The Gun (short story)

The Gun is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1952 September issue of Planet Stories, and later published in Beyond Lies the Wub in 1984.

Plot synopsis

The plot centers around a group of space explorers who investigate a planet which appears deserted. However, they are shot down and crash land on the planet. While repairing their ship, a team of explorers sets to survey the surrounding area, where they discover the ruins of an ancient city. Upon further investigation, it is revealed that the gun which shot them down is in the city, and is programmed to shoot anything down which enters the airspace above the city. They examine the gun and discover that it is protecting a tomb directly underneath it -- a tomb which contains artifacts, film and photographs of a lost civilization. In order to prevent themselves from being shot down by the same gun while attempting to leave the planet, they destroy the gun and take the artifacts with them. As they leave the ship, hoping to return one day, it is revealed that several automatized machines begin to repair and erect the gun again: this time it is loaded with nuclear warheads.

External links

The Gun at Project Gutenberg
The Gun public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Works of Philip K. Dick

Novels

1950s	Gather Yourselves Together (1950) Voices from the Street (1952) Vulcan's Hammer (1953) Dr. Futurity (1953) The Cosmic Puppets (1953) Solar Lottery (1954) Mary and the Giant (1954) The World Jones Made (1954) Eye in the Sky (1955) The Man Who Japed (1955) A Time for George Stavros (1956) Pilgrim on the Hill (1956) The Broken Bubble (1956) Puttering About in a Small Land (1957) Nicholas and the Higs (1958) Time Out of Joint (1958) In Milton Lumky Territory (1958) Confessions of a Crap Artist (1959)

1960s	The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (1960) Humpty Dumpty in Oakland (1960) The Man in the High Castle (1961) We Can Build You (1962) Martian Time-Slip (1962) Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb (1963) The Game-Players of Titan (1963) The Simulacra (1963) The Crack in Space (1963) Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964) The Zap Gun (1964) The Penultimate Truth (1964) Deus Irae (1964) The Unteleported Man (1964) The Ganymede Takeover (1965) Counter-Clock World (1965) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1966) Nick and the Glimmung (1966) Now Wait for Last Year (1966) Ubik (1966) Galactic Pot-Healer (1968) A Maze of Death (1968) Our Friends from Frolix 8 (1969)

1970s	Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974) A Scanner Darkly (1977) Radio Free Albemuth (1976)

1980s	VALIS (1981) The Divine Invasion (1981) The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982) The Owl in Daylight (unfinished)

Short story collections

1950s	A Handful of Darkness (1955) The Variable Man (1956)

1960s	The Preserving Machine (1969)

1970s	The Book of Philip K. Dick (1973) The Best of Philip K. Dick (1977)

1980s	The Golden Man (1980) Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities (1984) I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (1985) The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (1987) Beyond Lies the Wub (1988) The Dark Haired Girl (1989) The Father-Thing (1989) Second Variety (1989)

1990s	The Days of Perky Pat (1990) The Little Black Box (1990) The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford (1990) We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1990) The Minority Report (1991) Second Variety (1991) The Eye of the Sibyl (1992) The Philip K. Dick Reader (1997)

2000s	Minority Report (2002) Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (2002) Paycheck (2004) Vintage PKD (2006)

Short stories

1950s	"Beyond Lies the Wub" (1952) "The Gun" (1952) "The Skull" (1952) "The Little Movement" (1952) "The Defenders" (1953) "Mr. Spaceship" (1953) "Piper in the Woods" (1953) "Roog" (1953) "The Infinites" (1953) "Second Variety" (1953) "The World She Wanted" (1953) "Colony" (1953) "The Cookie Lady" (1953) "Impostor" (1953) "Martians Come in Clouds" (1953) "Paycheck" (1953) "The Preserving Machine" (1953) "The Cosmic Poachers" (1953) "Expendable" (1953) "The Indefatigable Frog" (1953) "The Commuter" (1953) "Out in the Garden" (1953) "The Great C" (1953) "The King of the Elves" (1953) "The Trouble with Bubbles" (1953) "The Variable Man" (1953) "The Impossible Planet" (1953) "Planet for Transients" (1953) "Some Kinds of Life" (1953) "The Builder" (1953) "The Hanging Stranger" (1953) "Project: Earth" (1953) "The Eyes Have It" (1953) "Tony and the Beetles" (1953) "Prize Ship" (1954) "Beyond the Door" (1954) "The Crystal Crypt" (1954) "A Present for Pat" (1954) "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" (1954) "The Golden Man" (1954) "James P. Crow" (1954) "Prominent Author" (1954) "Small Town" (1954) "Survey Team" (1954) "Sales Pitch" (1954) "Time Pawn" (1954) "Breakfast at Twilight" (1954) "The Crawlers" (1954) "Of Withered Apples" (1954) "Exhibit Piece" (1954) "Adjustment Team" (1954) "Shell Game" (1954) "Meddler" (1954) "Souvenir" (1954) "A World of Talent" (1954) "The Last of the Masters" (1954) "Progeny" (1954) "Upon the Dull Earth" (1954) "The Father-thing" (1954) "Strange Eden" (1954) "Jon's World" (1954) "The Turning Wheel" (1954) "Foster, You're Dead!" (1955) "Human Is" (1955) "War Veteran" (1955) "Captive Market" (1955) "Nanny" (1955) "The Hood Maker" (1955) "The Chromium Fence" (1955) "Service Call" (1955) "A Surface Raid" (1955) "The Mold of Yancy" (1955) "Autofac" (1955) "Psi-man Heal My Child!" (1955) "The Minority Report" (1956) "To Serve the Master" (1956) "Pay for the Printer" (1956) "A Glass of Darkness" (1956) "The Unreconstructed M" (1957) "Misadjustment" (1957) "Null-O" (1958) "Explorers We" (1959) "Recall Mechanism" (1959) "Fair Game" (1959) "War Game" (1959)

1960s	"All We Marsmen" (1963) "Stand-by" (1963) "What'll We Do with Ragland Park?" (1963) "The Days of Perky Pat" (1963) "If There Were No Benny Cemoli" (1963) "Waterspider" (1964) "Novelty Act" (1964) "Oh, to Be a Blobel!" (1964) "The War with the Fnools" (1964) "What the Dead Men Say" (1964) "Orpheus with Clay Feet" (1964) "Cantata 140" (1964) "A Game of Unchance" (1964) "The Little Black Box" (1964) "Precious Artifact" (1964) "The Unteleported Man" (1964) "Retreat Syndrome" (1965) "Project Plowshare" (1965) "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (1966) "Holy Quarrel" (1966) "Return Match" (1967) "Faith of Our Fathers" (1967) "Not by Its Cover" (1968) "The Story to End All Stories" (1968) "The Electric Ant" (1969) "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum" (1969)

1970s	"The Pre-persons" (1974) "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" (1974) "The Exit Door Leads In" (1979)

1980s	"Chains of Air, Web of Aethyr" (1980) "Rautavaara's Case" (1980) "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (1980) "The Alien Mind" (1981) "Strange Memories of Death" (1984) "Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked" (1987) "The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out of Its Tree" (1987) "The Eye of the Sibyl" (1987) "Stability" (1987) "Goodbye, Vincent" (1988)