[Ropie]

I'm not really sure what to make of it all yet as I haven't long put it down and I probably need time to digest it more. That apparently straight forward ending - is it really so simple?

I felt it was on one level a very simple book throughout: only two real characters - Runciter and Joe Chip, the others being little more than plot devices - and just one story thread. The way I saw it Dick replaced the conventional sub-plots with the twists and turns of reality, or atleast what passed for reality.

I'm sure it has influenced many subsequent books that I haven't read but the whole issue with the non-psychic characters being manifestations of someone's mind, a sort of shared-solipsism (if that's possible), reminded me of Passage by Connie Willis.

I've also just noticed it is listed in Time's 100 Best Novels, one of only 6 SF novels in that list (if you count Slaughterhouse 5). I'm still not sure if I really thought it was a very good book or not; very entertaining certainly, but it maybe seemed a bit...formulaic, as if he were going through the motions gradually revealing what was to all intents and purposes a foregone conclusion. I don't know. One thing - it's the first Dick book I've read and I want to read more now.

Anyone else have any thoughts? I know there are big PKD fans around here...What should I read next by him?

[ArthurFrayn]

My favorite PKD novel. For me it's the perfect balance of his screwball scattershot asides, and his central theme.
It's a novel about being in a purgatory like state between life and death. In general, as you approach death, the past becomes your future. The way he presents this is kind of brilliant, actually.
As opposed to a similarly themed novel A Maze of Death, this one is redemptive. You don't always catch Phil on a good day. ;) It's to be savoured.It should be mentioned that there is another earlier novel that deals with a time regressing world-The Counter Clock World.It's not supposed to be as successful, but I wont know if I agree until I read it this year. ;)

When I first read the book, the whole business about having to pay a coin operated dispenser to get everything including in and out of your apartment seemed contrived and silly, but one day I was making out bills, and I suddenly realized -MY GOD! IT'S TRUE!!

Plenty of Vogt toys and eyeball kicks scattered across the course of the novel.
I'm hurting for a reread, but I'm taking care of the remaining books that are left first. So far I've read The Solar Lottery and The Zap Gun this year.

I don't know if Ubik is the one I'd recommend to people to start off with, but it's the one I made a personal connection with. It's the one of the novels that made me feel Phil had something genuine to say about being human. I'd say, if you like this one, you've already jumped into the deep end of the pool. It should be all good from here on in.;)

As far as other recommends in the same league IMO ( and my O doesn't always line up with the concensus):

The Martian Time Slip
The Man in the High Castle
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Now Wait For Last Year
We Can Build You
Valis
The Galactic Pot Healer
The Game Players of Titan
Dr Bloodmoney
Time Out of Joint
and a couple of his non SF are amongst my favorties:
Confessions of a Crap Artist
Humpty Dumpty in Oakland
The Transmigration of Timoty Archer

I left out some of the more frequently mentioned that I'm less enamoured with -Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, A Scanner Darkly, though I'm sure you'll get endorsements for those from others here.
I also left off a couple of screwy favorites like The Unteleported Man (now known as Lies Inc) and The Divine Invasion. I have to think about it, but The Zap Gun might be joining this company. It's a total mess, but there are wonderful things in it.

My first PKD was a strange pick We Can Build You-I was intrigued by what an unusual approach he had used to tell what was basically an android story. I still have an affection for this small, unassuming novel.There's this Lincoln android (or simulacra as he calls them) in this book that is oddly affecting.
My second was The Divine Invasion and equally weird early reading choice.I was still intrigued by his odd approach. The third was The Man In the High Castle, and I was hooked. That's an amazing book.

The first three on my above list, I feel are essential.I put The Martian Time-Slip first because it's less mentioned, and just as important, IMO.
And I really, love Now Wait For Last Year. Nobody ever talks about it.

If you really get into Phil, Valis awaits you. A pivotal novel in the PKD oeuvre, an absolutely mind blowing rumination on mental illness, and suicide. I dont see how anyone could be prepared for reading this thing.

