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The Defenders
Philip K. Dick
Book Overview:
The terrible destruction of total nuclear war between the Western and Eastern Blocks has succeeded in sterilizing the surface of the earth. No living creature can now exist there and all humans on both sides, have fled to the hives built miles below the surface where they constantly work to produce the war materials necessary to carry on the battle. For 8 years now, the actual fighting between these super powers has been conducted by robots known as Ledeys since only they can sustain the terrible levels of radiation caused by the constant bombardment. They are the Defenders, standing between the combatants far below and ultimate victory or defeat. Life is hard in the tunnels, but liveable, while it is lethal on the surface. The ledeys keep the generals informed on everything through vids and pictures; but how can this continue? what will happen? Who will win?
The terrible destruction of total nuclear war between the Western and Eastern Blocks has succeeded in sterilizing the surface of the earth. No living creature can now exist there and all humans on both sides, have fled to the hives built miles below the surface where they constantly work to produce the war materials necessary to carry on the battle. For 8 years now, the actual fighting between these super powers has been conducted by robots known as Ledeys since only they can sustain the terrible levels of radiation caused by the constant bombardment. They are the Defenders, standing between the combatants far below and ultimate victory or defeat. Life is hard in the tunnels, but liveable, while it is lethal on the surface. The ledeys keep the generals informed on everything through vids and pictures; but how can this continue? what will happen? Who will win?
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Now the surface was a lethal desert of slag and rolling clouds. Endless clouds drifted back and forth, blotting out the red Sun. Occasionally something metallic stirred, moving through the remains of a city, threading its way across the tortured terrain of the countryside. A leady, a surface robot, immune to radiation, constructed with feverish haste in the last months before the cold war became literally hot.
Leadys, crawling along the ground, moving over the oceans or through the skies in slender, blackened craft, creatures that could exist where no. . . Read More
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Community Reviews
Written in 1953 - and still ahead of our time. PKD knew what humanity would need to achieve peace, and the way he portraits the human character is more than accurate.
*UPDATED- Notes Illustrations* 2.5 ⭐ Rounded Up.
Early Phillip K Dick short story, in classic 50's style. Influenced by the futility and fear of the Cold War period, Dick creates a solution whereby the machines designed to protect humanity decide to truely do that, even if it means ignoring orders. A
The Defenders is an interesting short story by PK Dick (January 1953, Galaxy Science Fiction) about what happens when machines are allowed to take over.
After 8 years underground (where they were forced to live after a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union), residents long to return to t
While this clearly inspired PKD to later write his novel The Penultimate Truth, the underlying theme here is quite different and perhaps more chilling. Rather than the ruling elite keeping the unwitting masses in their underground bunkers by means of a hoax, here the same is perpetrated on all of hu
This short story really made me think. Both about how we humans act and how we see the different countries as “ours” and “theirs”.
I do really recommend this! ❤️
Another brilliant Philip K. Dick short story, one with an entirely different twist on the theme "when robots take over".
I liked this long short story very much, and I suppose Dick must have liked it too, for a decade after publishing this version in Galaxy (1953) he used it as the basis of a novel The Penultimate Truth.
It is set in a world dominated for eight years by nuclear war, in which all human beings live under