The lag varies.' He waved impatiently toward the massed banks of SRB machines. 'The time lag between our offensive design and their counter development. His hard gray eyes bored into the lab organizer and Kaplan slunk back. 'What we count on is the lag,' Reinhart broke in, annoyed. 'It will end,' Reinhart stated coldly, 'as soon as Terra turns out a weapon for which Centaurus can build no defense.'

And nothing is actually made! Continual improvement, but neither we nor Centaurus can stop designing long enough to stabilize for production.' 'We design new offensive weapons, they counter with improved defenses. 'We're catching up to them,' Reinhart retorted. He grinned proudly, as if personally responsible. 'Straight gain for the last quarter,' observed Kaplan, the lab organizer. His thin face rapt, eyes alight with emotion, Reinhart gazed intently up at the central SRB computer, studying its reading. Council guards stepped quickly aside and he entered the familiar place of great whirring machines. Security Commissioner Reinhart rapidly climbed the front steps and entered the Council building. He was Earth’s only hope-and its sure failure! But he had no business in the future, where the calculators could not handle him. After his death, many of his stories made the transition to the big screen, with blockbuster films such as Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report being based on his works.He fixed things-clocks, refrigerators, vidsenders and destinies. In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote an estimated 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. He sold his first story in 1951 and from that point on he wrote full-time, selling his first novel in 1955. Dick married five times between 19, and had three children. It was around this time that Dick began to take an active interest in the science fiction genre, reading his first magazine ’Stirring Science Stories’, at age twelve. Dick attended Elementary school and then a Quaker school before the family moved back to California. Dick and his family moved to the Bay Area of San Francisco when he was young, and later on to Washington DC following his parents divorce. Philip Kindred Dick was born on December 16 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. ’The Variable Man’ is a novella about a war between the people of the Terran System and that of Proxima Centauri.

Dick was originally published in 1953 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography.

The Variable Man by Philip K. Dick