Earth maintained an important garrison on Asteroid Y-3. Now suddenly it was imperiled with a biological impossibility—men becoming plants! Piper in the woods written by Philip K. Dick… that’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast.

We’ve got a rare treat for you today, from the inside cover of Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy in February 1953, just over 70 years ago, Philip K. Dick in his own words… “Once, when I was very young, I came across a magazine directly below the comic books called STIRRING SCIENCE STORIES. I bought it, finally, and carried it home, reading it along the way. Here were ideas, vital and imaginative. Men moving across the universe, down into sub-atomic particles, into time; there was no limit. One society, one given environment was transcended. It was Faustian; it carried a person up and beyond.

I was twelve years old, then. But I saw in it the same thing I see now: a medium in which the full play of human imagination can operate, ordered, of course, by reason and consistent development. Over the years science fiction has grown, matured toward greater social awareness and responsibility.

I became interested in writing science fiction when I saw it emerge from the ray gun stage into studies of man in various types and complexities of society.

I enjoy writing science fiction; it is essentially communication between myself, and others as interested as I in knowing where present forces are taking us. My wife and my cat Magnificat are a little worried about my preoccupation with science fiction. Like most science fiction readers, I have files and stacks of magazines, boxes of notes and data, parts of unfinished stories, a huge desk full of related material in various stages. The neighbors say I seem to “read and write a lot”. But I think we will see our devotion pay off. We may yet live to be present when the public libraries begin to carry the science fiction magazines, and someday, perhaps, even the school libraries.” Philip K. Dick in his own words.

Let’s turn to page 88 for Piper In The Woods…