout. Norma Prout was the class  schones Mädchen, and he really had vowed to marry her. That was all so  goddam long ago, like listening to Fred Allen or seeing a W. C. Fields  movie. Since 1947 he had probably seen or talked to six hundred thousand  Japanese, and the desire to do violence to any or all of them had simply  never materialized, after the first few months. It just was not relevant any  more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But wait. There was one, a Mr. Omuro, who had bought control of a great area  of rental property in downtown San Francisco, and who for a time had been  Frank's landlord. There was a bad apple, he thought. A shark who had never  made repairs, had partitioned rooms smaller and smaller, raised rents . . .  Omuro had gouged the poor, especially the nearly destitute jobless  ex-servicemen during the depression years of the early fifties. However, it  had been one of the Japanese trade missions which had cut off Omuro's head  for his profiteering. And nowadays such a violation of the harsh, rigid, but  just Japanese civil law was unheard of. It was a credit to the  incorruptibility of the Jap occupation officials, especially those who had  come in after the War Cabinet had fallen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Recalling the rugged, stoic honesty of the Trade Missions, Frink felt  reassured. Even Wyndam-Matson would be waved off like a noisy fly. W-M  Corporation owner or not. At least, so he hoped. I guess I really have faith  in this Co-Prosperity Pacific Alliance stuff, he said to himself. Strange.  Looking back to the early days . . . it had seemed such an obvious fake,  then. Empty propaganda. But now . . .","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302952030437,"sku":"NP9781400096077","price":11.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400096077.jpg?v=1767743469","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/vintage-pkd-isbn-9781400096077","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}