Second Variety By Philip K Dick

 Second Variety

By Philip K Dick

Mr. Dick wrote Second Variety as a novelette for the magazine Space Science Fiction, which was at the time edited by Lester Del Ray. Conflicts between Del Ray and the editor would kill that magazine after only about 8 issues. During that time though it would publish two Philip K Dick stories, the other being The Variable Man and at least one story by Issac Asimov. Second Variety first saw print in 1953, making it one of the earlier works of his we've reviewed so far. Most of his well-known works like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (aka Bladerunner), We Can Remember It it for You Wholesale (Total Recall), and Man in the High Castle were all written in the 1960s. Even then it's interesting to see what kind of themes and patterns were already setting themselves into his work.

A quick review of the plot goes like this; quick note I am going to be spoiling the almost 70-year-old story. It's World War III, launching a surprise attack behind a nuclear strike, the Soviet Union was able to land armies in North America after overrunning Europe and Asia (In what universe was the USSR that aggressive, and in what universe did they have the sea-lift capacity and the manpower to invade NATO western Europe, AND the United States?  I have questions. {These are fair questions, Mr. Dick sets this novel in some point in the future and frankly, I don’t think he grasps military matters very well.  Best answer I have is through the magic of Communism}). This came at a frightful cost because they were not able to stop the American nuclear counterattack from hitting the USSR. The North American governments were able to evacuate a large percentage of the leadership and population to the moon, but many, including a large amount of the troops on the ground, were trapped behind enemy lines. (They could evacuate a large percentage of the population to the moon, but were taken by surprise and defenseless when my comrades attacked?  I have questions. {These are also fair questions, best I can figure is that a lot of the East Coast had to be abandoned but an evacuation of the West Coast was done… Through the magic of Capitalism} And yet they couldn’t… blow up the huge armada of troop transports...).  The result is a stalemate with pretty much all of earth reduced to a gray wasteland by both sides using nuclear weapons of mass destruction.  You know… The reason no one was crazy enough to start World War III in the real world! 

The stalemate was broken by deep underground factories, switched over to local computer control, creating antonymous weapon platforms called claws. Small robotic devices that attacked Soviet soldiers from ambush with claws and whirling blades. NATO and other allied troops were issued tabs that emitted a type of radiation that kept the claws from targeting them. By the beginning of the story, barely coordinated forces are hunkered down in bunkers and fortresses, in an uneasy stalemate. The west lacks the forces to take the dug-in Soviet Troops, who cannot commit to large-scale movements because that causes the claws to swarm (Oh God, this is a Gray Goo scenario…).

I'm sure most of you already see the problem here. The western forces have given up control of their weapons, which is never a good idea! Seriously the claws do not take orders, they simply attack anything without a tab, which is incredibly irresponsible at best (Tabs or no tabs, they’ve just fucked the remaining earthbound civilian population.  To say nothing of the planet, because an endlessly multiplying and likely evolving robot death apparatus…yeah.  Gray Goo.). Additionally, no one seems to know how to turn them off! Creating a weapon that cannot be deactivated is just insane frankly. Well, our story properly opens with a Soviet runner being mobbed to death by claws before a US patrol can get to him and they're asking for a truce and a meeting. Our protagonist Major Joseph Hendricks on his travels finds out that a new model of claw has been unleashed on the surface world. One modeled to look and sound like a human being (Come with me if you want to live.  But fantastic.  The Gray Good is sapient.  Great. {Wasn’t intended to be but when you leave a system alone with no oversight… I mean, no one is coming across as all that intelligent here}The Gray Goo is never intended to be sapient, but it happens anyway!).

There are two identified models, the first are the crippled soldiers designed to look like soldiers who are in need of medical attention. The second are called Davids, they are modeled to look like small boys. Both models are able to at least superficially communicate with humans in order to attempt to get into the bunkers and fortresses. The wounded soldiers, when killed, have plates inside their chest identifying them as the first variety model but the Davids have a plate identifying them as the third...

Which means there's one more variety, a third variety. Major Hendricks links up with the survivors of the local Soviet forces, two conscripts, and a young lady named Tasso. They decide to attempt a run back to western lines to warn the folks on the moon. It's too late for local western forces, however, as the bunker has been overrun (So much for those tabs…). During the fighting, a couple of things are revealed, first, one of the conscripts was one of the hidden claws. Second, Tasso was hiding a special anti-robot grenade that helped her and the Major escape. The Major is injured and leads her to a ship that can take her to the moon.

It's at this point that the truth is revealed that Tasso is a robot herself. She leaves the Major to die at the hands of a mass assault, taking off to infiltrate the moon. Major believes humanity is doomed but takes comfort in the fact that the robots are already designing weapons to kill each other. To his mind, that means they won't outlive humanity for very long.

So this is a very bleak story and I'm not going to linger on Cold War politics. I'm not sure I agree with the Major that humanity is doomed from one robot reaching the moon (Airlocks bro, airlocks.), but it's certainly clear that the Earth is lost and it's all our fault. In a lot of ways, Mr. Dick is simply retreading robot themes that go all the way to the first modern Robot story, the Czech play R.U.R, where a synthetically created race of workers rise up and cause the extinction of the human race because humanity wouldn't stop treating them like crap. There are different morals to take from these stories but one I've always taken is don't treat sapient beings like crap or property even if you made them from a lab/factory. Sapient beings should be treated with dignity and respect no matter their origin. Also maybe don't make a factory robot smart enough to realize it's a factory robot and unpaid labor.

When you read the story, you clearly see the preoccupation with identity and memory starting to form. This is something that would be recurring in his later works. Here it's not as well fleshed out, just conversations between the characters where the robot's memories are not well made and they avoid discussing them. You also see the pattern of Mr. Dick casting women into antagonistic roles, especially women that resemble his wives (He needed therapy. {Every science fiction writer I’ve done a deep dive on needed therapy, I’m left with troubling implications}I know I need therapy.  That is why I have a therapist.). In this case, Tasso is a small, slender brunette, the type that Mr. Dick would repeatedly show an attraction to in his real life, and well, read my entry on his life for more information on that. It's a straightforward story and the twist is honestly not that surprising to a modern audience, especially one that grew up with Terminator and various human-like robots in fiction. Still, this was written in the 1950s so the idea was newer and shinier back then.

It's not bad work but it's nothing I would consider groundbreaking or stand-out. It's rather short at around 100 pages so there's not a lot that is done with the characters, a lot of space is taken up just getting the reader spun up on what happened. Even then a lot of questions remain.  Mr. Dick does a good job of giving us the directly plot revelant stuff, without wrecking the gray, brooding atmosphere of the plot or the pace of it. My main issue is how mind-boggling stupid the decisions leading up to the story were.  Once you get into the story itself though, it’s a good read and none of the characters are idiots.  They’re just put in a terrible situation that could have been avoided if two braincells were rubbed together by the higher-ups.  Altogether I've got to give Second Variety by Philip K Dick a C by modern standards and I don't think it would have been higher if I had read it in 1953. Keep in mind that just means it's a rather average story.

        I hope you enjoyed this first review in the 2022 month of Dick.  This was chosen by our ever-wise patrons if you would like a vote https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where for a dollar a month you can help choose what gets reviewed.  Join us!  The poll for March is up and running!  Next week the 1995 science fiction film Screamers will be reviewed and after that the novel, A Scanner Darkly.  Until then, stay safe and Keep Reading!

Red Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black Text is your reviewer Garvin Anders