What does Veeky Forums think about ubik ?

Reading DADoES felt like an autistic kid explaining the plot of dragon ball z in line for the movie theater and you can't leave.

Ubik blew my fucking mind.

I don't get it either.

Started this just a few days ago. Do the ideas outweigh the shittiness of the prose?

You don't read genre fiction for prose you fucking retarded faggot.

Weird. I finished this yesterday and thought to make a thread today...

I had the book to read for mobths and just started last week, wonder why all this discussion just started?

Definitely one of his best.

How bout I read books for whatever reason I want, you cheap slut

Of what I've read Ubik>A Scanner Darkly>Flow My Tears the Policeman Said>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?>VALIS>We Can Remember It For You Wholesale>The Minority Report

Then get the fuck out of the thread with your shitbag opinions

Ubik was my second and most recent PKD, and it was good but I liked The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch more. I didn't like the epilogue ending to Ubik, but it didn't matter much. Both stories were very cool tho.

Something wicked this way comes.

What's with all the weird clothes though. It was difficult to visualise characters due to this.

I agree with this a bit. Some dude had a dress, like he was cross dressing completely, and there was nothing really brought up about it. I think there was some point about phone operators having to dress up as women, but I don't think that had to do with him.

Dat cognitive inflexibility. I did ask whether the ideas were still any good, didn't I, you potato-chromosome Pokémon-loving, fluorescent-light-bulb-hating cuntshit?

I really enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for some good ol' mind-bending 'what is reality?' stuff though

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I think that was PKD being funny about how sci-fi authors try to describe exotic clothing in the futre.

Been awhile since I read it. I've been thinking of giving it a reread since I reread Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? last summer. PKD is definitely my favourite author at the moment, and has been for the past few years. I've read pretty much all of his most well-known novels.

I've read eight of his novels, most of the well known ones including Ubik. I'd rate that among the best along with DADOES and Martian Time Slip. The one big gap in my reading is A Scanner Darkly.

I didn't like Valis as much. The exegesis features too heavily in the first half, and the book didn't feel novelistic enough until Eric Lampton and when the characters watch the film. The second half of the book is better, and I enjoyed the treatment of Heraclitus, but it was an erratic book.

it's weird, i'm in the same situation as you in having read most of the main ones except a scanner darkly
i've been reading slightly more obscure ones like the simulacra and eye in the sky and stuff but not that one for some reason, even though i really enjoyed the film

for me ubik and three stigmata are easily the best, and man in the high castle was easily the worst. it was also the first one i read and i nearly didn't read anything else because of how tedious it was

i loved valis, agree that the second half is where it picks up though

The Man In The High Castle was my first PKD book. Because I saw it was a Hugo award winner and was in a Penguin edition, I thought it it was a safe bet. The alternative history was interesting but I didn't read another PKD book until years after. It's just an ok book, but it's not very representative of what he can do.

As for Valis, I'm reminded of Tolstoy's remarks that his War and Peace is not a novel. I think Valis is hardly a novel at all, so maybe I shouldn't judge it in those terms. It is very interesting in light of the author's biography, a puzzle to unpick, what is the author and what isn't. I also like its intertextuality. It turned me onto Heraclitus, whose ideas of concealed nature and hidden harmonies tie PKD's books together.

I thought Ubik was great. It was the second PKD book I read after Man in the High Castle (pretty good but not great) and Ubik got me hooked on him. I've read several of his books since and he is one of my favorite authors.
But the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is my absolute favorite. I fucking loved it.

A Scanner Darkly is basically Valis toned down a notch (if I remember correctly that is, I read 11 or 12 of his novels in pretty rapid succession a couple years back)

My thoughts on Ubik:

>Basic level
Everyone died on Luna with the exception of Sammy Mundo who was able to put them in Coldpack. That's why Mundo appears comatose because he's not actually in the morgue.

>My interpretation
The book is a parable on how reality can bend to our wills and how we're all living in the same space but two people can see two different things and both are correct. I believe all the characters had more power than they're lead on by at the end. First off I think Jory is a fucking liar and it doesn't make sense that he was going back in time (how would he even know pre-WW2 Des Moines if it was all his knowledge)? The only thing I can't really figure out is the ending, why did Glen get separated from the rest?

>reality is going to shit
>dude just use this simple product it makes it all feel just fine
>use the chems and suddenly your life is under control again

it's about drugs Dick liked so much, dinguses, it's so simple