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Summary: what are you waiting for?...it was written by Philip.K dick!
Review: i am ubik. before the universe was,I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and places they inhabit, I move them here, i put them there. They go as I say, they do as I tell them, I am the world and my name is never spoken, The name which no one knows. I am called Ubik, but that is not my name. I am. I shall always be.
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Summary: Excellent Dick
Review: One of his best- shifting realities kick ass. Read this book. Now. You won't be sorry. And read The Man in the High Castle, and The Minority Report (sstory).
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Summary: Look over the bowl and then take a dive.
Review: I was hesitant to leave a review for this book, since 36 people have already done so before me. But I had to! It's probably my favorite novel.Although the first 50 pages or so might make you think of this as a science fiction adventure about telepaths and terrorists, the story subsequently becomes rather ... um, weird. It's a chilling study of reality. People who have seen the film The Matrix will doubtless see how much that film borrows from Dick's sensibility, particularly in terms of this novel. The book is somewhere between horror and science fiction. Dick's interest in Gnosticism, the Kaballah, and Jungian psychology all factor into this nightmare-like story. Other Dick novels with a flavor similar to UBIK's include THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH, MAZE OF DEATH, and VALIS. That's probably an overly short list, however, since most of his books deal with reality and metaphysics in some sense or another. Five stars for sure, but for God's sake use only as directed.
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Summary: My all time Favorite Sci Fi Book
Review: Ubik is the best sci fi book I've ever read. I've read Sci Fi all my life, but usually stick with the short stories. I get bogged down in the first chapter or two of novels, boring, but not this one. But I just finished reading this book for the second time. The first time I read it was ten years ago, I remember well, Cause it was about 100 degrees out here in Texas & I was laying in the sun... This story gave me chills & goosebumps! So many twists & turns, truely soul shocking! This evening I found it again, and as I started reading again, I had the same experiece, I couldn't put the book down. It's now 6 am.
Well, to me that's a great Friday night!
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Summary: Good ideas and bad writing
Review: It pains me sometimes to read the works of Phillip K. Dick. His ideas are always innovative and mind-bending, but his prose is somewhat lacking. This book is a fun read, and a great idea, it just isn't very well-crafted. I recommend for first time Phillip K. Dick readers the novel A SCANNER DARKLY, one of the few novels where Dick has both a great idea and a distinct literary voice.
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Summary: music based on or inspired by this book
Review: Aclaimed electronic composer/electric guitarist Richard Pinhas has pieces entitled Ubik and The Joe Chip Song that probably date from 1983. The Joe Chip Song is in four parts spread throughtout this album D.W.W. Each part's main instrumental source is a string quartet electronically treated in a successively altering, deteriorating fashion. Ubik is a very driving track. Both convey emotional overtones that resonate with this book. On the Cuneiform Records label. Very recent!!!!! : A new Art Zoyd album with extravagant instrumentation and composition. I haven't heard it yet but this group is so amazing. The new album entitled: u.B.I.Q.U.e. is based entirely on the book. An in French description and conception of this work is available at the Art Zoyd home page. Art Zoyd's own label on Wayside Distribution. I appreciate all the Vintage pressings of PKD's books. The layout and font choices are good.
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Summary: proof that a novel can be both brilliant and twisted..
Review: Like most of Philip K. Dick (PKD) books, Ubik is very hard to describe let alone categorize. But here goes! Ubik is a futuristic story of time travel, space travel, big business and a slap at American consumerism. It's best not to be obsessed with the science fiction elements, which are a bit far-fetched, but rather to relish in PKD's brutal view consumerism and capitalism. American readers over 40 will find the many little commercial sound-bites on 'Ubik' (..a spray with remarkable restorative properties) to be a delightful (and sinister) throw back to the cheesy TV commercials of the 1960s. ...but please remember that as with most PKD novels Ubik is rather hard to understand fully, and is more than a little bizarre. But PKD's satire rings through - it's the best of several PKD novels I've read. Bottom line: weird, wonderful and very original. Don't think too much while reading it; just flow with it.
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Summary: A mesh of fine speculation and wasted opportunities
Review: I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out my take on "Ubik". I enjoyed the speculation it offers, where the futures of the afterlife, corporate culture, and advertising are imagined in a very believable (and simply explained) way. I also enjoyed the suspense and mystery elements it offers. Someone has sabotaged Runciter Associates, the world's leading "prudence organization" (telepathic defenders against precognitive corporate raiders; don't trust my explanation, just know that Dick's is much more clear), and now they're slowly dying off. But how, and why? It is an interesting setup and the answer comes slowly and assuredly (except for the ending, which felt like an unnecessary tweaking of the tension, and logically made little sense). These disparate elements were handled well. The problem is that the elements don't add up to a cohesive whole. Or rather, a cohesive whole that transcends the genre. Science fiction, to me, should speak about grand issues on a grand scale. The issues here were focussed on a very small group of people, and did not really speak to a larger community. I don't feel threatened by a half-life menace, such as the one that stalks Joe Chip and his crew. Although the idea of inertials, precogs, telepaths, etc. does hit close to home, the dystopian future Dick creates just didn't scare me enough. And besides, the characters he creates are quite slight, nothing more than two-dimensional devices around which paranoia swirls. Another problem is more a result of wasted opportunity, based on personal biases. I truly enjoy works that explore the possibilities and perils of time travel (the second "Back to the Future" movie is my favourite of that series, and a fine example of the fun a warped space-time continuum can provide in a narrative context). When the Runciter gang goes back in time (in a way), Dick only tangentially explores this phenomenon (e.g. Joe Chip discussing the outcome of WWII with a xenophobic pilot), and to me that's not enough. Like I said, it's an opportunity wasted. Dick does his best work here within the epigraphs that begin each chapter. Set up as advertisements for the mysterious title-product, each is a parody of omnipotent cure-all consumer products. But Dick also throws in a menacing warning line that the unfocused consumer wouldn't pick up on. They provided the lion's share of laughs in the novel.
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Summary: Did we read the same Ubik?
Review: I wonder if the book I read is the same the book the other reviewers read. Same story, it seems, and same characters... But mine was not as good as theirs. Sure, the ideas in this book are great. PKD manages to create a kafkian feeling of being trapped in a world that continues to shift as soon as you turn your eyes. But there is not dscipline in the execution of the story. It seems as PKD changed his mind many times while he was writing the story, and never bothered going back and make things consistent (since when Joe Chip loves Wendy?). Maybe what disturbed me was the total lack of attachment that PKD shows towards his characters. Other reviewers refer to this as "characters are not developed enough", but my impression is rather that PKD loved more the plot ideas than any of the characters in this book. Except maybe Runciter...
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Summary: One Of The Twentieth Century's Most Important Novels
Review: "Ubik" is from PKD's most fertile period -- "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep" aka "Blade Runner" is from the same era. But to me, Ubik is a far greater work, rivaled only by "A Maze Of Death". It's an extraordinary, hallucinatory fugue on the meaning of life and death, and completely unforgettable. One suspects that PKD was experimenting with LSD or other drugs, and feeling the first signs of his own mortality. I've read it about twenty times. It works as straight s-f, as a tribute to Dante's 'Inferno,' as social satire, and as a parable on the nature of entropy. If any idiot tells you that sc-fi is not a valid literary genre, thrust this book in their hand. You'll never hear that nonsense from them again. This book is profound, yet extraordinarily funny. Reading it is a truly Zen experience, one the years will never dim for me. PKD Lives!!
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