Come è possibile che Philip K. Dick sia stato nascosto ai miei occhi fino ad oggi? E io, in che parte dell'universo ho vissuto per non aver mai letto niente di suo? Sono allibita, sono sconcertata dalla mia ignoranza. Vergogna!
Certo che per avere delle paranoie simili, tanto bene Philip non doveva stare. Perchè un conto è non sapere se si è vivi o morti e va bè uno non lo sa e continua per la sua strada, un altro è non sapere che si è morti ma sospettarlo fortemente (brividi)... Questo romanzo More...

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.

Ok, let me More...

A clever, original and often very funny sci-fi story. It is about psychic power battles, the nature of death, alternative reality and changing the past. Or not.

FUN
It was published in 1969 and starts off in a sufficiently plausible but amusingly implausible 1992. In particular, the clothes take the flamboyance of the late '60s to extraordinary heights, for no obvious reason, other than fun. On the second page, we meet a man wearing "a tabby-fur blazer and pointed yellow shoes", which is fair enou More...

Il filosofo spagnolo George Santayana disse: “L’esser sani non è che pazzia tesa al buon uso, la vita da svegli è un sogno sotto controllo”.

A volte, mentre senza farci troppo caso, si vive inerzialmente la propria vita, capita ad un certo punto che ci si blocchi, afferrati da un atroce dubbio.. Almeno, capita a me. E mi chiedo, quasi inconsapevolmente, se davvero esisto, se la materialità che avverto intorno a me sia reale.

In questi momenti, che amo etichettare come “epifanie”, avverto la mia c More...

This is one of Philip K. Dick's strangest novels. Those who have read his novels know that is saying a lot. But there were a few surprises for me. This is one of his wittiest novels. There are a lot of clever moments especially at the beginning. Yet sooner or later Dick will take you into the weird dimension and he does it with finesse. I do not have the patience to describe the plot. Even the Goodreads description at the top is lacking. But all the necessary ingredients... frustrated protagonis More...

Ubik E':
Apparecchio elettrico. Birra di Cleveland. Caffè tostato. Condimento per insalate. Digestivo. Rasoio. Pellicola extralucida. Consulente bancario. Balsamo per capelli. Deodorante spray. Sonnifero. Cibo per tostapane. Reggiseno. Pellicola quadristrato per alimenti. Dentifricio. Cereali tostati. Ed è anche... niente di tutto questo.

Perchè non ha forma né nome. Si trova in bomboletta, è vero, ma è solo l'involucro che serve a contenerne l'essenza. In un universo che tende in ogni modo a cost More...

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 di due capolavori che hanno diversi More...

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Warning: Use only as directed. And with caution.

Written in 1969, Ubik is one of Philip K. Dick’s most popular science fiction novels. It’s set in a future 1992 where some humans have develop psi and anti-psi powers which they are willing to hire out to individuals or companies who want to spy (or block spying) on others. Also in this alternate 1992, if you’ve got the money, you can put your beloved recently-deceased relatives into “coldpac” where they can More...

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 industrial sabotage, and r More...

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 the nation's number-one choice i More...

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.

"Io sono vivo, voi siete morti."

Ascoltate un attimo. Ognuno di noi ha una concezione di realtà differente. Se le varie concezioni di realtà si mischiassero, cosa ne uscirebbe? Un miscuglio di realtà. Una non-realtà. È difficile da spiegare. In sintesi, potremmo aver fondato tutte le nostre vite su un'illusione che comprende ogni cosa che ci circonda. Quindi occorre uscirne. O tentare di guarire da questa scoperta dall'illusione. Nasce quindi Ubik. Vedete, Ubik è ogni cosa. Potrebbe essere Dio. More...

Sort-of mind-blowing. And sort-of a let-down. Let me try to set this up for you.

It's an alternate 1992, where psychic powers are common, and Joe Chip works for a company that employs anti-psychics. The people that prevent real psychics from using their powers. So an anti-cog to block pre-cogs, and so-on. Joe's boss is building a team of these anti-pyschics to go to the moon and secure a client's lunar facility of telepaths. One of the team is a girl, Pat, who can change the past. Not travel into More...

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 faced.

The book More...

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 the simulacrum More...

"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" which is boun More...

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 died last. Al More...

Wanting to read this for a long time, it took me two reading sessions, as I was unable to leave the book after I got past half of it, reading it until 5am.

PKD at his best, a paranoid, psychotically sophisticated SF story (probably written on one of his amphetamine binges) which made me feel the panic attacks I used to have where it seems that entire reality is falling apart and death seems imminent.

My wife bought this paper edition and I love it so much.

The "Valis" is next, and "Flow My Tears, T More...

Fantastic classic from Philip K. Dick.

The year is 1992 and humans have evolved. Some have psi abilities allowing them to perceive the future, read minds, etc. Some have developed anti-psi abilities able to block those with these powers. Regular humans are left in the middle. As the book explains, it's a circle of life. Each group feeding off the other.

Joe Chip works for one of the Anti-Psi coporations that protects businesses from those with Psi getting in and mucking about. His job is to bring More...

In principio fu il caos O_O [innocuo se usato secondo le istruzioni :D]

Ok, torniamo indietro nel tempo.

E' il 3 settembre 2009..mi accingo ad iniziare a leggere questo romanzo per una sfida anobiana (Sfida dell'anno di nascita, ndr) e voglio gustarmi al massimo questo nuovo (per me!) autore.

Dopo poche righe, il panico si impossessa della mia mente da lettrice...
Capisco di essere nella New York del 1992 (sono proiettata nel futuro se penso che PKD ha scritto questo romanzo nel 1969), in una calda More...

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, with a fresh ey More...

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.

Ubik is tale More...

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 and borrow More...

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. It ends up being a trap when an an More...

I found this book by chance at a book fair and I'm embarassed to say I had no idea who Philip K. Dick was. Until a friend told me he had written a lot of books that were later turned into movies, movies that I had seen without ever knowing they had been books first, I thought, shame on me, that he was one of these one novel writers and that Ubik was all I would get from him. I can't say how happy I am that I was wrong and that I now have dozens of Dick's novels and short stories to read.

It's saf More...

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 highlight More...

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 answer. The last quarter twi More...