The Gun by Philip K. Dick Episode #77

Philip K. Dick | June 26, 2023

The Gun by Philip K. Dick Episode #77
Philip K. Dick

THE GUN

Episode #77 · Written by Philip K. Dick · Narrated by Scott Miller

A dead planet fires back, and a stranded crew realizes something down there is still watching the skies. What they discover challenges every assumption about war, survival, and what civilizations choose to protect.

A distant planet shows every sign of total destruction. Its surface is fused into gray slag, its atmosphere poisoned by atomic fire, and no life appears possible. But when an exploratory ship enters orbit, it is suddenly attacked with terrifying accuracy. Whatever destroyed this world has not finished fighting.

Forced to land, the crew explores the ruins of a once-advanced civilization. They find shattered cities, silent machinery, and evidence of a war that erased an entire species. As they search for supplies and answers, they uncover a weapon still performing its duty long after its creators vanished. The discovery forces them to confront an unsettling truth about fear, defense, and how civilizations choose to protect what matters most.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago in 1928 and became one of the most original voices in science fiction. Over his career, he wrote more than forty novels and well over one hundred short stories. His work frequently explored authoritarianism, artificial intelligence, paranoia, and the moral consequences of technology.

Though many of his novels became famous later, Dick’s short stories laid the foundation for his influence. Stories like The Gun reveal his early fascination with automated systems, impersonal violence, and societies trapped by their own assumptions. His ideas would later inspire films such as Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report, securing his legacy as one of science fiction’s most enduring and prophetic writers.

LISTEN TO THE STORY

Listen to The Gun by Philip K. Dick — a crisp vintage sci-fi tale of a ruined city, an automated guardian, and the moral cost of salvaging a lost culture.

PHILIP K. DICK SHORT 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.

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 3.8 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.

What listeners are saying:

★★★★★ “Exceptional! The best scifi podcast I’ve come across. Fantastic stories are one thing, but I can’t count the number of times I have been disappointed by the quality of the voice acting. I am very happy to say, that the standard of both contained within these episodes is top notch.”
— El Phantsmo

★★★★★ “Positively a hidden gem. The halcyon era of sci-fi short form fiction.”
— Mike R (Tucson AZ)

Vintage science fiction. Professionally narrated. Carefully curated.