This collection of short stories by Philip K Dick, published in 1973 as 'The Book of Philip K Dick' and republished in the UK in 1977 under the current title, actually consists of stories first published in magazines in the 1950s. This accounts for their rather antiquated flavour and attitudes.

In 'Nanny', children are taken care of by robotic nurses until things go sour with a kind of arms race.

In the title story, Earth is in decline far in the future under a controlling, caste-based society based on the idea of reincarnation. Everyone who does practical things, such as farming, are low down on the social ladder, and those who repair technology and deal with metal working etc, the Technos, are the lowest of all. In fact, they consist of Caucasians, who are despised as being possible descended from Neanderthals, and whose ancestors are blamed for the current state of the planet. Due to this attitude, no machinery is repaired and everything is breaking down, while the environment is impoverished and it is hard to grow food, with disease being rife. I won't describe the story further, other than to say by today's standards it probably comes over as racist from the point of view that only white people are capable of developing solutions and turning the situation around.

In 'The Defenders' all-out war between the USA and the Soviet Union has resulted in the survivors living underground in massive cities and continuing to pursue the war through the use of surface dwelling robots.

'Adjustment Team' is a rather odd story, more fantasy than SF, which deals with the results when one man is in the wrong place at the wrong time. The attitudes of the time are again conveyed by the means of distracting a key female character from pursuit of a vital point of information by having a vacuum cleaner salesman turn up.

In 'Psi-Man', the existence of psychics whose powers are demonstrably real has apparently been established since the late 1960s, but by 2017 when the story is set, war has reduced a remnant of humanity to living in communes among wastelands. Only a handful of psychics exist and they live among the ruins and provide services such as healing to the desperate commune dwellers. One is able to time travel by exchanging places with earlier selves and has been back many times to try to convince a key military figure to not tell the President of the USA to launch the initial attack, but without success. This was a rather muddled story with the viewpoint switching around quite a lot, though it ends with a ray of hope.

'The Commuter' is a surreal tale of what happens when a community which should not be there eventually comes into existence.

'A Present for Pat' is a really odd story, featuring the present - a being from a higher dimension - brought back as a present from Ganymede, and the havoc this creature unleashes. Again, rather fantasy in style.

'Breakfast at Twilight' is another war story; this time, a whole family spontaneously are brought forward in time to when the country is bombarded by robot controlled bombs.

Finally, 'Shell Game' is the tale of the survivors of a crashed spaceship who are under attack - though it increasingly becomes clear that they are a big part of the problem themselves.

I have greatly enjoyed some of Dick's novels, such as Ubik and , but I found these stories rather too much a product of their time. They are from the early part of Dick's career, so are interesting as a historical artefact, but for me do not rate more than 2 stars. ( )

Indeholder "Nanny", "The turning Wheel", "The Defenders", "Adjustment team", "Psi-man", "The commuter", "A present for Pat", "Breakfast at twilight", "Shell game".

"Nanny" handler om børnepasningsmaskiner der er programmeret til at slås med konkurrenternes modeller så man hele tiden er tvunget til at købe en ny.
"The Turning Wheel" handler om at i en verden hvor man kan få forudsagt sin sandsynlige skæbne og hvor religionen er domineret af tankegods fra Elron Hu - L Ron Hubbard - og hinduisme er nogle opkomlinge med mere jordnære tanker ildesete.
"The Defenders" handler om at 8 år efter at atomkrigen brød ud lever menneskene under jorden i frygt for det radioaktive helvede på overfladen hvor kun robotter kan overleve - eller er det nu helt sandt?
"Adjustment team" handler om Ed Fletcher der pgra en fejl får indsigt i at verden bliver modificeret af en venligtsindet almægtighed af og til - da han uforvarende dumper ned i en deenergiseret sektor hvor alle folk ser ud til at være lavet af gråsort støv.
"Psi-man!" handler om en udbombet efterkrigsverden hvor mutanterne med psi-kræfter forsøger at finde ud af om de skal tage magten eller forsøge at gå tilbage i tiden for at stoppe krigen eller hjælpe folk til at overleve fx med deres helbredende kræfter.
"The Commuter" handler om Bob Paine der undrer sig over en pendler der vil forny togkortet til Macon Heights - en by der ikke blev bygget - han følger efter og opdager at Macon Heights er ved at tage fysisk form - og til sidst er Macon Heights loddet ind i virkeligheden som om den altid har været der.
"A present for Pat" handler om Eric Blake der har en gud med hjem fra Ganymedes til sin kone Patricia - men det går ikke så godt - Pat bliver forvandlet til granit og hans bedste ven til en tudse.
"Breakfast at twilight" handler om en familie der bliver suget 7 år ind i fremtiden til en mareridtsagtig verden i total krig - de kommer tilbage men må indse at det er for sent at ændre på noget.
"Shell game" handler om et rumskib uden besætning men med en last af et stort antal paranoide psykiatriske patienter der undervejs til et hospital nødlander - og kaos udvikler sig hurtigt.

Glimrende novellesamling ( )