eBook Ubik (Solaris) (Spanish Edition) ePub

As a general rule, I read very little science fiction. And, when I do, I like for it to be short and not too intricately detailed about the science aspects. That's me.

Since this was so highly rated by Time Magazine, I gave it a try. I was amazed to discover that this book complies with both of my requests of science fiction. Additionally, it merges Asimov with Raymond Chandler. "Ubik" is a whodunit, with concepts of psi powers and lunar travel and videophones. . . . to solve a murder (or are there murders?). The key science fiction element is the "half life" - a state where the deceased somehow are hooked to machines which allow them to communicate with the living while their bodies lay dormant in a conservatory. Sound a bit like "Matrix" or how about "Minority Report?"

We work in and out of this half life concept, and the same becomes confoundedly confusing when it appears that one of the paranormal's psi powers can control the world about the half life by changing time and all around us. Mind over matter. All that matters is in the mind. If you love the volley between mind and reality, also reach for Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel."

"Ubik" should be made into a film, especially as author Dick complied by finalizing a screenplay before his early death. But, alas his manuscript is not on celluloid. But, his ideas are - as reflected by the movies recited above - and some accuse the "13th Floor" to be a ripoff of Dick's "half life" concept which arouses your imagination in "Ubik".

Finally, like so much literature of the 1960's, the ending is a great twist. It throws you off balance. It truly is an ending which Rod Serling would have loved.

I'd read several of Philip K. Dick's novels, and many of his short stories, before picking up UBIK. Even so, nothing could have prepared me for the wild roller-coaster ride of this story.

I don't think I've ever been quite as gripped by a book as I was by this one. I was accustomed to Dick's writing style and his inimitable strangeness, but I think he surpassed himself in this one. I read feverishly and after I was done, I sat there, stunned. I thought about nothing else for days.

Fortunately the Bantam Books edition I read said nothing about the plot or even the premise, which was a wise decision. If you pick this one up, I recommend not reading the blurb. Current editions have massive spoilers. Accordingly I'm avoiding describing the story in any way here.

Now that Dick has become massively popular, it's become more fashionable to critique his sometimes clumsy writing style. His writing does have its flaws but few authors can equal him for sheer readability. Some of his earlier 60s novels, such as MARTIAN TIME-SLIP, THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, and THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH, were not as hastily written and the prose is more polished. UBIK was written in the late 60s about the same time as DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? and these novels are hastily written. Still, as with H.P. Lovecraft (whose prose is far worse than Dick's), it's the quality of his vision that makes him great, and Dick was a natural storyteller, even though he lacks the polish of Jack Vance or Robert Silverberg.

UBIK is based on ideas first developed in a PKD short story, "What the Dead Men Say." To some extent UBIK is an expansion of that story but it goes way beyond. This is the ultimate metaphysical SF novel.

Excellent! If you like reality bending stories you will thoroughly enjoy Ubik. My copy did not have a plot spoiling description on the back, but I agree with the other reviewers and suggest that you just dive in.
My second favorite PKD book may be Maze of Death, both books I have read multiple times, and have given away copies of. Would really like to see someone like Spielberg tackle this one as a film.

Ubik is one the better books written by Sci-Fi author Philip K. Dick. Dick mostly wrote in the 1960's and most of his books have the same theme - what is reality? Dick developed a following as much for his lifestyle as for his books. To appreciate and judge Ubik you really need to understand the author more than the author of a typical sci-fi space opera. So here goes.

First of all Dick was nuts. Certifiably. In and out of asylum kind of nuts. His whole life. He was also into every drug you can imagine. His personal life was a shambles. His books never really sold well - as a matter of fact he was on welfare or bummed off of friends most of his life. No one knows whether anything Dick said was true or not. Many of his claims are clearly false. Some are not. He apparently was monitored by the FBI at some time, but then so were most malcontents of that period. But the prime suspect in a break-in of Dick's house was - Dick himself - as Dick himself admitted.

Dick liked to go to sci-fi conventions and use drugs. The 1968 Bay area sci-fi convention was known as "Drugcon" (Drug Convention) due to the prevalence of various mind-altering chemicals. This is important because one of Dick's novels main problems is that Dick's novels and stories often don't make sense.

Dick's main theme of "Are you sure exactly what reality is?" is used in multiple books. Dick won the Hugo award for an early book "The Man in the High Castle" in 1963. Ubik was written in 1969 and is much better, in my opinion, although it won no awards.

Dick's novels suffered from a sameness once the originality of alternate and unknown realities wore off. His greatest failing was his characterization. Most of his characters are one-dimensional and unlikeable. Ubik, however, has the best characterization and several characters are fleshed out rather well. Another Dick characteristic was to look at relations between men and women as purely mechanical sex and almost no romance. He also didn't do extensive re-writes or revisions, leaving finished works that were self-contradictory and senseless in some aspects. Many people judge Dick on the movies made from his writings - particularly "Blade Runner" with Harrison Ford and "Total Recall" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. These scripts were written by others, cleaned up, changed and forced to make sense, so they are really not Dick's work at all.

In Ubik, as in his other writings, much of the plot doesn't make sense or contradicts earlier occurrences. In part, Dick was trying to make reality fuzzy, but mostly Dick himself didn't know or care whether each plot occurrence made sense and agreed with what was already written. Some claim this is what makes them good, but I personally think these people are on mind-altering chemicals themselves.

At any rate, Ubik is compulsively readable. In most of Dick's other books there are stretches that are simply boring. But Ubik has a relentless pace and a mind-twisting ending that makes pretty good sense - at least I think it does - kind of - well maybe not - but I still liked it.

The plot of the book should probably not be known before you read the book, so if you haven't read it skip this next part. Briefly, in a future where the dead are frozen in a kind of half-life, a tragedy between a good and evil group of characters immerses them in this same mind-bending half-life.

I enjoyed this book in spite of its weaknesses. You can either buy it singly or as part of the new Library of America anthology containing Hugo award-winning "The Man in the High Castle", "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (the source of "Blade Runner") and Ubik. Either way, it is an interesting and influential book.