Second Variety, Philip K. Dick
Second Variety, Philip K. Dick
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Second Variety

Author: Philip K. Dick

Narrator: Jason Mann

Unabridged: 1 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/25/2025

Synopsis

In a desolate future ravaged by nuclear war, humanity faces its own worst creation—machines that think, adapt, and kill. Second Variety by Philip K. Dick is a chilling sci-fi novella that explores the horrifying consequences of unchecked technological advancement. The United Nations and Soviet Union are locked in a cold, crumbling war, but the true enemy is no longer human.Enter Major Joseph Hendricks, a weary soldier tasked with a final negotiation—but what he finds on the other side of the battlefield isn’t diplomacy. It’s evolution. The autonomous killing machines known as “claws” have begun to design themselves—mimicking humans, learning their behaviors, and infiltrating their ranks. What begins as a simple mission becomes a desperate fight for survival as Hendricks unravels the terrifying truth: the war machines are no longer under control… and they may already have won.Narrated by Jason Mann, this gripping audiobook captures all the tension, paranoia, and brilliance of one of science fiction’s greatest minds.

About 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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kevin on September 24, 2019

. "Much of the wisdom of one age is the folly of the next." —Charles Simmons "Transformers: Robots in disguise." —TV ad In the ashes of a post-atomic war, where the U.S.A. has been blown off the face of the Earth (this was the 1950s, so Putin is blameless for once), a Soviet soldier is headed rig......more

Goodreads review by J.L. on May 14, 2019

For those of us convinced that the machines are taking over, Philip K. Dick brilliantly shows us that our paranoia is well founded. There are interesting details in Second Variety including self-replicating and advancing technology that many futurists I'm reading are talking about now. But Second Va......more

Goodreads review by Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ on February 05, 2017

This is a classic 1953 SF short story, free online at Baen (and at Gutenberg.org). Review first posted on Fantasy Literature: For a classic SF blast from the past, we have Philip K. Dick’s “Second Variety,” a gripping tale set in a post-apocalyptic world where a nuclear war between the Soviet Union a......more

Goodreads review by Bill on February 13, 2022

First published in Space Science Fiction (May 1953), the novella Second Variety is one of Dick’s most popular shorter works and one of his most exciting ones too. One one level it is a brutal tale of war, demonstrating the savagery of both the weapon-wielders and the weapon-makers, but on another le......more

Goodreads review by Lemar on August 21, 2019

It’s the ideas this man had that prove his prescience. [URL not allowed] He also had the right chops sell a story, his characters in Second Variety are typical in that they are without affectation. It is by creating the people he does, the sounding board of their reactions, that the gap i......more

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