"The Father-Thing" is a 1954 science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick.
The story, told through third-person narration but focusing on the child, concerns the replacement of a boy's father with a replicated version.
Works like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, especially popular in the 1950s, expressed the fear that people are not what they seem to be.
Dick's story is typically more personal because it is not about the invasion of a community, but of a family.
[4] In 2017, writer-director Michael Dinner adapted the story as an episode of the TV series Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, starring Greg Kinnear as the Father.