War Veteran - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The plot concerns an old man who claims to have travelled back in time from a future in which Earth has lost a devastating war to its own Martian and Venusian colonies. The man turns out to be a synthetic human, designed to trick the Earth people into believing they could never win the war, forcing them to make peace. This type of android is a forerunner of the type appearing in Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and its film adaptation.

A similar, supposedly time-displaced "war veteran" character appears in Dick's novel The Zap Gun.

Works of Philip K. Dick

Novels

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

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

1970s	Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said A Scanner Darkly Radio Free Albemuth

1980s	VALIS The Divine Invasion The Transmigration of Timothy Archer The Owl in Daylight

Short story collections

1950s	A Handful of Darkness The Variable Man

1960s	The Preserving Machine

1970s	The Book of Philip K. Dick The Best of Philip K. Dick

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

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

2000s	Minority Report Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick Paycheck Vintage PKD

Short stories

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

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

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

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

Film and television adaptations

1980s	Blade Runner

1990s	Total Recall Confessions d'un Barjo Screamers Total Recall 2070

2000s	Impostor Minority Report Paycheck A Scanner Darkly Next Screamers: The Hunting

2010s	Radio Free Albemuth The Adjustment Bureau Total Recall King of the Elves

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