Plot: 8/9. It had a dramatic and unexpected turn.

Peterson brought a wub to the ship. When Franco, the captain, was planning how to eat it in the anteroom, it spoke to him directly and suddenly in English against the idea. Franco was astounded enough to talk with it alone in his office where the wub explained it could read minds and possessed a catholic nature. But Franco clearly showed his obstinacy in eating the wub. So the wub froze him and padded out of the room. (It seemed it had the ability of both telepathy and mind control.)

When Peterson discussed with the wub on Odysseus, the angry captain who was just recovered by French broke into the room and tried to kill it. Despite most of his crew’s mild objection in the form of going away from the execution scene, Franco made up his mind. Therefore the wub quoted Jesus’s word, “Can you look me in the eye and do it?” Franco obeyed and pressed his trigger.

Wub was served as a good dinner, at least for Franco. However Peterson had no appetite and glumly stared at the table. When there’s only two alone in the room, the replete captain wanted to continue the interrupted Odysseus. (It meant the wub could jump through minds and get into the new host via the eye contact. However, the capacity was presumably risky, since otherwise there would be no need for the wub to beg for its life.)

Core: 7/9. At least it depicted a unique space creature in the most dramatic way.

Character: 7/9. Who could forget a pig that quoted the Bible and discussed Odysseus with you? And it indeed resuscitated like Jesus!

World and Others: 2/9. It happened on a space ship travelling between Mars and Earth while selling extraterrestrial animals. The novella was too short to describe the world. And I thought the captain was unqualified to hurt a special species for just food. It would be more sensible to earn money from its capacity.

Overall: 6/9. Cult

It made me sympathetic with the Wub at first and disliked the captain’s brutality in killing an intelligent alien who had precious capacities. So I was impressed when it turned out that the supposed powerless alien won and substituted the captain at last. Philip Dick was no doubt a great master in controlling readers’ feelings. No wonder he was described as a cult writer in the introduction written by VanderMeers. It’s extremely simple and short but full of PDK’s spirit. I suppose that’s why VanderMeers chose it.