Mr Spaceship - Philip K. Dick

Mr Spaceship (short story) by Philip K. Dick
Humanity is at war with the “Yuks” -- an alien species that do not use mechanical spaceships. Instead, they build with life forms.
In a desperate attempt to end the war and save the planet, a team of researchers led by Philip Kramer build a spaceship powered by a human brain.
Published 1953 ~ Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy

[@SuperBartles]

PKD as very good at writing morally ambiguous stories that mix horror and tenderness. I think the aged scientist was a madman, myself - the best thing to do would be to escape his clutches as soon as possible

[@markletts2000]

This is one of his best,and he's written some gem's..

[@redx589]

I appreciate that you give us a summary of the plot. It's much needed.

[@skyblazeeterno]

typically short stories published in that era would have a little summary or teaser

[@ecologicaladam7262]

Intriguing... 👍

[@brucezar2202]

One of THE top 10 best of all best scifi stories ever narrated here on planet Earth in the System of Sol in this spiral arm of the galaxy known as the Milky Way.

[@browncovfefe]

Funny how the head of security just passed new major changes to the ships design without even consulting the ships engineer.

[@tuscanyjc]

HAL2000

[@thecrapartistx]

we live in a world that Phil wrote right fucking now.

[@maxwellmorgan8014]

A shell of a tale ! :)

[@mattyb3671]

Great channel! Thanks!

[@offgridhomesteaders863]

This is what it sounds like when Captain Kirk is reading.

[@skyblazeeterno]

thats interesting as some then famous scifi writers of that era did Trek episodes - Spinrad , Ellison, Pohl. I certainly know that Philip Jose Farmer tried an episode but it was too radical but Ive never heard if Philip K Dick tried to write stuff for it

[@cody481]

BAHAHAHA. To true. Love it.

[@sassimintseeds516]

I think this narrator watched a lot of the old Star Trek.He sounds much like William Shatner.

[@-taz-]

Which is what makes this reading so awesome.

[@Eidolon1andOnly]

Sounds like a monotone robot voice.

[@billyelliot4141]

Seems Sassimint, nay i know not seems.

[@FirstLast-tw1qf]

Think you have it backwards

[@tweakiepop]

00:40:00 Amazing that this is from '53, cheers.

[@blankblank4642]

Sounds like an old audible tape, also nothing like shatner, good find tho.

[@michaelledford4751]

Good story .

[@kawaiimariagamez872]

I liked it. Wasn't expecting the outcome. Was guessing the prof was going to take out the whole alien military stealthily until about 5/6th of the way through, then wasn't sure how it would end. :)

[@michaelledford4751]

I listened again today because of a fleeting thought I had last evening , no spoilers but everybody should be familiar with the satalite orbiting earth known as " The Black Knight " , thought by many to be man made & charted hundreds of years before airplanes , the ending suggestion of this story I'm fairly sure is the black knight watching over us now , but god in lost eons .

[@cuppatea4466]

I loved this one!!!

[@alone2260]

28:19 Bookmark (don't mind me)

[@nepalbitcoin1880]

2020 Reminder of your bookmark. :D

[@MetalNick]

If war was just 'human nature' it wouldn't always be a minority of us engaging in violence. It does seem like more of a habit of people at the top of social hierarchy. And, it's not like soldiers decide among themselves when to go to war. The actual decision is made by a handful of elites, soldiers are just following orders. One could argue that social organization is 'natural', but of course, that effectively means all human behavior is natural, including the propensity to cease war culture. Lastly, and obviously, we know now that war may be a terminal habit, or force, or whatever you want to call it. Nuclear war could very well threaten human survival. P.S., when the priority of a State is using tax revenue to develop weapons and tech systems for war, citizens are left behind; and they become merely just another military asset.

[@matonmongo]

Dunno... Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, and many regimes even today... it seems far too easy to blame just 'the people at the top', while ignoring the role of 'Tribalism' and the responsibility of those who put, and keep them there, in the first place.

[@jacobloving6765]

Some fight oppression, some oppress

[@kawaiimariagamez872]

If only the "bad boys" have weapons....... well, all it takes for evil to succeed is for good to do nothing. Or, in the spirit of Christmas season, remember the bully in "A Christmas Story"?

[@kawaiimariagamez872]

I find it interesting that in the past 60 years of people calling for peace, how much there isn't.

[@callanrose]

this was the most captivating one i’ve heard of dick’s, thanks for sharing!

[@glennsnapp290]

In this year of 2023, when everyone is talking about the potential of AI, the idea of an independent machine is relevant again ….

[@BeesWaxMinder]

Rod Serling..?

[@brucezar9517]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐!

[@ifeyecouldpaint]

I was with this all the way until he lit up a cigarette in a pressurised oxygen canister I,e a spaceship

[@billygoat520]

Our atmosphere is a pressurized oxygen canister, just not oxygen rich enough to be dangerous.

[@baruchben-david4196]

Sometimes someone lights up in a submarine...

