Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Crawlers

By: Philip K. Dick
Narrated by: Mark Bowen
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £0.99

Buy Now for £0.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

The Crawlers is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. Submitted under the title Foundling Home, it was first published as The Crawlers in Imagination magazine, July 1954.

The story starts out from the point of view of a crawler constructing one of its curious hives. The crawler seems sentient and to genuinely enjoy building its odd dwelling.

The story is set in a small Midwestern town, with references later in the story to mysterious "pools" which seem to cause mutations. Certain families in the area have begun to give birth to abnormal children – "crawlers" – with long, soft, pale, elongated bodies. They have poisonous stings (one crawler stung a dog, who promptly turned black and hard, and died soon after) and pulpy exteriors, and seem to emit a kind of glue that allows them to build. The crawlers seem to love building, and a colony of survivors, crawlers who were not killed by disgusted parents, have set up a hive not far from the town. A government official proposes a plan to move the crawlers to an island, where they can be alone, unpersecuted and with the ability to build as much as they like.

©2023 Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing (P)2023 Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about The Crawlers

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.