The Skull (short story)

"The Skull" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1952 in If, and later in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. It has since been republished several times, including in Beyond Lies the Wub in 1988.

Plot synopsis

Conger, the protagonist, is given a chance to get out of jail if he agrees to travel back in time and kill a man. Conger's target appeared in 1960 in a small town and spawned a new religious movement which radically changed the world over the next few hundred years. Conger is given a skull from which he can identify the man, and is sent back in time in a capsule. As Conger prepares for the man's arrival, he discovers that the skull is his own, and he is the man who will change the world, as people around town begin to take interest in the time traveler. Due to the use of time travel, Conger realizes that even though he will die, another version of himself will reappear in a few months, as if resurrected.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Skull

The Skull at Project Gutenberg
The Skull 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)