Lite Reads Selection: ‘The Hanging Stranger’ by Philip K. Dick

Welcome to The Feminist Bibliothecary’s Lite Reads, where we will read a different short story every week, and discuss it here and on social media. This week’s Lite Reads selection is The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick.

For the month of October, we will be looking at spookier than usual stories to suit the mood of the season. Our first selection, The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick, fits in with this line of thinking perfectly. Published in 1953, the story blends science fiction and horror to classic perfection. The Hanging Stranger is a tale that starts of with a man finding a hanging corpse in the middle of town that no one else seems to notice or care about. The plot only gets more wild from there. The story was also featured as an episode in the show Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams.

Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) was an American science fiction writer, best known for his novels Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)(which inspired the film Blade Runner) and The Man in the High Castle (1962)(which was adapted into the recent television series of the same name). Dick published over forty novels and well over one hundred short stories (most of which appeared in the science fiction magazines of the day). Much of his writing uses social and political themes that are often still relevant today, particularly in stories like The Hanging Stranger.

The story can be read in full online at this link. It can also be found on Serial Reader, which we have previously discussed as being an excellent resource. It can also be heard narrated aloud in episode five of the podcast When Horror Meets Science Fiction.

Join us in the comments section here, or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, to participate in discussions throughout the week. You can also join in on the discussion at Litsy by following @elizabethlk.