Meet the wub. You have never encountered anything like the wub. Read this astonishing debut story from one of science fiction’s true originals, completely free online.
Published in 1952, Beyond Lies the Wub was Philip K. Dick’s first professional sale. He was twenty-three years old. The story appeared in Planet Stories, a pulp magazine devoted to interplanetary adventure and bug-eyed monsters. But Dick was not writing bug-eyed monsters. He was writing something stranger, funnier, and infinitely more unsettling.
Captain Franco and his crew have returned from Mars with cargo: a wub, a large, pig-like creature of evident intelligence and placid temperament. The wub is destined for the table. Food is scarce, and the wub is fat. But the wub can talk. It discusses mythology, offers opinions on dinner, and expresses a calm philosophical acceptance of its fate. The captain is hungry. The crew is hungry. The wub is patient. Something must give.
On this page, you can experience the story that launched one of the most distinctive careers in American letters. We offer the complete 1952 tale for online reading.
Book Info
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | Beyond Lies the Wub |
| Author | Philip K. Dick |
| Year of Publication | 1952 |
| Genre | Science Fiction, Satire, Short Story |
| Language | English |
| Legal Status | Licensed for Free Distribution |
| Format | Online Reading |
Read Beyond Lies the Wub Online
Meet the creature that talks while you sharpen the knife. Begin this sly, subversive masterpiece by entering the spaceship mess hall interactively below.
This preview introduces Captain Franco, his hungry crew, and the remarkably philosophical pig from Mars. However, the full, disquieting narrative—the conversation, the meal, and the surprising indigestion—is available in the complete text for our subscribers.
A subscription unlocks this essential work of early Philip K. Dick and the complete catalog of his short fiction. Discover the writer who turned science fiction inside out.
About the Story Beyond Lies the Wub
Beyond Lies the Wub is a joke. It is also a meditation on colonialism, consumption, and the limits of empathy. It is very, very funny and absolutely serious. This combination—the comic surface over the abyss—would become Dick’s signature.
The Wub
The wub is not a monster. It is large, docile, and covered in coarse hair. It enjoys conversation. It quotes Milton. It accepts its impending death with Stoic calm: “Life continues. The wub that I am is not affected by the death of the body.” This is either profound wisdom or a punchline. Dick refuses to clarify. The wub is both joke and prophet, dinner guest and dinner.
Captain Franco
Franco is not a villain. He is a hungry man with a crew to feed. He has no philosophical objection to eating an intelligent creature; he simply does not consider the question. The wub’s intelligence is inconvenient, an obstacle to dinner. He shoots it, eats it, and suffers the consequences. He is Everyman, the decent person who commits atrocity through inattention.
The Reversal
The story’s climax is a masterpiece of comic horror. The crew eats the wub. Captain Franco feels unwell. He belches. And when he speaks, it is with the wub’s voice, in the wub’s cadences, expressing the wub’s calm philosophy. The predator has become the prey; the consumer has been consumed. The wub, it seems, was not joking about the continuity of life.
The Pulp Frame
Dick wrote for the pulps. He needed monsters, spaceships, alien worlds. He delivered them. But he also smuggled philosophy into the adventure. The wub is an alien; it is also Socrates. The spaceship is a setting; it is also a metaphor for the closed system of human assumptions. Dick worked within the conventions of commercial science fiction while quietly undermining them.
Empathy and Consumption
The story asks a simple question: Can you eat a creature you have recognized as a person? Captain Franco’s answer is: yes, easily. The wub’s answer is more complicated. It does not protest. It does not resist. It simply observes, converses, and waits. It knows something Franco does not: that the eater and the eaten are not so easily distinguished.
Why Read the Story Beyond Lies the Wub Today?
It is the beginning. Before Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, before The Man in the High Castle, before Ubik and A Scanner Darkly, there was the wub. All of Dick’s major themes are present in miniature: the instability of identity, the permeability of consciousness, the impossibility of distinguishing human from non-human, real from unreal. The story is also, simply, hilarious. It is the funni thing Philip K. Dick ever wrote, and he wrote some very funny things.
FAQ
Is this the first Philip K. Dick story I should read?
It is an excellent starting point. It is short, accessible, and representative. If you enjoy it, you will enjoy the vast majority of his two hundred published stories.
Is the wub really a pig?
It is described as “large, shapeless, coarse-haired.” It squeals. It is destined for the table. Dick invites the comparison. But the wub is also capable of rational discourse and philosophical reflection. The point is precisely that we cannot confidently distinguish the edible animal from the thinking being.
How long is it?
Approximately fifteen minutes of reading time. Dick was a master of the short-short story, capable of establishing character, conflict, and philosophical argument in a handful of pages.
Is this vegetarian propaganda?
No. Dick was not a vegetarian and the story is not a tract. It is a thought experiment about the ethics of consumption and the nature of identity. It has implications for diet, but it is not reducible to a dietary recommendation.
Can I read it on my phone?
Yes. It is the perfect length for a coffee break. You will never look at pork the same way again.