Orpheus with Clay Feet
"Orpheus with Clay Feet" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, originally published in 1964 in Escapade magazine. The story has a self referential time travel theme, and was published under the pen name "Jack Dowland".
Plot summary
The main character is Jesse Slade, a bored man living in 2040 who visits a time travel tourism agency for a vacation. The agency offers him a trip to the past where he can act as the muse for a famous artist of his choice. Slade chooses to inspire his favorite science fiction author of the 1960s, Jack Dowland, who is said to be universally acclaimed as the greatest of the three master science fiction authors of his time, the others being Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein.
Slade travels to Purpleblossom, Nevada, in 1956, where he is to inspire the writing of Dowland's masterpiece, The Father on the Wall. On his arrival, he has difficulty communicating, and is so unable to impress Dowland that he desperately discloses his identity as a time traveller. Dowland is so irritated at this that he becomes cynical about science fiction altogether, and never becomes the master that he might have been.
Self reference
The story makes several references to itself and its author. Dowland's masterpiece, The Father on the Wall, has a title similar to Dick's masterpiece, The Man in the High Castle. Jack Dowland, the fictional author featured in the story, was the pen name used by Dick when the story itself was published. In the story, Dowland takes Slade's tale about time travelling muses and publishes it as a science fiction short story called Orpheus with Clay Feet under the pen name "Philip K. Dick". After Slade's return to the future, Slade and the time travel agent read Dowland's published story. The agent (who calls it a "wretched story") decides what to do with Slade after he reads about his own actions in the published story, saying "that's how he resolved it in the end".
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- Vulcan's Hammer (1960)
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- Deus Irae (1976)
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- A Scanner Darkly (1977)
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- The Book of Philip K. Dick (1973)
- The Best of Philip K. Dick (1977)
- The Golden Man (1980)
- Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddities (1984)
- I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (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)
- The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (2011)
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- "Paycheck" (1953)
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- "Expendable" (1953)
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- "Out in the Garden" (1953)
- "The Great C" (1953)
- "The King of the Elves" (1953)
- "The Trouble with Bubbles" (1953)
- "The Variable Man" (1953)
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- "Planet for Transients" (1953)
- "The Builder" (1953)
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- "Beyond the Door" (1954)
- "The Crystal Crypt" (1954)
- "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" (1954)
- "The Golden Man" (1954)
- "Sales Pitch" (1954)
- "Breakfast at Twilight" (1954)
- "The Crawlers" (1954)
- "Exhibit Piece" (1954)
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- "Shell Game" (1954)
- "Meddler" (1954)
- "A World of Talent" (1954)
- "The Last of the Masters" (1954)
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- "The Father-thing" (1954)
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- "Orpheus with Clay Feet" (1964)
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- "The Unteleported Man" (1964)
- "The Little Black Box" (1964)
- "Retreat Syndrome" (1965)
- "Project Plowshare (later "The Zap Gun")" (1965)
- "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (1966)
- "Holy Quarrel" (1966)
- "Faith of Our Fathers" (1967)
- "Not by Its Cover" (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)
- "Rautavaara's Case" (1980)
- "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (1980)
- "The Eye of the Sibyl" (1987)
- "Stability" (1987)
Films |
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TV series |
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- Only Apparently Real (1986 biography)
- I Am Alive and You Are Dead (1993 biography)
- Your Name Here (2008 drama film)
- Isa Dick Hackett (daughter)
- Philip K. Dick Award
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