Glen Runciter ha muerto. ¿O lo han hecho todos los demás? Esta cáustica comedia metafísica de muerte y salvación (servida en cómodo aerosol) es un ...
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Jan 03, 2011
RandomAnthony
rated it: 
Phillip K Dick's Ubik flirts with perfection. I inhaled this novel over three days when one of my kids was sick and Christmas break was ending. I started the book on the couch during a Mythbusters marathon. By page fifty I wanted to shut the door and leave my kids to forage in the refrigerator for Gatorade and string cheese. And on Sunday night, when I closed the book, I felt satisfied and excited with a novel in a way that doesn't happen much. Ubik is fun, smart, and exhilarating.
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25 comments
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(39 people liked it)
Jan 31, 2012
Giuseppe
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Se il buongiorno si vede dal mattino, questo 2012 si presenta ottimamente con una lettura scoppiettante.
Dopo essermi cimentato con Un oscuro scrutare, Le tre stimmate di Palmer Eldritch, La svastica sul sole, è arrivato il momento di affrontare uno dei capisaldi della narrativa dickiana: Ubik.
A detta di molti è il capolavoro di Dick. Onestamente ho preferito "Le tre stimmate di Palmer Eldritch". Ma usare il verbo preferire è ingiusto, visto che stiamo parlando d More...
Dopo essermi cimentato con Un oscuro scrutare, Le tre stimmate di Palmer Eldritch, La svastica sul sole, è arrivato il momento di affrontare uno dei capisaldi della narrativa dickiana: Ubik.
A detta di molti è il capolavoro di Dick. Onestamente ho preferito "Le tre stimmate di Palmer Eldritch". Ma usare il verbo preferire è ingiusto, visto che stiamo parlando d More...
2 comments
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(4 people liked it)
Apr 26, 2010
Kemper
rated it: 
I don't know why but I always get a huge kick out of reading an older sci-fi story that was set in the near future, but it's a date I've lived through. In 2001, I'd just randomly shout, "Kubrick and Clarke were wrong,! We don't have bases on the moon! Those fools!" This is another one where Phil didn't exactly nail 1992 writing in 1969, but it's still a pretty good story.
In this 1992, there are people with psionic powers like telepathy or precognition that are used for in More...
In this 1992, there are people with psionic powers like telepathy or precognition that are used for in More...
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(7 people liked it)
Feb 25, 2008
Mike
rated it:
Ubik is a brilliant book mixing horror with humour in such a deep and poignant way. What I was most inspired by were the chapter headings, those little UBIKverts - this was a concept I butchered for self-marketing purposes back in the Hertzan Chimera daze:
UBIQUITOUSLY, HERTZAN CHIMERA
Hertzan Chimera Vaseline
The best way to ask for vaseline is to sing out Hertzan Chimera. Made from select goose grease, morons, slow-aged for perfect smoothness, Hertzan Chimera is th More...
UBIQUITOUSLY, HERTZAN CHIMERA
Hertzan Chimera Vaseline
The best way to ask for vaseline is to sing out Hertzan Chimera. Made from select goose grease, morons, slow-aged for perfect smoothness, Hertzan Chimera is th More...
2 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Jun 27, 2008
Evil_Dead_Junkie
rated it:
My favorite PKD book. No mean feat considering I've read it five or six times and still barely have an understanding of what the hell is going on in the first third of the book.
Still once things get metaphysical it becomes a flat out masterpiece. Rarely has Dick's vision of the apocalypse of atrophy been given such a stirring rendition. Like Palmer Eldritch this is the story of the apocalypse on an internal scale rather then the usual external one, and its pretty freaking tremendous
Still once things get metaphysical it becomes a flat out masterpiece. Rarely has Dick's vision of the apocalypse of atrophy been given such a stirring rendition. Like Palmer Eldritch this is the story of the apocalypse on an internal scale rather then the usual external one, and its pretty freaking tremendous
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(5 people liked it)
Mar 30, 2008
Jaci
rated it:
This was the first book that I have read by Philip K. Dick, and I was not disappointed. This novel was a page-turner and relatively quick read. It is hard for me to explain what I got out of this book because it dealt with some very abstract concepts, but here are my thoughts (as disjointed as they may be).
How do we know if what we are experiencing right now is life, and not half-life, death, or a reincarnation of ourselves? This was the main question that the characters of Ubik f More...
