Shell Game (short story)
"Shell Game" is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. "Shell Game" was submitted to the Scott Meredith Literary Agency and received by SMLA on December 12, 1953.[1] First published in Galaxy Science Fiction Sept. 1954[2] "Shell Game" forms an interesting early examination of extreme paranoia and group attempts to empirically distinguish delusion from accurate perception of real events. A group of paranoid mental patients long stranded on an alien planet by shipwreck of the robot controlled hospital spaceship transporting them to a mental hospital believing themselves to be constantly under attack by aliens or Terrans discover the damaged ship in a bog. From recorded tapes they learn their condition and the circumstances of the shipwreck. Even when they discover this evidence of the truth and attempt to verify or disprove the information on the ship's tapes, they construct sophisticated explanations to explain the "attacks" as a plot by the enemy who they now regard as definitely Terrans. After much internal dispute and sometimes violent conflict at the end of the story the survivors of the infighting are unsure if they are paranoid or victims of a plot. As one of them states they are like rulers who are all 12 inches long or 13 inches long so have no basis for comparison. How would people determine whether they suffer from paranoia when they agree they have evidence all or none of them are paranoid is a central question of the story.
This story was later expanded in the novel Clans of the Alphane Moon.
[edit] Copyright status and copyfraud
Copyright protection for Galaxy Science Fiction Sept. 1954 and its contents was created under Registration Number B00000485846.[3][4] "Shell Game" is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between January 1, 1950 and December 31, 1963 with copyright notice but copyright was not renewed with the US Copyright Office within a year period beginning on December 31 of the 27th year of the copyright and running through December 31 of the following year. When renewal registration was not made within the statutory time limit copyright expired at the end of its first term and protection was lost permanently.[5]
Ironically, after the author's death a nonexistent work with the same title was falsely included in renewal Registration Number RE0000190631 (1983-11-22) War veteran, and other contributions by Philip K. Dick, as "(In Galaxy science fiction, Mar. 1955) Shell game. Pub. 1955-01-21; B00000515180"[6][7][8] This created the deceptive appearance "Shell Game" is still under United States copyright protection.
"Shell Game" appears in the following Philip K. Dick collections:
- The Book of Philip K. Dick (1973)
- The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Vol. 3: The Father-Thing (1987)
- The Philip K. Dick Reader (1997)
[edit] References
- ^ Rickman, Gregg (1989), To The High Castle: Philip K. Dick: A Life 1928-1963, Long Beach, Ca.: Fragments West/The Valentine Press, p. 390 ISBN 0-916063-24-0
- ^ Levack, Daniel (1981) PKD: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography, Underwood/Miller, p. 124, ISBN 0-934438-33-1
- ^ http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=B00000485846&Search_Code=REGS&PID=VTZPdX4GlFB_vRFqd8bTII5OA&SEQ=20100331040911&CNT=25&HIST=1 Direct link to Registration Number B00000485846.
- ^ http://www.copyright.gov/records/ A direct link to the search result page or search page may cause an immediate timeout. If that is a problem use this link to Copyright Office home page then follow links and search Copyright Catalog Search for B00000485846 by Registration Number.
- ^ http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15t.pdf See p. 2
- ^ http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=RE0000190631&Search_Code=REGS&PID=bipYMgUUarc4ksK2ChQjMuAKXzSs&SEQ=20100211041346&CNT=25&HIST=1 Direct link to Registration Number RE0000190631.
- ^ http://www.copyright.gov/records/ A direct link to the search result page or search page may cause an immediate timeout. If that is a problem use this link to Copyright Office home page then follow links and search Copyright Catalog for story by title or RE0000190631 by Registration Number.
- ^ http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Philip_K._Dick Link to Philip K. Dick entry on isfdb
[edit] See also
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