Synopsis

A crewmember of an earth spaceship on Mars buys a Wub, a large pig-like creature, from the Martian inhabitants. The Captian of the ship wants to cook and eat the Wub.

History

First publication: Planet Stories, July 1952

Dick’s first professionally published story.

Review

This was published in Planet Stories, a magazine filled with half-clad women and bug-eyed monsters in space adventure stories, yet which published early works by the likes of Bradbury, Silverberg, Anderson and Dick. This was Dick’s first SF story, but it is already way ahead of most other science fiction found in the pulp magazines. But this was 1952 and the genre was changing, becoming better and moving away from it’s pulp beginnings. This story plays with your prejudices, first characterizing the Wub as a pig, an animal, to be bought and maybe eaten. Then the Wub turns out to be able to speak and even read minds. Dick further plays with your prejudices and assumptions to end the story with a twist that I will not spoil for you. It turns out to be quite an excellent little story.