How do we know if what we are experiencing right now is life, and not half-life, death, or a reincarnation of ourselves? This was the main question that the characters of Ubik f More...
Mar 11, 2008
Tony
rated it:
Ubik is the best of the novels I've read by Philip K. Dick, the classic sci-fi writer whose works have inspired a series of movies, such as Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report. About Dick, Ursula K. LeGuin writes, "The fact that what Dick is entertaining us about is reality and madness, time and death, sin and salvation--this has escaped most critics. Nobody notices that we have our own homegrown Borges." This seems to me right on. Dick is the great postmodern author of
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(3 people liked it)
Mar 15, 2009
Maureen
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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12 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Mar 05, 2009
Ben
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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May 02, 2011
Jason
rated it:
"Ubik" is one of those rare astonishing science fiction novels filled to the brim with such perplexing and fascinating ideas but is actually supported by the author's literary flair and authoritative story telling abilities. How the hell does this guy continually come up with such mind-altering and visionary stories? My guess is drugs, lots and lots of drugs. Or maybe he's a genius. Nonetheless, anyone who happens to be ambivalent towards the genre should certainly check out "Ubik
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(1 person liked it)
Jul 19, 2010
Alex
rated it:
This is the first book by Philip K. Dick that I have ever read, not knowing that he was behind many iconic movies of my lifetime, such as Blade Runner and Minority Report. I, therefore, was not acquainted with Dick and style as I am now. I am still eagerly pursuing that even now.
Sometimes you get used to books that are too idealistic. In the case of reading Ubik, soon, you realize that this book is not quite idealistic, with certain characters being the first to die, that you wish d More...
Sometimes you get used to books that are too idealistic. In the case of reading Ubik, soon, you realize that this book is not quite idealistic, with certain characters being the first to die, that you wish d More...
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(2 people liked it)
Mar 18, 2011
Benji
rated it:
Updated: It's been quite some time since finishing this, and yet teh book remains with me. I like it even more, I look back on it fondly and think it is fun and sort-of cute. This is one that for me the resonance continues for quite some time afterwards.
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My first Philip Dick novel. I liked it, a good 24-hour's read. And it is fun and well done and fresh, and it inverts the sci-fi landscape by taking us progessively into the past, seeing the things around us in our world, More...
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My first Philip Dick novel. I liked it, a good 24-hour's read. And it is fun and well done and fresh, and it inverts the sci-fi landscape by taking us progessively into the past, seeing the things around us in our world, More...
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(1 person liked it)
Oct 08, 2007
Catherine
rated it: 
I don't think that this is my favorite Philliip K. Dick book, but neither is it my least favorite. I liked it better than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep but less than A Scanner Darkly; but the fact that I like Scanner better than Androids is probably an indication that I am not among the majority of PKD fans and critics, who generally prefer his earlier works. Ubik falls in the category of PKD books that contain brilliant, wild sci-fi theories but are hard to decipher plotwise.
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Aug 15, 2007
Dan
rated it:
Glen Runciter is dead, or maybe he isn't. In a future where every appliance is coin operated, the dead are kept cryogenically frozen in "Half Life", and companies offer the services of psychics while other companies offer the services to protect against psychics; business is cut throat. That is why there was an accident on the moon that may or may not have killed Glen Runciter.
This book is very interesting and it is quite funny. The book makes reference to the Tibetan Book of the Dead More...
This book is very interesting and it is quite funny. The book makes reference to the Tibetan Book of the Dead More...
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(2 people liked it)
May 27, 2008
Jeff
rated it:
This was a very chaotic read. Many of the concepts from Dick's short stories make their way into this book. Precogs (ESP), cold pac (like cryonic freezing except you can talk to the person, they are called half-lifers), and more.
Spoilers below
Glen runciter is the head of runciter associates, an inertial group formed to thwart those with precog talents. Is someone reading your mind? Call runciter associates.
Runciter and his group are given an assignment on Luna More...
Spoilers below
Glen runciter is the head of runciter associates, an inertial group formed to thwart those with precog talents. Is someone reading your mind? Call runciter associates.
Runciter and his group are given an assignment on Luna More...
