A World of Talent and Other Stories

In a 1977 speech, Phillip K. Dick said "Once in a great while, [a novelist] happens by chance onto a thoroughly stunning idea new to him that he hopes will turn out to be new to everyone else." In this collection of five stories, all first published in the 1950s, Dick explores a number of truly interesting ideas. In "Small Town" a man creates a perfect scale model of his own town, as a means of escaping his unbearable reality. In "Human Is" the wife of a scientist notices that her husband has returned from a scientific expedition a changed man, but she's not complaining. In "Foster, You're Dead" a father's unwillingness to participate in his country's preparations for a war that never happens, leads to unexpected consequences for his family. In "The Hanging Stranger" a man is unable to convince his fellow townspeople that something terribly wrong is happening to them all. Finally, in "A World of Talent", society's reactions against those who have unusual talents have pushed the situation to the brink of interplanetary war.