Ubik in Philip K Dick

Feb 19, 2008 Hertzan Chimera rated it it was amazing

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

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Mar 11, 2008 Tony rated it it was amazing

Shelves: pulp-fiction, literary-fiction

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

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Aug 28, 2008 Erich Franz Linner-Guzmann rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own, dramen, nordamerika, award-winner, fiktion, science-fiction, fantasy, klassiker, dystopian, favourite

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

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Dec 26, 2007 Peter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

In the future, corporations not only battle through economic conquests but with the use of powerful pyschics and anti-pyschics. Ubik focuses around a group of "anti-talents" who are the victims of an assassination attempt. The reader is drawn into a plot of not only worldly corruption and greed, but of metaphysical salvation and condemnation as only Phil Dick can deliver. His satirical wit in this story is very sharp and funny, especially the salvation in an aerosol can metaphor. This is one of ...more

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Jan 12, 2008 Sam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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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Feb 24, 2008 Cody Guenther rated it it was amazing

Being that is was one of PKD's earlier novels I wasn't quite sure what to expect, another science fiction novel, or a drug induced adventure into philosophy and the metaphysical. Fortunately it was the latter. All I'm going to say is that it's one of my favorites out of the handful I've read. Sort of a perplexing, horribly dark comedy (not ha ha comedy). It's only a little over 200 pages, so it doesn't take long. Definitely worth checking out. ...more

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Nov 10, 2007 Dee rated it liked it

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

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Feb 20, 2008 George rated it it was amazing

This is Phil Dick's best book, bar none. The best biography of Dick takes its title from this book: "I am alive and you are dead," a statement that captures PD at his best. A writer with truly mind-blowing ideas who unfortunately was not much of a prose stylist (and wrote in a big paranoid amphetamine-fueled hurry). ...more

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Jun 24, 2008 Themistocles rated it really liked it

Shelves: scifi

One of my personal PKD favorites. A really good story coupled with some of Dick's best descriptions (the staircase scene actually made me feel physically sick) make this one of his top works. ...more

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May 25, 2008 Charles rated it it was amazing

The protagonist of this novel is a putz who turns out to be the most important man in the universe. As a friend pointed out, that makes him the ultimate Phildickian hero.

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