"Second Variety" is an influential short story by Philip K. Dick first published in Space Science Fiction magazine, in May 1953. It is one of Dick's many stories in which nuclear war has rendered the Earth's surface to an uninhabitable, gray ash pile, and the only things remaining are killer robots. Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose published work during his lifetime was almost entirely in the science fiction genre. This early time period from Dick's life was a difficult and impoverished time for him. Dick wrote "Second Variety" in the early years of his career for a popular science fiction magazine.