Ratings52
Average rating3.9
Ubik, written in 1966 and published in 1969, is one of Philip K. Dick's masterpieces (The Three Stigmata of Plamer Eldritch is another one). Ubik is the first novel to introduce spiritual elements that will culminate in his last novels VALIS, the Divine Invasion and the Transmigration of Timothy Archer. According to movie industry rumor Ubik could be the next big PKD movie project. Philip K. Dick himself wrote a screenplay for Ubik in 1974 but it was never made into a movie. PKD was hoping that it would by sending "the novel to the agent of Victoria Principal- whom he revered - in hope that she'd wind up reading it."(Tim Powers in the introduction to Ubik: The Screenplay). Ubik was expanded and adapted from the short story "What the Dead Men Say" published in Worlds of Tomorrow in 1964. Ubik is one of the most published books of Philip K Dick in the world.
Reviews with the most likes.
What a fun little read. I can see why everyone enjoys Philip K. Dick, this story was imaginative, fun, and entertaining. I highly recommend it!
In a way I'm conflicted about this book.
PKD is one of my all-time favorites and I've always enjoyed his work, but I feel like there is a wide range of PKD books that can at times feel very different. But at their core, most PKD books share the same basic truths; the first portion of the book is where he establishes an interesting world, characters and sets rules. The third and final portion is where all of those rules are broken, sometimes incrementally until they've been shattered.
Sure, that doesn't account for 100% of his books, but for a large portion of them it works. For Ubik it is dead on. The problem with Ubik is that the entire second act is just kind of there. It makes sense that it is like that because there is a mystery unraveling in Ubik and the characters need to exist within the confined set of rules that have been established for this world. The problem is that the stuff that happens in there isn't that interesting.
There are definitely moments that are captivating, but by-and-large I found myself putting this book down a lot, which considering it being a rather quick read, is kind of a bummer. The beginning established such an interesting world and characters, as PKD is prone to doing, but then watching some of them lament around it wasn't nearly as fun as it seemed it would be.
That being said, the four stars is because that beginning was just so strong and the last third was enough to wash the dull middle section away almost completely. Dick likes to play with perception and concepts of isolation, alienation and existence in general. Ubik is no different in this regard and wraps itself up in the exact fashion that you'd want from Philip K. Dick.
Este livro foi parar as minhas mãos sem saber muito bem como, li a descrição e achei interessante, mas nunca na vida ía achar que o livro é tão bom só pela descrição. Como foi a minha primeira leitura do Philip K. Dick toda a permissa do livro surpeende-me imenso, mas sendo que já vi outros livros dele apercebi-me que a temática do “o que é real o que é na minha cabeça” é bastante comum nos livros dele.
Eu acho que é daqueles livros que não deviam ter muita coisa a dizer na sua descrição, e desse modo também não vou explicar muito. Só sei que vale imensa a pena ler este livro se gostam de fantasia e ficção científica. E especialmente quem nunca leu Phillip K. Dick.