Title: Ubik Pdf
Author: Philip K. Dick
Published Date: 2012
Page: 227
“From the stuff of space opera, Dick spins a deeply unsettling existential horror story, a nightmare you’ll never be sure you’ve woken up from.”—Lev Grossman, Time Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business—deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter’s face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time. As consumables deteriorate and technology gets ever more primitive, the group needs to find out what is causing the shifts and what a mysterious product called Ubik has to do with it all. “More brilliant than similar experiments conducted by Pynchon or DeLillo.”—Roberto Bolaño
Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business—deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter’s face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time. As consumables deteriorate and technology gets ever more primitive, the group needs to find out what is causing the shifts and what a mysterious product called Ubik has to do with it all.
“More brilliant than similar experiments conducted by Pynchon or DeLillo.”—Roberto Bolaño
Loses something in revision Aa a near-charter member of PKD's "cult following," I never thought I'd give UBIK, which I always considered one of his late masterpieces, anything less that 5 stars. The problem is that the original version, which I read soon after it came out in 1969, has been extensively revised--I hope by Dick himself. The result is a more elaborate and probably a structurally superior novel, with more characters and an additional major plot line. UBIK was one of Dick's novels that the critics at the time saluted as a work of "genius" which, however, was "flawed." Also, the revised version may be seen to be closer to Dick's central theme, that we all create our own worlds and no one knows what's really going on until near the end of the story, if then. However, the more rational plot development loses some of the intensity and plain terror of the more focused treatment given the original antagonist, and therefore the immense relief I remember feeling when his power is finally blunted. It's as though some of Dick's critics rewrote his book. Still, it's a good read; and I don't doubt that the added aspects, particularly the new plot line based on "deconstruction" theory, are pure PKD.Reality is Melting I’m somewhere near the middle of Dick’s Exegesis and I decided to try reading something a little lighter, so I chose Ubik. Whoops! Dick manages to turn one of his recurrent existential themes into a bizarre story. Bizarre in the details of the characters and the setting in the mode of a Dr. Who tv show meets the old Batman series. Bizarre in the theme, like Kafka’s Metamorphosis envelops Lovecraft’s New England. The plot sets two competing corporations against each other; one is full of psychic talent and the other, anti-talents. So far, so good. Very good in fact. Then, the explosion happens and everything becomes more and more weird. Just when you think sense is totally beyond your grasp, Dick ties it all together with a reasonable explanation. The art of the story is truly amazing once you look at if from outside. I found the experience of being inside the story, however, disturbing. Very disturbing!Kafka meets the Twilight Zone in the Matrix I'd always heard Phillip K. Dick mentioned in the pantheon of sci-fi writers like Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and Le Guin. But even though these authors are some of my favorites, I'd never read anything by Mr. Dick. So I decided it was time. When I researched his works, I found that Ubik is considered one of his best and that Time magazine had named it one of the 100 all-time novels (written during Time's publication years 1923-2005).Starting out, I wondered why. While the plot and world building were intriguing, I found the writing a bit clunky (lots of adjectives and made-up words) and the attempt at future technology dated. (not surprising--it was written in 1969 and takes place in 1992). The style reminded me of a sci-fi version of a Phillip Marlowe detective story--a bit cliché even though it may have been the prototype for the cliché.But as the book progressed, the mood took hold of me, an unsettling feeling like the kind you get in those seconds between dreaming and awakening, when you struggle to figure out which is which. By the end, I knew I'd been treated to a great book, a complex, well-crafted and intertwined story of multiple realities, none of which is ever grounded enough to let you sort through them. But there's something more: these realities make you question your sense of life, like The Matrix without the machines, a floating reality that is the state of being itself.The ideas rather than the characters are central to this story. Most of the characters are pretty flat. But once you get used to the world (psychic powers, colony on the moon, dead people in half-life), the mood takes over, as what appears to be reality fluctuates and changes.It's a slow start, but as I stuck with it, I found it well worthwhile, an original work with a deeply unsettling feel. Think Kafka plus Twilight Zone in the Matrix.Down-to-earth folks whose world view is grounded in what they perceive to be reality should probably avoid this book. But despite some rough edges, I found it to be a great read.
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