Rating: 
Summary: Ubiquitous Praise
Review: UBIK is one of my favorite of PKD's "alternative reality" novels. It is, in part, a metaphysical and epistemological mystery: why is reality breaking down? How can the characters know if what they perceive is really real? What is the ultimate nature of reality, anyway?Until the very last page, where PKD plays a last joke on the reader, one cannot be certain which level of "reality" is the correct one. Meanwhile, there is the usual profusion of humor, odd characters, and psychological and philosophical insights. We love you, PKD, wherever you are!
Rating:
Summary: Awe-inspiring
Review: After reading UBIK, I have become totally hooked on PKD. I am a big traditional sci-fi fan and although PKD is anything but traditional, I think he embodies everything that's great about SF. Only this genre allows people like PKD complete freedom to twist their literary reality into anything they desire. Needless to say, Philip K. Dick is an absolute master of that! The only other SF writer whose style seems a little similar is Alfred Bester.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and scary
Review: I can only add my own voice to the resounding chorus of praise that I see in these reviews. This is a masterpeice and amongst the greatest works of speculative fiction ever written. Its easy to see the germs of cyberpunk and virtual reality based sci-fi in this book, and years before these genres even existed! You can see the direct influence of Ubik if you read anything by Neal Stephenson or William Gibson. But PKD thought of this stuff first and in my opinion he far surpasses anything that has or will emerge in the SF genre.
Rating: 
Summary: to be used as directed
Review: I hope this isn't Dick's best novels because while I thought it was really good, it was imperfect. More others should write science fition that is unconventional and even for the particular genre, wholly strange. Most sci fi is too interested in developing the details of the tchnology in use (this sci-fi can be great too) than developing whatever it is that Dick does develop. The characters in this book could use some work though, and the book is not entirely focused. In fact, I wish he would have stuck with the question of how a person from the future could live in the past and it's current ideas knowing the major events to occur. Also, WHY DIDN'T JOE USE THE UBIK SPRAY TO UNREGRESS THE UBIK BALM? Oh well, just a minor detail.
Rating:
Summary: A Bizarre Look at...
Review: Death? Reality? Salvation? I can't describe exactly what is so compelling about this novel. I read it twice, and the second time I was shocked at the strangeness of the whole thing. The tone is somewhat humorous and sad, and the style is not exactly breathtaking. Yet UBIK has the essential feel of greatness that any masterpiece does. It is simply indescribable. I have given one of my old paperback copies to a friend for his perusal, and I would highly recommend this novel to anyone--not just PKD or science fiction fans--but anyone who wants to read something so uniquely different that they will be able to say, "What the hell was that! "
Rating:
Summary: The reader should indeed be challenged
Review: I noticed a previous review at this site, bemoaning the "anti-climactic" final page of this novel. the reviewer then proceeded to sing the praises of Isaac Asimov. Perhaps he should have proceeded directly to an Asimov page and stayed where he seemed happiest. Enough on that. What the final page of this book does effectively do is deny the reader any sense of finality. there is no comfort in finishing this tale, as the tale has no definite end. The reader - especially one new to the work of PKD - should prepare for one of the most original and testing meditations on tangibility. The book's conclusion is not, I feel, the intended climax. The book is more than a linear narrative. Linearity in fact is deliberately confused. The intention of writers such as PKD - and this work is perhaps his best example of this intention - was to use science fiction as a philosophical instrument, to challenge what we think we know - actually, what we are led to believe - about ourselves and our place in the universe. For the discerning sci-fi reader who wishes to engage some weighty philosphy, Ubik is essential. By the way, did anyone think that The Matrix was something revolutionary?
Rating: 
Summary: Ubik - confusing and uninspiring
Review: I'm a bit of a Sci-Fi buff, but found this book disappointing. The characters and background were not well explained and I found the final page that other reviewers praise as being so groundbreaking a bit of an anticlimax - nothing special. I'd recomend Asimov instead any day - something like the foundation series by Asimov (the fourth book in the series is perhaps the best Sci-Fi I've read - pure quality)
Rating:
Summary: Philip K. Dick = Genius
Review: An amazing book, dealing with issues of life, death, rebirth, and entropy. It delves deeply into the subjects, exploring the hopelessness and despair associated with death, but also the hope for rebirth and, of coruse, salvation. Joe Chip is an endearing character, who grows from being baffled and confused to accepting his reality and dealing with it. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: One of his best
Review: Ubik is one of PKD's best books. Although the prose is not amongst his best (the openning few pages seem particularly cumbersome) as the story begins to unravel, the characters come alive as only PKD could achieve, and we are taken into a very dark, disturbing yet humourous world where everything might just be nothing that it seems. I don't want to give anything away, to know in advance the path of the story would ruin the effect I'm sure; suffice to say that I can't understand why anyone wouldn't find UBIK a fantastical medition on reality, humanity and survival against the final 'form destroyer' that appeared in so much of PKD's work, death and decay.
Rating:
Summary: Best Dick!
Review: This book and Radio Free Albemuth are PKD's two greatest masterpieces. When I first read UBIK, I was literally freaked out for about two weeks. It seems a nonconsequential story at first read--the plotline is a little strange, but there's nothing really extraordinary about the language, descriptions, or the characters--but the implications of this novel are shocking, all the more so after you've thought about them for a while. "Use only as directed," indeed!
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