Byron 'Giggsy'’s Comments (group member since Aug 31, 2009)

Byron 'Giggsy'’s comments from the Philip K Dick group.

thread dedicated for when you've finished or gotten past half way in the novel... spoilers allowed here, see initial thoughts (no spoilers) section to avoid spoilers while still reading.

Group read of Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said set for July. The initial thoughts (no spoilers) thread is up here

I'll create the follow-up final thoughts thread in 10 days or so

This thread is for pre-reading thoughts and comments from the first half of the book as you get reading.

PLEASE NO SPOILERS (there will be a final thoughts thread for full book discussion)

Group Read JULY 1 through JULY 31 2015

poll for July 2015 read will be:

A Scanner Darkly
Galactic Pot Healer
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Valis
The Man in the High Castle

The 2 runners-up in this poll will join the 2 runners-up for the last poll (Confessions of a Crap Artist & The Solar Lottery) in a runoff poll for an end of year read

anyone know a production/release timeline for this?

Sarah, I too found it interesting and notable that he introduced some many characters in a short novel, and it worked... never did I feel confused about the characters they one some books do when there are many to keep track of.

Also found it unique that the very first chapter was dedicated solely to Ben Tallchief, and this was the first character to die. I was expecting Ben to be the most prominent character which seems to fall to Seth Morley of the second chapter.

Also, I'm not sure if it truly qualifies as sexist or misogynistic, but it was a little disappointing that Mary Morley featured so little, and I'd say was a flaw. There were incidents involving Seth where I wondered where was Mary. You'd think she would be near or have a comment but you didn't hear from her, PKD should have developed her or just made Seth a single man.

Paul wrote: "It reminded me in particular of Eye in the Sky, with a bit of Ubik, Palmer Eldritch, and Do Androids thrown into the mix"

Haven't read Eye, but I did think of the group as whole trying to figure out their reality like in Ubik, the psychedelic/surreal feeling of Palmer E, and the made-up but eerily familiar religion component of Androids.

this thread is for your concluding thoughts, spoilers allowed.

Rose wrote: "I read this book last year, I think. Maybe not one of PKD's very best, but a conversation piece. The edition I read was the Library of America edition bound together with the "Valis" trilogy. I ..."

I haven't read Maze of Death yet, but was also a little curious if it had any reason to be included with Valis trilogy. This was the 3rd and final LOA PKD edition, so my guess is that they felt they needed a 4th book to match the typical length of LOA editions and the first 2 Dick editions - and this book was simply the first choice that missed the cut on making the other editions.

First group read for 2015 will be A Maze of Death. Runners-up Confessions of a Crap Artist and Solar Lottery will be included in the poll for the 3rd/final group read.

I've set the Maze of Death read dates from February 10 - 28 to give people time to get hold of copy if needed, but the Initial Thoughts (no spoilers) group read thread is already created.

a-maze-of-death---initial-thoughts-no-spoilers

This thread is for pre-reading thoughts and comments from the first half of the book as you get reading.

PLEASE NO SPOILERS (there will be a final thoughts thread for full book discussion)

Group Read FEBRUARY 10 through FEBRUARY 28 2015

Robin wrote: "Simulacra or the divine invasion"

Robin,

we did a group read of Simulacra a few reads ago (links below) and Divine Invasion is considered a sequel to VALIS which we haven't read yet (but is nominated for next poll)... do you want to pick a different nomination for the final spot on the next vote?


the-simulacra---pre-read-thoughts-and-questions
the-simulacra---initial-thoughts-no-spoilers/a>
the-simulacra---final-thoughts-spoilers

OK then, first poll will be Solar Lottery, The Zap Gun, Confessions of a Crap Artist, A Maze of Death, and Vulcan's Hammer.

looking for 5 more nominees for Second read of the year

I'll start off and nominate Solar Lottery Solar Lottery

Let's target 3 group reads over 2015. Please nominate books in this thread. We'll group the first 5 and second 5 books nominated into 2 polls for the first 2 reads, and we'll take the 2nd and 3rd place vote getters from those polls into a run-off poll for the final read of the year.

I couldn't find a good thread for this little tidbit so I'll throw it here. A fun PKD reference.

In the vampire horror The Strain (also a tv series now) by Del Toro and Chuck Hogan there is an evil billionaire character named 'Eldritch Palmer'

just read Dick's realist/mainstream novel Humpty Dumpty in Oakland. In it the main character Jim Fergesson runs into an inconsequential character stuck at a desk all day and waiting potential customers. This character, Carmichael, mentions Brain Wave by Poul Anderson. He asks Jim if reads 'these things' and holds up the book. Jim blankly says no. A little later in the conversation the book is brought up again and Carmichael points out the fake/unreleasitic notions in sci-fi (time travel, faster than light travel, etc.. saying the writers just fake this stuff as they go along and how he'd like to be a consultant to sci-fi writers to get the science right.. he asks Jim again is he reads 'this stuff' and again Jim says no.

so it appears the main character has no interest in science fiction, this character with only this one scene laughs at the implausibility but also seems to enjoy them as he says he has read probably 50 in the last month.

Hard to tell if Dick is making of Brain Wave, or if it is just a random example, or he mentioned it specifically because it is a title he enjoys. Since the book gets decent reviews even today, I have a feeling he like it and would have chosen something more obviously bad if he wanted to mock a bad pulp sci-fi.

there is an existing thread that poses very much the same question:

The best non PKD, PKD book?

some good book and movie recommendations there

final thoughts? spoilers allowed as it is assumed viewers of this thread are done or almost done reading

This thread is for pre-reading thoughts and comments from the first half of the book as you get reading.

PLEASE NO SPOILERS (there will be a final thoughts thread for full book discussion)

Group Read MAY 1 through MAY 20 2014