Shell Game (short story)

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"Shell Game" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1954, it forms an interesting early examination of extreme paranoia. A group of paranoid mental patients are stranded on an alien planet and believe themselves to be constantly under attack by Terrans. Even when they discover the truth, they construct sophisticated explanations to explain it as a plot by the enemy. At the end of the story there is some ambiguity over whether the men really are paranoid or not. How would a paranoid measure his paranoia?

The story was later expanded into the novel Clans of the Alphane Moon.

"Shell Game" appears in the following Philip K. Dick collections:

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Works of Philip K. Dick

Novels

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 · 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 · Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? · 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 · Nick and the Glimmung · Ubik · Galactic Pot-Healer · A Maze of Death · Our Friends from Frolix 8 · Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said · A Scanner Darkly · Radio Free Albemuth · VALIS · The Divine Invasion · The Transmigration of Timothy Archer · The Owl in Daylight (unfinished)

Short story collections

A Handful of Darkness (1950) · The Variable Man (1956) · The Preserving Machine (1969) · The Golden Man (1980) · The Book of Philip K. Dick (1973) · The Best of Philip K. Dick (1977) · Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities (1984) · I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (collection) (1985) · The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick (1987) · Beyond Lies the Wub (1988) · The Dark Haired Girl (1989) · The Father-Thing (1989) · Second Variety (1989) · The Days of Perky Pat (1990) · The Little Black Box (1990) · The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford (1990) · We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1990) · The Minority Report (1991) · Second Variety (1991) · The Eye of the Sibyl (1992) · The Philip K. Dick Reader (1997) · Minority Report (2002) · Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (2002) · Paycheck (2004) · Vintage PKD (2006)

Short stories

"Beyond Lies the Wub" (1952) · "The Gun" (1952) · "The Skull" (1952) · "The Little Movement" (1952) · "The Defenders" (1953) · "Mr. Spaceship" (1953) · "Piper In The Woods" (1953) · "Roog" (1953) · "The Infinities" (1953) · "Second Variety" (1953) · "The World She Wanted" (1953) · "Colony" (1953) · "The Cookie Lady" (1953) · "Impostor" (1953) · "Martians Come In Clouds" (1953) · "Paycheck" (1953) · "The Preserving Machine" (1953) · "The Cosmic Poachers" (1953) · "Expendable" (1953) · "The Indefatigable Frog" (1953) · "The Commuter" (1953) · "Out In The Garden" (1953) · "The Great C" (1953) · "The King Of The Elves" (1953) · "The Trouble with Bubbles" (1953) · "The Variable Man" (1953) · "The Impossible Planet" (1953) · "Planet for Transients" (1953) · "Some Kinds of Life" (1953) · "The Builder" (1953) · "The Hanging Stranger" (1953) · "Project: Earth" (1953) · "The Eyes Have It" (1953) · "Tony and the Beetles" (1953) · "Prize Ship" (1954) · "Beyond the Door" (1954) · "The Crystal Crypt" (1954) · "A Present for Pat" (1954) · "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" (1954) · "The Golden Man" (1954) · "James P. Crow" (1954) · "Prominent Author" (1954) · "Small Town" (1954) · "Survey Team" (1954) · "Sales Pitch" (1954) · "Time Pawn" (1954) · "Breakfast at Twilight" (1954) · "The Crawlers" (1954) · "Of Withered Apples" (1954) · "Exhibit Piece" (1954) · "Adjustment Team" (1954) · "Shell Game" (1954) · "Meddler" (1954) · "Souvenir" (1954) · "A World of Talent" (1954) · "The Last of the Masters" (1954) · "Progeny" (1954) · "Upon the Dull Earth" (1954) · "The Father-thing" (1954) · "Strange Eden" (1954) · "Jon's World" (1954) · "The Turning Wheel" (1954) · "Foster, You're Dead!" (1955) · "Human Is" (1955) · "War Veteran" (1955) · "Captive Market" (1955) · "Nanny" (1955) · "The Hood Maker" (1955) · "The Chromium Fence" (1955) · "Service Call" (1955) · "A Surface Raid" (1955) · "The Mold of Yancy" (1955) · "Autofac" (1955) · "Psi-man Heal My Child!" (1955) · "The Minority Report" (1956) · "To Serve the Master" (1956) · "Pay for the Printer" (1956) · "A Glass of Darkness" (1956) · "The Unreconstructed M" (1957) · "Misadjustment" (1957) · "Null-O" (1958) · "Explorers We" (1959) · "Recall Mechanism" (1959) · "Fair Game" (1959) · "War Game" (1959) · "All We Marsmen" (1963) · "Stand-by" (1963) · "What'll We Do with Ragland Park?" (1963) · "The Days of Perky Pat" (1963) · "If There Were No Benny Cemoli" (1963) · "Waterspider" (1964) · "Novelty Act" (1964) · "Oh, to be a Blobel!" (1964) · "The War with the Fnools" (1964) · "What the Dead Men Say" (1964) · "Orpheus with Clay Feet" (1964) · "Cantata 140" (1964) · "A Game of Unchance" (1964) · "The Little Black Box" (1964) · "Precious Artifact" (1964) · "The Unteleported Man" (1964) · "Retreat Syndrome" (1965) · "Project Plowshare" (1965) · "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (1966) · "Holy Quarrel" (1966) · "Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday" (1966) · "Return Match" (1967) · "Faith of Our Fathers" (1967) · "Not by Its Cover" (1968) · "The Story To End All Stories" (1968) · "The Electric Ant" (1969) · "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum" (1969) · "The Pre-persons" (1974) · "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" (1974) · "The Exit Door Leads In" (1979) · "Chains Of Air, Web Of Aethyr" (1980) · "Rautavaara's Case" (1980) · "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (1980) · "The Alien Mind" (1981) · "Strange Memories Of Death" (1984) · "Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked" (1987) · "The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out Of Its Tree" (1987) · "The Eye of the Sibyl" (1987) · "Stability" (1987) · "Goodbye, Vincent" (1988)

Film adaptations

Blade Runner (1982) · Total Recall (1990) · Confessions of a Crap Artist (1992) · Screamers (1995) · Impostor (2002) · Minority Report (2002) · Paycheck (2003) · A Scanner Darkly (2006) · Next (2007) · Radio Free Albemuth (TBA) · King of the Elves (2012)