It took me 40 years to get around to it, but I finally dived into PKD's reality-bending novels over the last two years, and this one is excellent. UBIK is much stranger and more darkly humorous than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It starts out with a very far-fetched future world set in 1992, and the plot revolves around telepaths, inertials, prudence organizations, snarky coin-operated household appliances, "cold-pac" half-life moratoriums, crazily excessive clothing styles, mysterious li...

"He felt all at once like an ineffectual moth, fluttering at the windowpane of reality, dimly seeing it from outside."Ubik was one of my first Dick stories. It immediately became a favorite and has remained so after reading dozens more. It features many of Dick's favorite recurring themes, especially a darkly humorous blurring of lines between reality and illusion and a concomitant degree of paranoia. In Ubik this takes shape as a metaphysical blurring of the lines between life and death and the...

Phillip K Dick's Ubik flirts with perfection. I inhaled this novel over three days when one of my kids was sick and Christmas break was ending. I started the book on the couch during a Mythbusters marathon. By page fifty I wanted to shut the door and leave my kids to forage in the refrigerator for Gatorade and string cheese. And on Sunday night, when I closed the book, I felt satisfied and excited with a novel in a way that doesn't happen much. Ubik is fun, smart, and exhilarating. Ok, let me

“He felt all at once like an ineffectual moth, fluttering at the windowpane of reality, dimly seeing it from outside.”― Philip K. Dick, UbikOver-the-top zany madness, Philip K. Dick’s 1969 acclaimed work of science fiction opens in the year 1992, by which time humanity has colonized the Moon aka Luna and individuals having various psychic powers are commonplace, so much so some companies hire men and women (called “telepaths” or “precogs”) based on their power to predict the future and other com...

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“He felt all at once like an ineffectual moth, fluttering at the windowpane of reality, dimly seeing it from outside.” Ubik is a fun, fascinating, and often surprisingly philosophical look at the nature of reality and the role of our perception thereof. PKD also delves masterfully, cleverly, and even quite exuberantly, into some of his other favorite food for thought, which in this case includes entropy, alienation, and the question of (in)sanity, to name but a few. All the while, the story p

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. At first the reading was bumpy, hard to follow, and confusing. But as I got into his style this easily became one of my favorite PKD novels. The story is unique and is a combination of science fiction and mystery. The writing and attention to detail showcase that PKD truly is a gifted storyteller. I would highly recommend it because of the direct and to-the-point plot. Thanks!

The idea of the one wonder-substance, superdrug, holy grail, dietary supplement,… to rule or enhance them all is an old one, but it needed Dicks´tendency to integrate mental illness, illusion, conspiracy, different realities and madness in the mix to make it a new one. So what to think about this?I like this one more than „Do androids dream of electric sheep.“, because the plot is so dense, the ideas wrapped around it ingeniously and probably because Dick had so many drug experiences that writin...

What I want more than anything right now is for some fashion designer or talented artist to do a series of illustrations of the clothing in this book. When it comes to ludicrous future fashions, Ubik is the Ur-text. Among the outfits described herein are the following racy numbers:• green felt knickers, gray golf socks, badger-hide open-midriff blouse and imitation patent-leather pumps [Al Hammond]• a Continental outfit: tweed toga, loafers, crimson sash and a purple airplane-propellor beanie [H...

Many PKD fans refer to Ubik as Dick's strangest novel. That's saying a lot! With the pervasive advertisements for Ubik intruding into reality (or what passes for reality in the character's world), I too found Ubik bizarre in a compelling and absolutely relentless way. It's somewhat nightmarish too for our protagonist as he races to understand the messages from his former boss. And survive. The question of what really constitutes reality is one of the central underpinnings of this short novel and...

“Herr Schoenheit von Vogelsang; sorry to break into your meditation, but a customer wishes you to assist in revving up his relative.”Haha! I don’t know if PKD intended the above dialogue to be humorous but it is so bizarre and PKD-esque it made me chuckle. There is often a weird stiltedness to his dialogue that I find oddly charming. I last read Ubik in 2012 (seven years ago as of today) I remember thinking “this is it, this is my favorite PKD”. Before this current reread I can barely remember a...

Do you wake up tired? Feeling existential angst for the postmodern hypercapitalist age that is these modern times? Has utter paranoia seemed into ever iota of reality, that is, is reality not really feelin real? Ever just in one of those moods...?Try Ubik today! Sure to cure what ails ya'! About eighty decades ahead of its time, only Ubik can help to process the overwhelmingness of the contemporary age. Chock full of post-death theology, psionics, proto-cyberpunk, and retro-retro-retro future no...

“I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. Philip K. Dick, UbikI made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and the places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them there. They go as I say, then do as I tell them. I am the word 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.” ― Philip K. Dick, UbikFriends, this wild review is 100% PKD approved. Ubik the review is only seconds away! Ubik the review is easy-t...

Brilliant and deeply unsettling. Worlds unravelling into something else.TBC... full review pending.Q:From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt's money-gulping door."I'll sue you," the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, "I've never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.” (c)Q:I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created

.. "He felt all at once like an ineffectual moth, fluttering at the windowpane of reality, dimly seeing it from the outside." -Philip K Dick "A fool and his poscreds are soon parted." -Kevin AnsbroPlease allow me to preface my review by stating that sci-fi is not normally my thang. Aside from Asimov, when I was a teenager, I've preferred to watch it, and write it, rather than read it. In fact, were it not for Obi-Wan Cecily's recommendation, I might have erroneously imagined Philip K Dick t...

"Our own homegrown Borges" is how Ursula Le Guin describes Philip K. Dick, because they both use writing to question the nature of reality. Both writers assume that everything is up for debate: the story, the page it's written on, the author writing it. Dick is my favorite of the pack of mid-century science fiction writers. (The "Big Three" of Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke, plus Bradbury, Le Guin and him.) He's best known as a short story writer; of his 44 novels, The Man in the High Castle is his...

I began reading some of Philip K. Dick’s short stories and quickly became hooked. His style and imagination have left an indelible mark on science fiction since and his influence is unmistakable. His novels are genius, and Ubik may be the best one I have read yet. Telling an inventive sci-fi tale that is entertaining on its surface, this is also a theological metaphor that keeps the reader thinking and trying to figure out what in the world PKD is getting at. His brilliance is compelling and his...

A clever, original and often very funny sci-fi story. It is about psychic power battles, the nature of death, alternative reality and changing the past. Or not.FUN, FUN, FUN - the clothesIt was published in 1969 and starts off in a sufficiently plausible but amusingly implausible 1992. In particular, the clothes take the flamboyance of the late '60s to extraordinary heights, for no obvious reason, other than fun. On the second page, we meet a man wearing "a tabby-fur blazer and pointed yellow sh...

While I was reading this book, a bomb exploded in my apartment, tearing my paperback copy of Ubik to pieces. The book had been badly burned and found itself in tatters. After placing it into a protective cooler packed with solid state carbon dioxide, I rushed to take it to a local book-shop (located next to the morgue) to see if there was any hope of putting the pages back together, or at least what was left of them, to be able to commune with it — my cherished, fragile half-book — every once in...

This review can be found on Amaranthine Reads. I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and the places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them there. They go as I say, then do as I tell them. I am the word 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. Three stars, but also four stars, and two stars, and five stars and only one. I've not read much sci-fi an...