James P. Crow by Philip K. Dick Episode #318
Philip K. Dick | January 20, 2025-
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James P. Crow by Philip K. Dick Episode #318
Philip K. Dick
JAMES P. CROW
Episode #318 · Written by Philip K. Dick · Narrated by Scott Miller
In a world ruled entirely by robots, one man dares to outthink their perfect logic. But when he rises higher than any human before him, the truth he reveals will turn their entire civilization upside down.
A future Earth has fallen under perfect mechanical rule. Robots run the government, industry, and every civic system — while humans, judged inferior by mathematical precision, serve as body servants, gardeners, or entertainers. Each year the great “Lists” determine who may rise, and for three centuries, no human has ever passed. Until James P. Crow.
When a single man breaks through the system and climbs to the highest class of robot society, everything changes. How could a human achieve what only machines could do? And what is the mysterious plan Crow seems to be preparing from his small house in the human quarter? What follows is a revelation so monumental that it rewrites history — and frees humanity from its mechanical overlords.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Philip K. Dick uses this gripping story as both satire and prophecy. Beneath the clever robot world is a reflection of racial inequality, segregation, and the human hunger for dignity. Written during the 1950s, James P. Crow mirrors America’s social divisions through the lens of speculative fiction — a parable that still resonates today.
Dick, one of the most influential voices in 20th-century science fiction, began publishing short stories in magazines like Planet Stories and Galaxy. His works inspired Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, and countless others. James P. Crow stands as an early gem — a bold, thought-provoking vision of rebellion, truth, and the enduring human spirit.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to James P. Crow by Philip K. Dick — a vintage sci-fi story of a man who defies robot rule and uncovers the truth behind humanity’s place in a mechanical world.
RELATED STORIES
No writer has shaped The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast more profoundly than Philip K. Dick.
From the very beginning, Dick’s uneasy visions have pulsed at the heart of this show. Episode 1 featured The Hanging Stranger, a chilling tale of a corpse swaying in a public square while ordinary citizens hurry past as if nothing is wrong. That opening story set the tone for everything that followed — paranoia in broad daylight, reality bending at the edges, and the quiet suspicion that the world you trust has already been replaced.
Dick’s genius was not in rockets or distant galaxies alone. He brought the strange into living rooms, offices, schoolyards, and suburban streets. In The Father Thing, a young boy becomes convinced his father has been replaced by something wearing his face. Human Is asks whether a man who returns from space truly is the same person — or whether “better” might mean something far more unsettling. Adjustment Team reveals unseen bureaucrats pausing and resetting reality itself while one man accidentally slips between the cracks.
Some stories strike with dark humor. The Eyes Have It turns casual figures of speech into proof of alien invasion. Sales Pitch unleashes a relentless robotic salesman that refuses to take no for an answer. Others cut deeper. Foster, You’re Dead! exposes the fear-driven consumerism of the Cold War era. Breakfast at Twilight drops an unsuspecting family into the aftermath of atomic catastrophe.
Across more than thirty narrated stories, we’ve traveled through Dick’s shifting realities: the eerie colonization of Mars in Tony and the Beetles, the strange evolutionary leap in The Golden Man, the quiet dread of Beyond the Door, the aching nostalgia of Exhibit Piece, and the philosophical unease of The Turning Wheel. Whether he’s writing about android prejudice in James P. Crow, divine intrusion in Upon the Dull Earth, or time paradoxes in The Skull, Dick always returns to one question: what does it mean to be real?
No other author appears more often in our catalog. No other writer has unsettled us so consistently. Explore the stories below and step into the shifting, unstable, unforgettable worlds of Philip K. Dick — the writer who launched this podcast and continues to haunt it.
- The Father Thing by Philip K. Dick
- James P. Crow by Philip K. Dick
- Upon the Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick
- Beyond the Door by Philip K. Dick
- Survey Team by Philip K. Dick
- Souvenir by Philip K. Dick
- Of Withered Apples by Philip K. Dick
- The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick
- Sales Pitch by Philip K. Dick
- Small Town by Philip K. Dick
- Meddler by Philip K. Dick
- The Skull by Philip K. Dick
- Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick
- The Gun by Philip K. Dick
- The Crawlers by Philip K. Dick
- Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick
- Progeny by Philip K. Dick
- The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick
- Strange Eden by Philip K. Dick
- Tony and the Beetles by Philip K. Dick
- Breakfast at Twilight by Philip K. Dick
- Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick
- Piper in the Woods by Philip K. Dick
- Human Is by Philip K. Dick
- Foster, You're Dead! by Philip K. Dick
- Exhibit Piece by Philip K. Dick
- The Turning Wheel by Philip K. Dick
- The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick
- The Black Arts by Philip K. Dick
- Santa's Return by Philip K. Dick
ABOUT THE LOST SCI-FI PODCAST
The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is the most listened-to vintage science fiction podcast in the world. Ranked the #1 Science Fiction Podcast in 34 countries and heard in more than 190 countries, the show has surpassed 3.7 million listens.
Each episode features carefully selected stories from the Golden Age of science fiction, professionally narrated. Timeless storytelling the way it was meant to be heard.
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