2026 MAR: Ubik by Philip K. Dick > Likes and Comments
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Just ordered a copy - paperback again of course. I want to feel and hear the paper, and have those moments when I look upon it as a physical manifestation of the ideas contained within. It's one of those where I am surprised I have never heard of it or read it before. I like to think I have read most of the notable works (and a lot of un-notable ones too) in the area, but this one slipped through unnoticed, for no reason I can think of.
Me too, then the real world chaos distracted attention away, to the extent that three chapters in, I feel I need to start it again. There is an endearing particular style to science fiction of this time. You can feel the psychotropics permeating the subject matter and vernacular. The endless cigarette smoking too as ubiquitous action tags to break up the structures into digestible chunks is oddly reassuring to me.
In many ways I think the spec fic and sci fi writers of that age - even the ones that were bleak , paint a more optimistic picture than what actually seems to be unfolding. It is happening very quickly now and the brakes are off as it is seen as an all or nothing competition between firms and nations. I know folks high up in tech firms and the initial reservations have been replaced with a ‘if you are not at the table - you are on the menu’ mindset.
I'm listening to Ubik and 25% in. Glen Runciter has yet to be put in 'half-life.' I don't think I'm giving too much away as we're told that in the blurb.It's of its time when it comes to Pat getting her top off. A tad unnecessary and yet her skills seem to be important to the plot.
I'm finding tracking her skill difficult. Overall, I'm enjoying the story.
I'm a hundred pages in. Weird story so far. I'm curious enough to keep going.
I'm struggling a little bit. My reading is patchy and forced. I feel a bit bogged down in the assumed vision of the time; that paranormal human capabilities would be proven, become a part of everyday technology and that shadowy gov organisations already had secret folks who could read minds and see into the future, and such. It reads more like an interesting historical window into a past when Carl Jung's 'Collective Consciousness' felt accepted both scientifically and as part of a cultural movement - ( a very different more hopeful time through the 60s and early 70s). Still two weeks left on this one and I am confident I will finish it within the month. I will be very pleased if by the end of the book I get something different to the way I feel I am heading with it at the moment.
How are you guys going with it?
I’m at 33%. It is indeed weird. Most of his books are.Dick is somewhat notorious for his paranoia and worrying about others somehow being aware of thoughts, such as in Minority Report. He just starts the book and plows ahead and I don’t feel I have my bearings yet. Maybe I won’t until it’s over, and that’s a little unsettling. I guess Dick tried to bring his readers down to his level of anxiety, uncertainty, and difficulty figuring things out. It’s not like he has to try to create tension. It just comes naturally it seems as that’s how he sees the world.
I gather it throws your mind for a loop. I don’t know how yet, and it would probably be a spoiler if I did. Nonetheless, most like it by the end and consider it his best work. They usually tier-rank this in the Super category. We’ll see. I though Do Androids Dream of Sheep? was in that category, but most people put that lower than Ubik.
For example: In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik (1969) one of the hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. That was a questionable list of just 2 guys opinions, not exactly crowd-sourced, but … some people rank it pretty high in the list of their lifetime books. So, I’m giving it a try, expecting some sort of mindf*%#£€k.
So, it started weird with a new world and terminology and you’re trying to figure out what’s going on. That feel of not being clear on what’s going on doesn’t really subside. Around 47%, the story when from a little weird to what the …? I’m at 65% and Ubik is out there taunting you. Just to infuriate you, it becomes evident they should get a can of this. Then, the opportunity is there but just isn’t pursued with any intention. Then, a can comes about, and to keep infuriating you, it isn’t utilized.
OK, a can of Ubik does happen before the end of the book. Is this Dick’s best? It’d have to finish impossibly strong from here. Not going to happen.
Done. Didn’t happen. Not his best. Not in my opinion.
Hmm, I have a way to go yet, but I did pick up the pace a bit last night (Aus time) having gotten used somewhat to the jargon and style - also ‘stuff’ has started to happen. A lot of high profile books lean towards literary fiction that often leave me a bit disappointed. Commercial fiction speaks for itself, it does not need the intelligentsia to get behind it.Anyhow, I will leave any more predictions to the precogs….
Until I finish this thing.
Done! The fog didn't lift for me until almost the very end. Not preferred for me, but I'm glad I read it. I'm actually a little tired of reading straightforward thrillers, and this weird, kinda dated little story was interesting at least.
Hmm. I struggled with it throughout. My speeding up towards the end was more about 'getting it over with', like ripping a plaster off. A weird dated story is about right for me too. I respect the raw originality of it, but the style was hard. I felt like I was living inside the head of a person in the midst of a neurotic episode. I'm not sure if that was the intent or not, but the prose was endlessly feverish and erratic to me, albeit colourful - but it felt too disjointed for the 'colour' to be experienced as a thing of beauty - for me anyway. For all that, I'm glad I read it too, but no way I will re-read it. I enjoyed some aspects. Observing just how wrong he got it in 1969 trying to predict 1992 was kind of fun. Coin operated 'everything' - on demand physical newspapers printed on the spot - and yet colonies on the Moon and Mars and domestic rocket ship travel. Kind of delightfully about as wrong as one could get to how the modern world has turned out. I noted Carl Jung got a nod in there too near the end. I don't think Carl's ideas of a 'collective consciousness' is interpreted in the same way today, but they were very powerful ideas at that time and I'm guessing a big influence in a few of his works.
