Time Pawn first appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories in June,1954. Under pressure from his publishers, Dick expanded the story into a full length novel - Doctor Futurity. The original is an excellent story but most critics agree that the expanded version was not a success. Here then, as far as can be determined from extensive research, is the first re-publication of the original gem of a novella, filled with the excitement, excellent pacing, and food for thought one can expect from a Philip K Dick work. Minor updates and alterations have been made to the text so as not to interrupt the flow and believability of the story. Technological and otherwise distracting references - such as feeding tape into a computer - have been updated. The plot and characters remain unchanged.
Author
Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago in 1928 and lived most of his life in California. In 1952, he began writing professionally and proceeded to write numerous novels and short-story collections. He won the Hugo Award for the best novel in 1962 for The Man in the High Castle and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year in 1974 for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Philip K. Dick died on March 2, 1982, in Santa Ana, California, of heart failure following a stroke. In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. Although Dick spent most of his career as a writer in near-poverty, ten of his stories have been adapted into popular films since his death, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, and The Adjustment Bureau. In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik one of the one hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series.
