From the Bookshelf of Philip K Dick…
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What Members Thought
Hey, what happened to my review? It was here recently but now seems to have vanished. Maybe it died in a bomb blast on the moon. Or maybe it crawled, weakened and frightened, into my closet in the middle of the night to die. Or maybe it's not dead at all. Maybe I'm dead, and my review is alive, trying to reach me through various apparitions in what I perceive to be reality. Or maybe it's all different.
One thing's for sure: I'm going to need a lot of Ubik. ...more
One thing's for sure: I'm going to need a lot of Ubik. ...more
Aug 28, 2008
Erich Franz Linner-Guzmann
rated it
it was amazing
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review of another edition
Shelves:
own,
dramen,
time-magazine-award,
fiktion,
science-fiction,
fantasy,
klassiker,
dystopian,
favourite,
horror
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
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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 book is very interesting and it is quite funny. The book makes reference to the Tibetan Book of the Dead and borrow ...more
A real mind-wrapping book, reality within reality, whatever reality is considered to be. Quite radical, especially considering the time period in which Dick wrote it. The writing tends to be rough - but that was the standard in those days and characterizations are subordinate to the plot and mind-twisting ideas.
This was honestly one of the scariest things I've ever read, and not because it was particularly scary, but because it was my first exposure to PKD and I was a sophomore in highschool. For the longest time, a copy floated around the basement floor of my house, and why we never put it back on the bookshelf I have no idea, but eventually we moved and the book didn't come with. So my mom wanted to read it again, and I got the only copy from the library were I worked, and she reread it, and I read i
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There is a scene in this book in which a man argues with his appliances and household fixtures, which refuse to work for him because he chronically lacks the funds which enable them to operate. Of course, this being science fiction, these appliances have complex artificial intelligences and can talk back.
Less emotionally touching but better plotted than my other Dick ("A Scanner Darkly"). An alternate title might be "Red Herring."
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Less emotionally touching but better plotted than my other Dick ("A Scanner Darkly"). An alternate title might be "Red Herring."
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Ubik is a book about the unreliability of the senses. Or is it? You can't always tell who's dead and who's alive and it's hard to understand what's happening and why. The characters are even more lost than the reader. In the end, it seems that the character who survived the disaster may well be dead too...
Or maybe it's just a book that Stanislaw Lem convinced me was artsy in an essay in his book "Microworlds." ...more
Or maybe it's just a book that Stanislaw Lem convinced me was artsy in an essay in his book "Microworlds." ...more
Dec 03, 2007
Ero
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
metaphysical-slapstick
A really sublime book about theology. The concentric plot circles down to nothingness in a supremely anxious way, to reveal, at the end, absolutely zilch. But along the way you get the combined charms of pulpy spy-fiction, druggy time-warp psychedelia, and a whole lot of unease. The book basically exists to force you to ask yourself if you're really alive right now.
Which is always a pretty decent question to ask. ...more
Which is always a pretty decent question to ask. ...more
I think this was rated in Time Magazine's top 100 English language of the 20th Century (for whatever that's worth). Difficult to sum up plot-wise (like most Dick books). For its time, this book was phenomenally prescient and paranoid. The whole 'life and death is just a matter of perception' idea is something he wrote about a lot, but here I think he perfected it.
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My favorite Philip K. Dick book! Hilarious and mind-bending, this is the cream of the crop. Includes time moving backwards, and psychic ghosts living on after death, and people trapping others in imaginary universes.
One of my favorites of all time.
One of my favorites of all time.
All of Philip K. Dick's major themes coalesce in this book, which is both mystery thriller and philosphical speculation, with lots of Dick's trademark surreal, despondent humor. Are you really alive or not? What do we mean by reality?
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Nov 05, 2007
Jennie
marked it as to-read
Mar 02, 2008
Angela
marked it as to-read
Jun 05, 2008
chris
marked it as to-read
Mar 11, 2009
Sonky
marked it as to-read
Feb 24, 2010
Jotrys
marked it as to-read
