The Skull, Philip K. Dick
The Skull, Philip K. Dick
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The Skull

Author: Philip K. Dick

Narrator: Tess Stalker

Unabridged: 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/11/2025

Synopsis

In The Skull, legendary science fiction author Philip K. Dick explores the paradoxes of fate, identity, and time travel in a haunting and thought-provoking narrative. Convicted criminal Conger is given one final mission: travel back in time and assassinate the mysterious Founder before his doctrine of peace can reshape the future. Armed only with a futuristic weapon and the Founder’s skull as a means of identification, Conger’s journey becomes a tangled confrontation with destiny. As past and future blur, and questions of mortality and self arise, Conger makes a shattering discovery—he is not the killer, but the legend himself.Originally published in 1952, The Skull is a powerful example of Dick’s ability to fuse gripping plot with metaphysical inquiry, leading listeners through a suspenseful loop of cause and effect, where the hunted becomes the prophet, and death may be the key to immortality.

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 Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ on January 19, 2019

3.5 stars. A 1952 SF short story by the well-known classic SF author Philip K. Dick (Gutenberg freebie!). In a distant future, a council of powerful men has lost patience with a pacifist movement (now embodied in a religion called the First Church), which they view as having led to the non-violent b......more

Goodreads review by J.L. on February 14, 2020

"What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull?” In Philip K. Dick's "The Skull" (first published in 1952), a prison inmate is given a second chance...The man, Conger, must go back in time and kill a mysterious and controversial religious leader (the Founde......more

Goodreads review by Bill on March 08, 2019

One of the pleasures of early Dick is that, because of his unusual treatment of otherwise hackneyed plot devices, even the oldest stories seldom strike the reader as old. I have to admit, though, that “The Skull” (first published in the magazine If in 1952)—is the lamentable exception. After all, at......more

Goodreads review by Andreea on June 03, 2012

Review subtitle: There is so much more than meets the eye... One reads this short-story and tells himself/herself: "I guessed the ending after reading only seven pages." And "The Skull has a blunt anti-war message, but so have a thousand other short-stories." True and true, but that's not the (ulti......more

Goodreads review by Zai on October 11, 2023

When I was researching this, I had my doubts when I read that this story's format would be iconic and endlessly copied and referenced by Hollywood and other authors.... then I finished it, I now know why. PKD is a genius.......more

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