Rating: 
Summary: Masterpiece
Review: I read books of different SF writers, but P.K. Dick is far superior. In the novel Ubik, Dick mixes reality and reality illusion, his immagination is always a surprise for the reader. I think this novel it's a masterpiece in SF lecterature.
Rating:
Summary: Dick is a master craftsman, do yourself a favor.
Review: Why is it there aren't more writers like Philip K Dick out there? Is it possible to categorize his style by simply saying its superior Sci-Fi? Or does Dick have a gift which is beyond greatness in any genre of fiction? This should be required reading for anyone who's ever stopped to question the reality which we inhabit.
Rating:
Summary: Millenial!
Review: Rather like one of PKD's own novels, (post)modernity seems to be converging into PKD's "Weltanschauung". Once read, impossible not to consider every week or even day - ubik indeed!
Rating:
Summary: PKD AT HIS BEST
Review: Come on, Queenie from Phil. This is PKD at his finest. The general Dick theme of questioning the very fabric of reality are in rare form. Mix in a little of the 'other world', the world of the dead, or undead, or almost dead, or who is dead? and you have a masterpiece from the master of ubiquitous, himself. Where's that spray can?
Rating: 
Summary: I beg to differ....
Review: This is definitely NOT PKD at his best! I found it slow-paced, pointless, and mediocre. Maybe this is meant to be a reflection of what life, er, death is like? I don't know. I prefer the meatier, more complex versions of Dick to be found in masterpieces like The Man in the High Castle.
Rating:
Summary: Into the Murky Deep
Review: Yeah sure, Ubik concerns itself with "advertising" and "paranormal psychics"--the conventional montage of sci-fi cliches-- but Dick's message always lies somewhere beyond his comedic portrayal of such elements. HINT: In an interview conducted for the now defunct (I think) "Philip K. Dick Newsletter" the author notes his interest in an observation that people ordered to perform strange behaviors under hypnosis, construct, out of nothing, "rational" justifications post facto for their entirely irrational behavior. Ubik is, above (or below) all else, an exersize in and an examination of ideology, and one of Dick's finest works.
Rating:
Summary: Dick at his best
Review: This novel, along with "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", show PKD at his best. Underneath the fast-paced SF storyline and the corporate satire lies the question which PKD asks in all of his work: what is the nature of reality? "Ubik" goes a long way in answering that question ( at least in the way PKD saw it). To fully grasp what Dick is getting at one needs to read his "Exegesis" and familiarity with the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Sri Sankara wouldn't hurt
Rating:
Summary: Ubik- a book to be read only as directed
Review: Ubik is Philip K. Dick's wonderfully satiric look at reality, psychic abilities, and advertising. The book follows the trials of the members of Glen Runciter's company as they try and figure out who died in a bomb blast. Things are never as they seem as various members try and understand what happened. Dick again crafts a truly unique story that is full of wit and discussion on the nature of reality. He also pokes fun at advertising as the characters search for the mystical substance Ubik- the cure for all of their worries. Dick manages to keep the reader guessing and involved pretty well. There are times when things get very confusing, but rest assured all makes sense by the end. This review, like Ubik, has been informative and safe if read as directed
Rating:
Summary: Probably the best Phil Dick novel to start with; a classic
Review: Although "Ubik" wasn't the first Philip K. Dick novel I read (having read just about all of them now, it's hard to remember which was first, but I think it was "Martian Time-Slip"), I would recommend it as the best starting point for someone trying to decide if PKD is your cup of tea. "Ubik" has all of the major elements of the typical PKD novel (to the extent there is any typicality): (1) questioning of the meaning of reality; (2) an almost pathetic sense of humor in the face of the unraveling of reality; (3) an everyman protagonist; and (4) extreme readability despite a somewhat pedestrian writing style.The plot can be summed up like this: some humans have psychic powers, but rather than being seen as heroes (as is the case in most sci-fi), they're possible sources of invasions of your privacy. Never fear, however, because some humans have developed anti-psychic powers -- they block the powers of the others. A bunch of anti-psychics go on a mission, but something goes wrong and they barely get away with their lives. Almost immediately, they notice that something is not right. Phone directories are out of date, coffee is disgustingly stale, and so on. Time, it seems, is flowing backwards! For readers who aren't aware, PKD was one of the most influential sci-fi writers, with his reality-warping stories. His interest in this topic can be traced, no doubt, to his youthful experimentation with narcotics -- an experience recounted largely in "A Scanner Darkly." PKD was an incredibly prolific writer; he wrote something like 16 novels in a five year stretch in the late-1960s, including "Ubik." Many of his best novels were written during that stretch. If you like "Ubik," I would suggest in no particular order: "The Gameplayers of Titan," "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch," "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (made into the movie "Bladerunner"), "Dr. Bloodmoney," and "The Man in the High Castle." By the 1970's, PKD stopped writing as many novels, and they became more thematically complex, with increasing emphasis on religious spirituality.
Rating:
Summary: UBIK AS METAPHOR
Review: There is little value in reading a story you don't understand. To Dick, most people lived their lives in a programmed, mechanical style. The world he saw around him was one where reality was out of joint. In this story, UBIC, "reality has receded; it's lost its underlying support and it's ebbed back to previous forms." This story demonstrated Dick's uncanny ability to write outside the box we all call everyday life. His characters here were forced to act in a state of frozen, half-life. His half lifers had died but their life force could be somewhat sustained in deep freeze. To Dick these half lifers represented the programmed, mechanized people who surrounded him and his writing. They ate him up. They sucked him dry. Half lifers are us. From this notion came his slogan, "I'm alive and you are dead."
Just as a can of Ubik, spraying out a negative ion field, was the antidote to complete deadness for Joe Chip, so Dick's imagination was the antidote to the deadness in those who surrounded him in his life. This story represents his crispest use of metaphor. As Joe Chip had to solve an elaborate puzzle just to discover he was a half lifer, so the reader must solve a word puzzle to glean the deep meaning of this tale. Deadness to Dick was an unimaginative life, one lived without passion.
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