Set during the events of a globally catastrophic nuclear war, Second Variety follows Major Rebecca Hendricks as she leads a mission into enemy territory during a mysterious communications blackout.

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Never before has the idea of fighting a war side by side with robots been a commonplace reality. Our mini-series focuses in on the challenges of using combat drones and AI technologies on the battlefield of tomorrow. This adaptation, while staying true to Philip K. Dick’s original work, asks the question, what happens when our weapons become smarter than we are?

Second Variety was first published in Space Science Fiction magazine’s May 1953 issue.

Philip K. Dick is one of the most influential Science Fiction authors of the 20th Century. Before his death in 1982, at the age of 53, he produced 44 published novels and approximately 121 short stories.

His stories have been at the center of the Science Fiction feature-film culture for almost forty years, but he never had a chance to experience his own mainstream success. Though he strived his entire career to achieve recognition outside the cult science fiction community, he passed away only three months before the release of Bladerunner.

Since then it’s been one film after another with the likes of Total Recall (1990 & 2012,) Screamers (1995 and also based on Second Variety,) Minority Report (2002,) A Scanner Darkly (2006,) Next (2007) The Adjustment Bureau (2011,) Bladerunner 2049 (2017,) and most recently the hit Amazon Prime series Man in the High Castle (2015. )

PKD’s stories often make us question the nature of our own reality and our place in a world where technology seems beyond our control. PKD commented on his own themes stating, “The two basic topics which fascinate me are ‘What is reality?’ and ‘What constitutes the authentic human being?”

Not all of PKD’s influence landed on projects with his name attached. Does the story of warrior-robots becoming sentient sound familiar? That’s because Second Variety is widely accepted as one of the seminal influences for James Cameron’s Terminator. In an article featured in the December 1984 issue of Starlog, James Cameron states, “I read all the classics, all the old Ace paperback novels.” As you’d probably guessed, Second Variety was published by Ace Books in the PKD collection The Variable Man and Other Stories.

Want to explore more content inspired and influenced by Philip K. Dick?

Dive into the worlds he created and add a Bluray or Book to your collection while also helping to support the podcast.

Movies:

• Bladerunner
• Bladerunner 2049
• Total Recall
• Minority Report
• A Scanner Darkly
• Next
• The Adjustment Bureau

Books:

• The Philip K. Dick Reader (Includes Second Variety)
• The Philip K. Dick Collection 
• The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• The Man in the High Castle

CREDITS

Writer/Host/Director:   Jonathan Pezza

Additional Sound Engineering: Jeremy Pezza

The Cast Includes:

• Sandeep Parikh
• Kelli Dawn Hancock
• Leonid Andronov
• Alexandra Amick
• Christopher Amick
• Melissa Starr
• Darrin Cummings
• Philip Gray
• Matt Hobin
• Alexander Mercado
• Maggie Mercado
• Mayuko Nakamura
• Brandy Cuevas-Pezza
• Jeremy Pezza
• Jonathan Pezza
• Steven Pezza

Score provided by: epidemicsound.com (Use discount code curiousmatter to get 2 months free)

Sound Effects provided by: Soundsnap.com