Written in 1952

(1953 Feb): IMAGINATION {ill. by W.E.Terry}

(1953 Nov): POPULAR SCIENCE FICTION, Vol.1, #2, {Australian}
(1969): OTHER WORLDS, OTHER TIMES {Ed.: Moskowitz, Elwood} McFadden, pb, 75-238, $0.75
(1987): BEYOND LIES THE WUB/BROWN OXFORD

TTHC 228ff:    {In the issue of Imagination in which this story appeared, Philip K. Dick had a self-written short autobiography printed in the inside front cover of the magazine; one of Imagination's ongoing "Introducing the Author" profiles. The profile is acompanied by a small photo of PKD. Here's the text taken from To The High Castle by Gregg Rickman.}:

   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. Stf was Faustian: it carried a person up and beyond.
    I was twelve years old, then. But I saw in stf 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 stf has grown, matured toward greater social awareness and responsibility.
    I became interested in writing stf when I saw it emerge from the ray gun stage into studies of man in various types and complexities of society.
    I enjoy writing stf: 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 stf. Like most stf 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 neighbours 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 stf magazines, and someday, perhaps, even the school libraries. -- Philip K. Dick.