Upon the Dull Earth (1953–1954): The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Vol. 3

The third installment of a five-volume collection of all the short fiction by celebrated SF author Dick (1928–1982) focuses on his writing during a period of exploring the boundaries of reality and, in some cases, questioning its very existence. Standout selections include “The Golden Man,” about a godlike mutant that could be the future of humankind or its ultimate downfall; “The Father-Thing,” a creepy tale about a boy who believes his father is a monstrous impostor; “The Crawlers,” set in a Tennessee town overrun with horrifically altered babies born near a radiation lab; and the title story, a mind-bending masterwork about a woman who, after dying, is brought back to life by her fiancé with disastrous consequences. Fueled by sharp wit and an irrepressible undertone of paranoia, the 22 stories are a testament to Dick’s genre-transcendent genius; while some stories are a bit dated, the majority are timeless gems, still entertaining and thematically profound after half a century. (Sept.)