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(1 person liked it)
Mar 10, 2009
Erich
rated it:
Well… another PKD masterpiece! Ubik was amazing! This is the kind of novel that will never leave me, physically and mentally. I am still trying to figure it out and that’s what I love about it! I have heard that Philip K. Dick has trouble concluding his novels, but I think he concluded Ubik perfectly. By not necessarily ending it, I have created five more chapters in my mind and they are changing constantly, in the same way my memories and dreams do. This is a book that you’ll want to high
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Mar 18, 2009
Hugh
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Feb 23, 2009
Tama
rated it:
I picked this up on a wim. Hell, it's Phillip K Dick and he's done more than good by me lately with Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream. He has a great way of dumping you into the bizarre, yet a few chapters in you are happily riding along, ok with the slang and the weirdness.
This one would make a great film, but I bet they would hash it up.
A very cool first half of the book unfortunately (for me at least) boiled down into a bit of a let down of the eventual answ More...
This one would make a great film, but I bet they would hash it up.
A very cool first half of the book unfortunately (for me at least) boiled down into a bit of a let down of the eventual answ More...
Jan 30, 2012
La Reyne
rated it:
I often think there are some books you should read while young and impressionable. I'm lucky to have read many such books. Ubik is one, and it remains an all-time favourite.
I always used to think I'd like to have my memory wiped so that I could meet it fresh again! I remember thinking, how does a person imagine and create these things? Where does it come from? Of course, many would say it was a consequence of his infamous excessive drug use...
I love much of the intr More...
I always used to think I'd like to have my memory wiped so that I could meet it fresh again! I remember thinking, how does a person imagine and create these things? Where does it come from? Of course, many would say it was a consequence of his infamous excessive drug use...
I love much of the intr More...
Nov 25, 2011
Nate
rated it:
Completely absurd yet simultaneously existentially terrifying, this deals very well with one of Dick's foremost recurring themes: the instability, or indefiniteness, or just fundamental inaccuracy of assumptions about reality. Not that I've actually seen it, but in some ways this seems to be a predecessor of what I understand to be the plot of Jacob's Ladder: a group of people whose time seems to be running out in a disquieting manner with deep implications towards their actual state of existenc
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(4 people liked it)
Nov 22, 2011
Felix
rated it:
С существованием мутантов человечеству пришлось смириться довольно быстро. Телепаты, телекинетики и аниматоры стали обычным явлением в повседневной жизни простых людей. Бояться их перестали тоже довольно быстро, благо от одних мутантов отныне легко можно было защитится с помощью других: анти-телепатов, анти-телекинетикиов, анти-аниматоров.
Рэй Холлис и Глен Ранситтер возглавляют две самые могущественные организации мутантов на планете. Первый – представляет услуги по шпионажу, второй More...
Рэй Холлис и Глен Ранситтер возглавляют две самые могущественные организации мутантов на планете. Первый – представляет услуги по шпионажу, второй More...
Oct 30, 2011
Geoff
rated it:
An entertaining read that races you along to a finish that is actually fairly conventional and predictable for Dick, though that, in a way, is fairly unpredictable.
However, a novel idea, where the unconventional is set in a conventional-enough setting in order for it to remain convincing. The story is fast-moving and you are driven along to the end to satisfy your rapidly aroused and ever-increasing curiosity as to how it will all tie together. And it does tie together, if a tad predi More...
However, a novel idea, where the unconventional is set in a conventional-enough setting in order for it to remain convincing. The story is fast-moving and you are driven along to the end to satisfy your rapidly aroused and ever-increasing curiosity as to how it will all tie together. And it does tie together, if a tad predi More...
Oct 26, 2011
Steve
rated it:
A fantastic story with some amazing ideas, my favourite of which is the need for a team of anti-psychics to provide security and privacy in a world where psi phenomena is commonplace:
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"It seems so - negative. I don't do anything; I don’t move objects or turn stones into bread or give birth without impregnation or reverse the illness process in sick people. Or read minds. Or look into the future - not even common talents like that. I just negate somebody else's ability. It seems -
Aug 18, 2011
Sandy
rated it:
"The worlds through which Philip Dick's characters move are subject to cancellation or revision without notice," sci-fi great Roger Zelazny once wrote, and it strikes me that Dick's "Ubik" is a perfect example of that statement. The author's 25th science fiction novel since 1955 (!), "Ubik" was originally released as a Doubleday hardcover, with a cover price of $4.50, in May 1969. It finds Dick giving his favorite theme--the mutability of reality--a thorough workout
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Aug 15, 2011
Jacquelynn
rated it:
Ubik - my latest book circle read.
