Philip K. Dick - Ubik - 9

[clong]

Ubik

What can you say about Ubik? It's kind of like a cross between The Demolished Man and The Twilight Zone, a novel where appearances are always deceiving, where nobody really knows even the few things they think they know.

The characters are confidently drawn. Joe Chip is a likable protagonist, in some ways a very effective man and in others totally inept. Glen Runciter is also likable, a man trying to take control of an uncontrollable situation. The enigmatic Pat is a sometimes nemesis, sometimes ally.

The real star of the book is the frequently absurd world created by Dick, a future world where doors won't let you out of a room unless you pay them. A world where you can still talk to dead people. There are plenty of very funny throw away moments as we move through this world, not the least of which is how people dress. When we meet Stanton Mick, he is wearing "fuchsia pedal-pushers, pink yakfur slippers, a snakeskin sleeveless blouse, and a ribbon in his waist-length dyed white hair." Later von Vogelsang greets them wearing "tweed toga, loafers, crimson sash and a purple airplane-propeller beanie."

Despite these moments of humor, this is not a comedy. Chip and his colleagues spend most of the book racing against the clock to fight a deterioration of reality that threatens to suck the very life out of them and leave nothing but a desiccated shell of bones and skin. And it is not until the very end that the various layers of illusion on penetrated to the point that we can understand what is really happening.

This is my favorite Dick book to date.

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