Ubik (Vintage)

Submitted by Reviewer (not verified) on Saturday, November 12, 2005 - 23:36

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Philip K. Dick: Ubik

Author	Philip K. Dick
Made	Vintage
Date	1991-12-03
Media	Paperback
Catalog	Book
Sales Rank	75760
Availability	Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price	US$13.95
Our Price*	US$11.16

*Price subject to change

Amazon.com US$11.16

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Reviews:

Rating 4.5/5 from 104 reviews

2xist but not just for underwear

Rating: 5/5 2008-12-31

i wish i was no longer alive... there is no god and there is no dog either. suicide might be the cure if only i would die for real... my mom told me if i had nothing nice to say to just say nothing at all. i bought his book after he died just to spite him. buy this book then die or don't buy this book then die, it's your choice... or will you?

Reading this is like drinking sand

Rating: 3/5 2008-11-05

I've always loved the movies that have stemmed and borrowed from Philip K. Dick's work, and so I thought for the first PKD I read, I'd try reading 'Ubik,' supposedly one of his best, and one that hadn't been turned into a film yet.

Is it just me? I didn't really enjoy it. I think the novel is poorly written, and the thoughts behind it aren't that interesting either. As you read on, it keeps seeming like the plot will be wrapped up in some cool way. But no, in the end the strange get stranger and nothing really makes sense, and not in a emo-nihilistic 'nothing makes sense' way either. My advice: go to the bookstore or library and read five pages. Then you'll understand.

***UPDATE - one week later***
I've now read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and have had time to reflect on this book, and I guess it's not as bad as I made it out to be. Just don't believe the hype and you might end up enjoying the book.

My vote for the best PKD novel

Rating: 5/5 (3 out of 3 think this is helpful) 2008-10-15

would be for this one.

This is a PKD masterpiece. A strong convoluted story that, unlike many PKD novels, does not trail off but stays strong and sustained to the very end.

All the familiar pieces, played as well as he ever did. Paranoia funny and paranoia very dark. The besieged ordinary people of the future who have apartments (conapts, sorry) that know your credit history, doors that won't let you out unless you pay up in cash. Who work for battling corporate giants selling the services of precogs or telepaths versus the services of 'inertials', those who can block the intrusive powers of the first. A new element is that you can find yourself in 'cold-pak', at least if the cold-pak company gets to you soon enough after you die. A twilight state of consciousness between life and death, in which your relatives can still visit you and talk to you through a speaker and headphones. The problem as it turns out is that it's hard to know, when you're in cold pak, if you're alive or not.

Highly Readable

Rating: 5/5 (1 out of 1 think this is helpful) 2008-08-01

There seems to be a consensus among PKD fans that Ubik is the best place to start if you are new to the author's work. Its quick pace, wit, and spectacular imagery make for a highly entertaining read. Also, it touches on some of the major themes that recur in Dick's novels. This was the first PKD book I ever read and it got me off to a great start.

Time magazine called Ubik "one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present." And Dick's website reported in May that Celluloid Dreams has optioned the film rights to this masterpiece. Did you love Blade Runner? That was originally a PKD book. Minority Report? Another outstanding work by PKD. Ubik is slated to be the next in line to make it to the big screen. Be sure to read the book before you see the movie.

Crazy, dark, explosive, suspenseful, and still very funny

Rating: 5/5 2008-07-07

In this futuristic sci-fi tale of life and death and cold-sleep, Glen Runciter (with the counsel of his quick-frozen wife Ella) runs a company that supplies `inertials', people whose proximity suppresses the psychic powers of others, ensuring their clients' right to privacy in a world where telepaths and pre-cognitives can too easily violate it. After Runciter is murdered, Joe Chip (the best tester in the business) and his counter-psionic companions struggle to survive in a world where time seems to have drifted backwards and death is striking out of nowhere. Is their dreaded nemesis the telepath Hollis trying to destroy them? Or is Joe's beautiful and dangerous wife Pat behind it all? Or could there be some still darker force at work? Their only hope lies with the fragmentary messages they receive from the absent Runciter, and the promise of the all-pervasive but ever-elusive product known as `Ubik'.

As the above summary may suggest, this is not your usual sci-fi adventure, even granting that it's from the inventive mind of Philip K. Dick. Not atypically, this book is crazy, dark, explosive, suspenseful, and yet still manages to be very funny. After the frantic pace of the first few dozen pages, the second half of this novel may seem to drag a bit, but the book is short enough that most readers will simply race through Dick's unpretentious prose until they get to the stunning conclusion, which, as always, will not please everyone. But then, life doesn't always come doled out in neat little (spray-can) packages.

Editorials:

Product Description

Filled with paranoiac menace and unfettered slapstick, UBIK is a searing metaphysical comedy of death and salvation--salvation which comes in a convenient aerosol spray, to be used only as directed!

Amazon.com Review

Nobody but Philip K. Dick could so successfully combine SF comedy with the unease of reality gone wrong, shifting underfoot like quicksand. Besides grisly ideas like funeral parlors where you swap gossip for the advice of the frozen dead, Ubik (1969) offers such deadpan farce as a moneyless character's attack on the robot apartment door that demands a five-cent toll:

"I'll sue you," the door said as the first screw fell out.
Joe Chip said, "I've never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it."

Chip works for Glen Runciter's anti-psi security agency, which hires out its talents to block telepathic snooping and paranormal dirty tricks. When its special team tackles a big job on the Moon, something goes terribly wrong. Runciter is killed, it seems--but messages from him now appear on toilet walls, traffic tickets, or product labels. Meanwhile, fragments of reality are timeslipping into past versions: Joe Chip's beloved stereo system reverts to a hand-cranked 78 player with bamboo needles. Why does Runciter's face appear on U.S. coins? Why the repeated ads for a hard-to-find universal panacea called Ubik ("safe when taken as directed")?

The true, chilling state of affairs slowly becomes clear, though the villain isn't who Joe Chip thinks. And this is Dick country, where final truths are never quite final and--with the help of Ubik--the reality/illusion balance can still be tilted the other way. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

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