[@pakzgames1421]

the air we breathe is actually hardly any oxygen it's more nitrogen then anything

[@Rogers_Ranger]

dam Chiggs

[@eastlynburkholder3559]

Brains age become less quick. Teenagers and twenty somethings would be quicker.

[@stevesyncox9893]

Feb 11 dec 13

[@captainclone1367]

36:24

[@rahvavaenlane]

That's a lot of inbreeding..

[@Eidolon1andOnly]

Really bad reading. May as well been done by a robot voice

[@stevie-ray2020]

Agree, & found it so irritating that I gave up trying to listen to it after about 10 mins!

[@alexapenn6399]

"The American Indians never took to it (war) well. . ." What!??? no, they never warred with each other. Hiawatha never worked hard to unite the Iroquois tribes into one group to stop fighting each other. The Anazazi didn't just disappear - they now think they were wiped out in a war or raids. They never took prisoners, or horses from each other. . . Scalping wasn't make up just for the belagana you know. . . Just like any people, they had a swath of intelligence, of behavior, of bad guys and good guys!!!! They did respect and love the Earth - took care of it - nature was part of life all intertwined. They had wonderful societies - and now are rebuilding - Hillary better carry on from what Obama has done so far. . . "No man (or group) is an island" we all need to work together. . .

[@LeviPaladin]

I doubt Jon Donne would have approved of either Obama or Hillary.

[@midnightchannel111]

Yes, Americans are pretty ignorant of Indian/"Native American" (unless you include the pre-5000BC skeletons that everyone tries to hide) history...

[@TheHornedOne81]

@Brocialist Party of America The whole "Peaceful Noble Savage" idea is ridiculous. They fought, just as everyone has fought. The Sioux had only moved into the Dakotas from the Wisconsin/Minnesota area in the late 1790s, but everyone acts as if that area was their ancient homeland. The Apache killed other Natives as hard as they did us. The Yaqui were pretty rough and ready as well. Pretty much every tribe considered every other tribe to be enemies. A single member of another tribe might be befriended, and diplomacy begin there, but on the whole they pushed each other around as much as any tribe of Celts or Desert Nomads did their fellow tribes. Raids, all out wars, just plain people being people. Think of it as an extension of your Dialectic.

[@TheHornedOne81]

@Brocialist Party of America Ok, what part of the Ananasi being wiped out by raiders and the Iroquois League crushing all opposition (as stated by a previous poster) do you not understand? As to your genocide charge, the majority of the native population died, before much more than exploration was done, by being exposed to diseases that they had Zero immunity to. Much as the explorers brought back diseases from the new world. We had some minor modicum of medical knowledge, they did not. That accounts for most of what you allege to be a "genocide". Then again, the pre-Columbian population numbers often purported by the majority of those who allege genocide are seriously questionable. I've heard numbers as high as 100million. Where are the census numbers? Even with abundant game the nomadic Hunter/Gatherer tribes (the overwhelming majority of the population) would not have been huge numbers, especially as they were neolithic, which reduces game acquisition. Many family groups starved before the end of winter, since the only food preservation techniques available to the majority were smoking (though coastal tribes did potentially have the capability to salt). There are hundreds of reasons why you are factually incorrect. The majority of them having to do with your equity ideology and your dialectic that ignores Actual conflict. Yes, as a "reactionary" I understand that "come the revolution" all the reactionaries are gonna get their comeuppance. But don't forget the history of your own ideology.

[@TheHornedOne81]

@Brocialist Party of America Wait wait wait... I'm not Rational? I didn't say Any of what you have attempted to claim I said. You have stated that Whites were responsible for actively killing, with the intent of wiping out, 90+% of the native population of the Americas. This, in and of itself, is a Patently false statement. You have also attempted to claim that the majority of the native population was not violent. Again, this is false. I never commented on Preaident Jackson's actions toward the Cherokee, nor on the internment of the Sioux, Comanche, Apache and others (what you're erroneously referring to as "concentration camps"). Yes, tribes were placed into encampments, and some less than savory individuals misdirected funds and resources meant for those camps, and bought used materiel for those camps from questionable sources, leading to illnesses. And you, in your white guilt (something I refuse to have, as I did not commit those acts) wail and intentionally misconstrue what happened. Those people were not placed in those camps with the intent of killing them, unlike the Ukrainian farmers sent to the gulags under Lenim and Stalin. They were not marched from North Carolina to Oklahoma with the intent of thinning their population, unlike those taken on Mao's long March. Hitler didn't get the idea of slave labor/death camps from the US. He got it from your beloved revolutionaries. Was what happened to the Natives deplorable? Yes. I never disputed the fact. Will I tear my clothes and cry Mea Culpa? No. I didn't do anything to them. Will I permit some benighted lackwit to put on airs and make unsubstiated and patently false claims concerning "The Noble Savages" without calling out their ideologically motivated idiocy? Nah. I despise commies. And you know, as well as I that socialism is merely a step on the road to communism. When your fellow travelers put you against the wall, think of me, because I won't be there, and I'll have a dozen or so laying around me as dead as I am.

[@wormsali]

Always an ex wife

[@ebonfox1013]

You

[@philip3304]

Don't like these librivox readers