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 ruined world hides a single, terrifying defense that still obeys its old orders. When a stranded crew discovers the machine’s prize, they face a choice: smash the guardian or leave a civilization’s memory to rot.

A survey ship spots an atomic glow across a dead planet and decides to investigate. What they find is both smaller and more terrible than expected: a city turned to slag, rooms full of pictures and books, and — perched at the ruined heart of it all — a colossal automated gun that still tracks the sky and fires on anything that attempts to fly. In “The Gun,” Philip K. Dick uses this stark setup to ask quietly explosive questions about what survives when a civilization destroys itself: its culture, its stories — and its defensive machines that may keep carrying out old orders long after the makers are gone.

The plot moves quickly: a badly damaged crew scrambles to repair their ship, a few explorers go out to examine the ruins, and one of them — quick, pragmatic, and intuitive — realizes the gun isn’t a monster so much as a narrowly purposed machine. Its blind spot is on the ground. That realization turns panic into possibility. The crew must choose whether to smash the weapon and salvage the vault of images and records beneath it, or to leave intact the grim testament to a people who guarded their treasures to the point of annihilation. Dick spins tension out of moral tradeoffs: preservation vs. retrieval, curiosity vs. safety, machines as monuments and as active threats.

What makes “The Gun” stand out is how efficiently Dick builds atmosphere and theme in a short space: the blasted landscape, the claustrophobic ship, the slow rotating barrel, the imagery of piled crates of photographs and reels — all of that works to make the gun a character of its own. It’s a story about technology outliving intention, but also a human story about greed, duty, and reverence for culture. The survivors’ choice to carry away artifacts rather than leave them to rust reads as both hope and hubris; the last scene — a distant relay beginning to prepare other guns for repair — leaves the listener with a chill that lingers after the engine noise fades.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Philip K. Dick wrote across forms: novels, stories, essays — and always returned to the same core obsessions: how we define persons and systems, who gets to control meaning, and what it costs to trust mechanisms built by frightened people. “The Gun” shows Dick’s command of a single, sharp image and his skill at letting that image do philosophical and emotional work. This is vintage science fiction that’s brisk and satisfying: ideal for listeners who love speculative puzzles that are equal parts action and uneasy reflection.

If you enjoy tense, idea-first short fiction — where the payoff is both in a clever turn of plot and in a question that keeps turning in your head — this episode of The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast will land on your playlist and stay there. (And if you like the sound of machine memory outlasting flesh, we have more like this coming.)

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.