Dan’s Comments (group member since Mar 02, 2009)

Dan’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

I like this, consider me on board.

It would be cool to have scott back causing trouble but that Ewwa guy was fucking annoying.

wedding tackle, hmm. that's a new one to me. i like it (the term not your bait and bobbers JE).

Adrian is here too! Woop!!

Also, did you cut me out of that picture and add a different background? my face looks all deformed!

First of all why do you have a crazy ass picture of me as your profile pic? Second I think that you are thinking of Ballard's Crash. I don't think (and correct me if i am wrong) that delillo has a book titled that.

Also you might want to get your thyroid checked.

Also did anyone immediately think Pop Tarts for the Ubik advertisement before chapter 12? I check and apparently Kellogg introduced them in 1967 which was fairly close to Ubik's publication.

More spoilers!

Ok, I am finished, sorry I had a day without much reading happen. In any case this book may have made me a little bit insane. I wasn't even sure I could handle it after chapter nine and the introduction of the possibility of Runciter being alive. I was surprised by how the plot or perhaps the realities seemed to start making sense. My surpris-ed-ness was abated with chapter 17.

Mo I found this statement you made pretty interesting:
i read it and i hear "i am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end" in my head. i'm sure you hear something similar. ubik is god as i know it. of course, this makes me wonder if this is actually god -- then who is dr. sondenberg who is mentioned throughout as the inventor of ubik, and who we never meet.

So if ubik is god as we know it and Dr Sondenberg created Ubik isn't it possible that the Dr. is a representation of man? I mean in all likelyhood (at least from my standpoint) god is an manifestation of man anyway but even if this isn't true god as we know it can only be know through our man-ness (or woman-ness). Regardless I am not sure what me saying all this has to do with the story itself.

The Philosopher George Berkley said that only two things exist in this world, Minds and Ideas. Everything else is a construct. But at the same time how is it that we exist in any other form than as an idea?

Well regardless of all my twaddle Ubik has certainly made me think of some crazy things.

ok, then on your words i will read it after i finish the two i am currently reading. if it is anything like fresh chocolate cake and carnivals i am really missing out. Especially since i have read most everything else of his!

Shelby wrote: "I'm up for 100 Years and A Frolic of His Own looks pretty good. The blurb says "dense and imposing" so yeah, sounds like fun.

Does anyone know when David Foster Wallace's new/posthumous one comes ..."

I believe it comes out in 2010. I really need to get on with reading infinite jest...

I have this one sitting around somewhere I have only read the tristes putas one. I think I chose it because it was so short!

these two pictures make my heart skip a beat!

I think shel just sent it to ben!

I am not sure yet. I mean it's not like you won the lottery (PFL). I will think of something!

Jennifer wrote: "i'm here! do i get a prize? :)"

Absolutely you do!

Oh, well in that case I have read the best part of underworld already. also odd that he would throw the two together as they are unrelated. I did know that it was published seperately but i for whatever reason thought it was done after the publication of underworld.

Libra sounds like it could be interesting but I have plenty of other books to get through before purchasing another Dellilo book.

i hope you are feeling better Mo!

Do I still have a wireless info-transmit unit? who do you think you are talking too, i bleedwireless info-transmit units! they don't clot well so i am careful not to get cut.

i didn't get a chance to read much yesterday but i am looking to make up for it today. i'll be back!

i have only read Americana which seemed a lot like a Brett Easton Ellis story or rather Brett Easton Ellis writes in a similar vein as De Lillo.

Actually I did read the opening chapter to Underworld a while back which is about a baseball game. in fact it was really cool but i never read anything further. i don't know why.

Thanks Brian for typing up the introduction. Why summarize when you can give us the whole thing?

I finished the first four chapters at about this time yesterday. I should have responded earlier but my life and way of doing things of late is incredibly stupid.

I once heard that PKD wrote his books in bursts. Quickly and intensely. Maybe I am thinking of someone else. Regardless, I feel that Dick forces you to read the books in the same manner. I have noticed it with Do Androids Dream... and now with the first 4 chapters. They were over before they started and so much profundity happened in so little time. It really is amazing how mind bending some of this stuff truly is. A state between life and death?! Half life. I recently read and article on Ray Kurzweil in Rolling Stone (which is unavailable online, though I will scan it if anyone wants to read it) in which Kurzweil talks of bringing the dead (particularly his father) back to life via genetic data and memories. A sort of half life here in the real world in the not too distant future.

I will echo Brian's thoughts about the Scifi terminology and stuff sometimes getting in the way of the characters. I attribute this to my newness to both PKD and the world of Scifi. I find myself trying to remember what all the terms are and what the mean and not knowing when to just let these bits flow through me as the rest of the plot and characters do.

I think that the distrust you feel from Pat is completely warranted and also a sign of PKDs amazing ability to make you, the reader, a bit paranoid. In the first four chapters I would say Chip is the only one I don't feel nervous about as a character. Everyone else has different agendas whereas Chip is just a normal guy a bit down on his luck (a can relate there!), at least so far.

you are a testing maniac! I think what you are saying makes sense. I mean we can always modify our messages that we paste into myspace to include other commentary.