[Ropie]

It's a novel about being in a purgatory like state between life and death.
Yes, I actually didn't think of purgatory the whole time I was reading it! I suppose I was too busy dealing with the regressing time zones and shape-shifting elevators. I think that is one of the appealing things about the book - the juxtaposition of the incredibly dark forces of the universe with the comedy of a talking door, and the link between these two extremes.

In general, as you approach death, the past becomes your future. The way he presents this is kind of brilliant, actually.
I have to agree. It might just be the best 'ideas' book I have read.

I think I have to go back and re-read a few bits, especially the bits about Jory.

I put The Martian Time-Slip first because it's less mentioned, and just as important, IMO. And I really, love Now Wait For Last Year. Nobody ever talks about it.
These are both in my local library - I might go and pick one of them out as my next PKD book. Thanks for the suggestions :)

[Hobbit]

I like Man in the High Castle best, I think, of his novels.

I actually tend to prefer my PKD in short stories, though his books are never that long anyway.

The Collected Stories are good to dip in and out of, though some of his stories are not particularly strong, IMO. You will however find a lot of his themes that are developed in his novels there too - isolation, alienation, humanity, loss of identity, fear of technology robots and corporations....

Worth a try, if you can get hold of them.

Hobbit

[Ropie]

I like Man in the High Castle best, I think, of his novels.

Thanks for the suggestions, Hobbit. Funny that a lot of people mention Man in the High Castle as their favourite Dick novel. From what I've read of his SF novels, and I've read reviews and write-ups on most of them, MITHC seems to be the most 'straightforward' of all of them and more like his non-genre work (in fact I never understood why alternate histories are classed as SF).

Getting back to Ubik though..I'd like to hear some interpretations of what people thought was going on.

As I was reading I saw Ubik as a force that underpins our consumerist society to divert our attention from the nasty issues of death and suffering. The spray can version in half-life a sort of memory of this(?) But then when Ubik introduces itself at the end of the novel it left that theory a bit cold.

[ArthurFrayn]

If your asking for specific storyline contexts for what Ubik is and how it works in the plot, like I said, a reread on my end is in order. If you're just asking what Ubik is...

http://www.googlism.com/what_is/u/ubik/

The one I like on that page is:

ubik is salvation for people who are living in an entropic universe

PKD was a closet mystic, and regular drug user. Amphetamines were his muse for most of his career. He believed in a consumable substance that will put you in touch with God. This theme comes up again and again in his work. He covered up his sincerity in this belief with a thin veil of irony.
It's most out in the open and least ironic in The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

[Banger]

Ubik is my favorite of Dick's novels I have read so far, the others being Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and A Scanner Darkly (plus a bunch of short stories from The Philip K. Dick Reader).

I think I liked the Bangsian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kendrick_Bangs) element to it ;)

I agree about the response to entropy. For some reasons stories in which protagonists face losing battles against inevitable declines always get to me, and Ubik was a really creative example of this.

[ArthurFrayn]

Hey Ropie, this might be of interest to you. Found it via a random "keyword-ubik" search:

http://www.darrouzet-nardi.net/ubik.html

[Ropie]

Hey Ropie, this might be of interest to you. Found it via a random "keyword-ubik" search:

http://www.darrouzet-nardi.net/ubik.html
That's excellent, perfect for lazy people like myself. Though actually that's the kind of discussion I was trying to instigate here. ;) They make some good points, especially about Platonic forms and Ubik being an idealised version of the 'wonder-cure' that doctors and manufacturers have been trying to create for centuries. But then how does that link to the 'I am Ubik...' paragraph of the final chapter? And is Runciter really dead at/by the end of the book??

I agree about the response to entropy. For some reasons stories in which protagonists face losing battles against inevitable declines always get to me, and Ubik was a really creative example of this.
What other examples would you give? I already mentioned Connie Willis' Passage (don't laugh), in which the main character is ebbing away in a Titanic-set limbo visualized in near-death experiences beforehand.

[Banger]

What other examples would you give? I already mentioned Connie Willis' Passage (don't laugh), in which the main character is ebbing away in a Titanic-set limbo visualized in near-death experiences beforehand.

A Fine and Private Place, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Anglo-Saxon poetry that asks "Ubi sunt?" :)