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Every legend has a beginning. Here, Dreamscape Media presents a collection of short stories penned by Philip K. Dick early in his masterful and legendary writing career. Stories include: Beyond Lies the Wub; Beyond the Door; The Hanging Stranger; Mr. Spaceship; The Gun; Tony and the Beetles; The Eyes Have It; The Variable Man; Second Variety; The Skull; The Crystal Crypt; Piper in the Woods; The Defenders.

First published in a 1842 edition of Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, "The Masque of the Red Death" tells the story of Prince Prospero as he tries to avoid a plague by confining himself and his nobles to a masquerade in an abbey. Often considered a Gothic allegory, the story reflects on not only life and death but also the illusion of control.

Bob Ryan has scored every baseball game he's attended, at every level, since the start of the 1977 season. It's a deeply personal tradition still going strong at more than 1,400 games and counting. The tattered scorebooks he's filled are worn from age, travel, and countless summer days, but their grids and scrawled symbols tell the stories of milestones, rivalries, rare historic achievements, and more. In Scoring Position captures the incomparable spirit of baseball, with its infinite possibilities and madcap anomalies. 

Imagine a force that can toss boats around like toys, wash away bridges, and create waves as high as 18 feet. With fierce winds and torrential rains, hurricanes can do all of these things. They can cause tremendous damage and even change the shape of a shoreline. For centuries people did not know when a hurricane was coming. But now we have new methods to predict when and where these storms will occur. Young viewers will learn how hurricanes are formed, how they are named and classified, and what to do if a dangerous storm is on the way.

Perhaps Poe's most famous work, "The Raven" was first published in 1845 in the New York Evening Mirror. Known for its tight rhymes and rhythm and the repetitive response given by the eponymous raven - "nevermore" - the poem focuses on that raven and a forlorn man who is distraught over his lost lover, Lenore.

When a member of their quiet community is brutally murdered, the Abbotts find themselves prime suspects of the crime. The couple is desperate to prove their innocence, but when a tape is discovered with horrifying evidence, everything changes. With shocking truths beginning to surface, Rachael and Caide must decide just how far they are willing to go to protect those they love. Can they trust anyone around them, including each other?

Unlike other biographies, the Making of America series goes beyond individual narratives, linking influential figures to create an overarching story of America's growth that will deepen understanding of the country we live in today.

As modern-day demonstrations of vintage baseball continue to spread, so do the gentlemanly discussions of how best to present the American pastime from its earliest days, from 1858 to 1869. From tally bells to no sliding, feeder pitching to base stealing, National Association rules to home field rules, there is a lot for today’s player to sort through. We hope this guide will help you understand some of baseball history, so you, too, can enjoy the game as it was played in the 19th century.

The fifth book in the Making of America series examines the life of America’s 32nd president: his birth into one of America’s elite families, his domineering mother, his marriage to Eleanor Roosevelt, his struggle with polio, and his political career. A Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) won a record four presidential elections and is the longest-serving US president. During his time in office, he led the country through the Great Depression and World War II. He helped to redefine the role of the US government with the New Deal.

There is a competition to make the spacesuit for the first moon landing! Ellie, an ordinary woman, is asked to lead a team of talented seamstresses. No one believes they can win, but they are determined to try.... This inspiring look at the history of the spacesuit is based on the incredible true story of the team of women who sewed it together for the first moonwalk.

In "The Gun", a group of space explorers are shot down above a deserted planet. While some of the crew work on repairing the ship, the remainder set out to investigate the planet. Otherwise unpopulated, they discover the huge gun that shot them down sitting atop a trove of cultural artifacts from a bygone civilization. What harm could come of dismantling the gun and taking a few of the artifacts home with them?

In "Beyond the Door", a man buys a cuckoo clock for his wife who has always wanted one. When he catches her cheating on him, the man throws his wife out of the house with her lover. Though he never really cared for the clock, he keeps winding it because he dislikes the silence. But the cuckoo clock, who preferred the wife's company, begins to plot against its owner.

In Mr. Spaceship, humans in the distant future are at war with alien life forms known as Yuks. Using outdated mechanical machines to wage war against the life-based weapons of the advanced Yuks, a research team decides to build a spaceship powered by a human brain. Enlisting a dying professor who agrees to donate his brain to the project, the humans believe they have turned the tables on the Yuks. But the spaceship has other plans.

Ten-year old Tony Rossi, an Earthman growing up on Betelgeuse, becomes aware that the natives, known as the "Pas-Udeti", are driving out the Earthmen colonists on nearby Orion. His father, a staunch believer in the superiority of Earthmen, describes Tony's native friends as "Beetles". A trip into town to meet his native friends leads to awkward encounters with a Pas-Udeti cab driver and a fellow bus passenger.

In "The Skull", a convict is offered his freedom if he agrees to travel back in time and kill someone. He learns that the assassination target was the founder of a religious sect that grew in strength and influence from its inception in 1960. Carrying his target's skull so he can identify the religious leader, the convict comes to learn a terrible secret about why he was chosen to find its owner.

"The Eyes Have It" is a humorous, early short story by Philip K. Dick that first appeared in Science Fiction Stories in 1953. In it, a bus-riding reader of a discarded melodrama with an overactive imagination is persuaded by the hackneyed prose that the world has been taken over by aliens. Thus, when "eyes slowly roved around the room", the reader imagines disembodied eyeballs traveling of their own free will. A rare example of satire from the Dick canon.

In "Piper in the Woods", an army doctor is asked to treat a soldier from Asteroid Y-3 who claims he is a plant. This wouldn't be a problem, but the soldier is incapable of any physical activity, preferring to stand still and point himself towards the sun. When more soldiers return from Asteroid Y-3 also claiming to be plants, Dr. Harris travels there to investigate. While there, he learns about a mysterious indigenous people living in the woods called "Pipers", who might be able to shed some light on the subject.

In "The Hanging Stranger", TV salesman Ed Loyce is a practical man who, when he sees something wrong, tries to correct it. Then one day he sees a lifeless body hanging in the town square. What he can't figure out is why nobody seems to care.

In "The Crystal Crypt", Earth and Mars are poised on the verge of war. On the last spaceship to leave Mars for Earth, law enforcement officials are looking for three fugitives who somehow made a great Martian city disappear. Unable to find the perpetrators, the officials allow the ship to disembark for Earth. A businessman named Thacher strikes up a conversation with a young woman and two men who reveal a very interesting secret to him about the mysterious case.

In "Beyond Lies the Wub", the crew of a spaceship buys a "wub", a large pig-like animal from a native martian to eat on the way home. The Wub turns out to be a sentient being capable of intelligent conversation, empathy, and possibly telepathy and mind control. When a crew member converses with the remarkable Wub, the captain makes a rash and violent decision that could put the return mission in danger.