Right. I didn’t love it. Not Dick’s best in my opinion. Wasn’t terrible. Glad I read it but overrated. His Man in a High Castle and A Scanner Darkly are supposed to be good. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? also known as Blade Runner was awesome. The collection Minority Report and Other Stories was great … all of the stories.Sorry I steered the group this way. No way to know until we try. Have had a few duds lately.
I update my mammoth list of book and rank them so the good stuff hopefully floats to the top and the bad stuff to the bottom. Keeping spammers out of the list has been a damn chore this year. The spam is getting more automated lately and larger scale.
You're doing a great job, Steve! This group was dead before you took over. Not all books are homeruns, and that's fine.Sucks to hear about the spam. Not sure how moderation works in here, but I might be able to help with the load if needed.
Totally! Ubik was not 'bad' really. I can understand why it would be a homerun in its time, but it has dated somewhat. Its still interesting though. Blade Runner is an all time favourite of mine. I'm pretty sure I read the book too (after I saw the film), but it was a long time ago and obviously the printed version did not leave as strong an impression compared to the movie.I liked Minority Report too (not read the book though). They all have similar themes running through, which ties into PK Dick's own life experiences and influences. I think that's why his prose seems so raw and edgy, there's no filter. It reads more like a neurotic stream of consciousness he is experiencing himself as he wrestles with this stuff, which makes it kind of interesting- albeit hard to read.
Onwards! What's next!
What it seems that people do like about Ubik is that it isn’t explained and isn’t resolvable. So, they enjoyed the challenge of trying to fit meaning to the book.I like Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep? to some degree because Dick followed the Hemingway school of thought and refused to explain what it is about. He throws literary metaphors in there and some aspects can be teased out.
Hemingway called this “explain nothing” bent the iceberg theory of writing.
If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. - H
This seemed to spring from European reactions to WW1. I quibble a bit with this, preferring more nuance, but he was all in … which I think is spare to a flaw. Still, there is an art to story telling, and Hemingway had a knack.
In Ubik, the meaning was more obscured. There is a quote attributed to PKD’s wife where she basically says Ubik is God. I’ll say just that much … straight off Wikipedia. To start attempting to connect dots is allegedly the fun part. Probable ought to start a Ubik post-read spoiler-laden analysis thread if someone wants to talk about it. I think I’m done with it for now.
Of course technothriller style—at least as put forth by Clancy—is the polar opposite. He explained the hell out of everything … often ad nauseum, as in The Sum of All Fears. Crichton I liked better in that he tried to condense it into a little more of a fire hose section. Anyway, perhaps Ubik doesn’t meet this group’s “expectations” in that regard. I’m not with Clancy on the approach, as a bit of bread crumbs without the explanation is what I liked about Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?
That's a great round up of this work. I'm on board with that assessment for sure. 'Ubik is God' - a great illustration, it prompts thought (it got me thinking), it does not give answers - I'm ok with that. Maybe its one of those that sits in your head and gets better over time. Personally I think having such books as part of this group's repertoire, only adds to it. The Techno Thriller genre is a broad church and like Ubik is - as it should be - open to interpretation.
You're straight into the world of phychics for hire which is great. The pace is fast and draws you on. The first quarter of the book is quite confusing due to a female anti-talent that can undo events. I was a bit lost at first with that. Pat becomes part of the phychic team and then there's an explosion. After that, the story reality shifts with differing timelines etc.
This story will keep you guessing. Ubik as a product is threaded through it. Keep reading/listening... as it's the key!
I did enjoy the story but not on my re-reads shelf as I prefer more connection with the character. I think maybe that's to do with being of a different era and so strange.
The ideas are awesome, though. How imaginative. The narration is done well and all the voices are clear and the storytelling enjoyable. However, the story is a record of its time in regard to the role of women in society.
I did think about the story a lot - but only in the capacity of what is ubik and what's it got to do with anything. Mostly, I tried to follow the logic about who was behind it. That's the usual fun for me. However, I'm not sure it hit quite the right beat for me at the end.
At the end of the book, I didn't think about it anymore. My favourite books usually keep me thinking about them. I don't want to read other books because I'm kind of mourning the loss of that last read. I totally didn't get that with this one, but as I say, I enjoyed it for what it was.
Onto the next for me. Heading onto April now.
Ubik by Philip K. Dick (1969)
Publisher’s Summary
Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business—deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter’s face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time. As consumables deteriorate and technology gets ever more primitive, the group needs to find out what is causing the shifts and what a mysterious product called Ubik has to do with it all.