Second Variety

Last night I read a story called "Second Variety" by Philip K. Dick. The story was written in 1952 and is set in an undefined future six years after Earth has been devestated by nuclear war which has wiped out most of the population except for a few isolated survivors and several pockets of soldiers still fighting the war. However, the American side have developed a new weapon which is winning the war: automatically produced, self-maintaining robots called "claws" which exist for one purpose only - to kill anything that moves. However as one soldier makes the dangerous journey across Claw infested wasteland to negotiate peace with the enemy he discovers that, left alone, the Claws have been consistently developing and upgrading themselves to the extent that there are new varieties which have achieved intelligence and look exactly like humans, but with the same Claw drives to destroy any living thing. The problem is to distinguish between the humans and the killer robots. Philip K. Dick regarded the story as marking the emergence of his "Grand Theme" which is: "Who is human and who only appears (masquerading) as human?" the story is pretty good blending it's philosophy with a pretty action packed storyline. The 1996 Canadian film Screamers was a loose adaptation of the story.

It was another quiet day at work today, although it was very busy due to a lot of work coming in after a bank holiday yesterday. I'm off work tomorrow of course so I can book my tickets for the Film Festival. I have a pretty good idea of what I would like to see, so I just hope that I can get them all!