It took me several chapters to get into Ubik, (written in 1969) so my first complaint is that the initial characters who meet up in order to carry out some sort of project, in a 1992 of the future, are barely defined at all. The main character Joe, is absolutely fine. I liked him and got to know him. He is hard up, and constantly scrounging money, so a very human anti-hero. The others in the team, however, make hardly any impact. To me, therefore, they More...
It took me several chapters to get into Ubik, (written in 1969) so my first complaint is that the initial characters who meet up in order to carry out some sort of project, in a 1992 of the future, are barely defined at all. The main character Joe, is absolutely fine. I liked him and got to know him. He is hard up, and constantly scrounging money, so a very human anti-hero. The others in the team, however, make hardly any impact. To me, therefore, they More...
Jul 04, 2011
Cinzia
rated it:
Ho divorato questo libro in appena due giorni e mezzo.
Come sempre nei confronti della fantascienza sono scettica. In questo caso poi, in quarta copertina, c'era solo scritto "Io sono vivo, voi siete morti". Diciamo che non so nemmeno io perché abbia scelto questo romanzo: ero nella feltrinelli e me lo sono ritrovato in mano. Come spesso mi succede, è il libro che ha scelto me.
Il fatto che la Fanucci abbia deciso di usare il rosa shocking per la copertina non c'entra niente More...
Come sempre nei confronti della fantascienza sono scettica. In questo caso poi, in quarta copertina, c'era solo scritto "Io sono vivo, voi siete morti". Diciamo che non so nemmeno io perché abbia scelto questo romanzo: ero nella feltrinelli e me lo sono ritrovato in mano. Come spesso mi succede, è il libro che ha scelto me.
Il fatto che la Fanucci abbia deciso di usare il rosa shocking per la copertina non c'entra niente More...
Mar 22, 2011
Kathleen
rated it:
P.K. Dick's writing is largely driven by IDEAS. It seems like he picks a concept to cover and then wraps a story around it. This means that his characters are a bit 2-dimensional and appear more like constructs designed to herd the reader towards epiphany. Still, I enjoyed this novel. Dick has a great grasp of setting and his vision of the future is both unique and at times quite funny (Disney's face on the currency, every appliance in your house fitted with a voice feature and requiring a c
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Feb 27, 2011
When people die they are put immediately into cold-pac, in a state of half-life. Their living relatives are able to still talk with them through a microphone. Eventually, though, the residual brain activity of half-life fails and the person is really dead. Glen Runciter runs a prudence organization, with the help of his dead wife who is in cold-pac. His employees are able to cancel out the powers of telepaths who might be invading people's privacy, and stealing corporate secrets. He takes eleven
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Jan 29, 2011
Tancredi
rated it:
"Tutta la tua vita non è che un'allucinazione ad occhi aperti"
Ubik è costantemente, almeno da quando ho cominciato a leggere Dick, presentato come il suo miglior romanzo, il suo gioiello più prezioso. A me di Dick sono piaciuti ben altri romanzi ed ho già trovati quelli che, per me, sono i suoi capolavori. E questo Ubik non vi rientra.
E' senz'altro un bel romanzo, gli ingredienti giusti ci sono tutti: fantascienza visionaria e originale, mescolanza di immagini e tematiche div More...
Ubik è costantemente, almeno da quando ho cominciato a leggere Dick, presentato come il suo miglior romanzo, il suo gioiello più prezioso. A me di Dick sono piaciuti ben altri romanzi ed ho già trovati quelli che, per me, sono i suoi capolavori. E questo Ubik non vi rientra.
E' senz'altro un bel romanzo, gli ingredienti giusti ci sono tutti: fantascienza visionaria e originale, mescolanza di immagini e tematiche div More...
Jan 26, 2011
Mark
rated it:
I'm finding that I appreciate any novel that anticipates ridiculous consumerist impulses. Ubik, written in the 60s but set in a 1992 with telepaths, precogs, cryo-freezing and all sorts of other seeming science fiction staples, is also set in a world where you have to put in a nickel to go through a door. Which door has a personality, by the way, and absolutely knows that it should never take your assurance that you'll pay it back, and may even threaten to sue you. Other products exist in this f
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