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The Essential Philip K. Dick

nytimes.com

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Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#81

Post by jrumbut »

pmoriarty wrote: post #51
leephillips wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found Ubik somewhat intriguing. I’m about 60 pages unto Valis , and so far it’s mostly bad philosophy and theology, thankfully saved by occasional flashes of humor, and the almost-interesting fracturing of the main character into at least two people. Does it get any better?

I consider Ubik to be Dick's best work... so if you found it only "somewhat intriguing", I doubt you'll be any more pleased with anything else he wrote. That said, if you are interested in reading more by him, of his books I can recommend: - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Martian Time-Slip - Galactic Pot Healer - Eye in the Sky - the middle part of Lies, Inc Some of his short stories: - Beyond Lies the Wub -…

It's funny, I'm a big PKD fan and I didn't care for Ubik. I enjoyed the first half or so of VALIS immensely but my favorite of his is A Scanner Darkly.

I think, in 2022, people will understand Scanner better than they used to or maybe it is on the verge of being outdated?

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#82

Post by orthoxerox »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #63

So for everyone here who has declared that Phil Dick wasn't a very polished writer - who is your example of a polished writer that you are comparing him to his detriment with?

Douglas Coupland is super polished, the lines just slide straight into your eyes.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#83

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #31
nonrandomstring wrote: post #27

There's a bit in Ubik that stays in my mind. Joe Chip gets into an argument with his apartment door that refuses to open for him because he owes it money. I kinda got that the door was an autonomous money-making agent that held him hostage - a conversation reminiscent of that between Doolittle and the Bomb in Dark Star. It made me see the ridiculous side and ultimate absurdity of micropayments leading to world where…

Years ago I read about cloud computing as getting a free vacation but being charged for each sand particle you touch, small on its own but it gets too ridiculous after some time

There was an episode of Rocko's Modern Life where they go to a ski resort where everything is $5. What a deal! It turns out it applies to literally everything.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#84

Post by sbf501 »

I've read 45 of all 49 PKD novels on the Wikipedia page. It was a goal I set about 7 years ago. I tried to read the books in order, but had trouble finding some. His style goes from Twilight Zone / Amazing Stories, do thought-provoking alternate reality, to alternate people, to alternate "reality" which is different than what I said earlier. There is "alternate reality" where we are in a different timeline, or aliens, or different technology, and then there is reality that is just bent and distorted psychologically (VALIS, Palmer Eldritch, Martian Time Slip, ...). There's a big blob of boring books in the middle, in my opinion, like "We Can Build You", "The Crack in Space", and "Now Wait for Last Year". But what I've found most fascinating is watching his progression (descent) into darker and darker work. It was also a weird experience reading so much from one author, because after 5 books you start to see significant similarity and I wonder if that is why the middle part got so boring to me.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#85

Post by sbf501 »

atombender wrote: post #69
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #63

So for everyone here who has declared that Phil Dick wasn't a very polished writer - who is your example of a polished writer that you are comparing him to his detriment with?

I wouldn't call it unpolished at all. I would characterise PKD's prose as workmanlike. It's very effective, just not what anyone would ever call lyrical or stylish. Stephen King once described his own writing as "the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries", and there's some of that in PKD, at least on the surface level. I do think PKD improved as a writer in the 1970s, once he kicked his drug habit and slowed dow…

> I would characterise PKD's prose as workmanlike.

That's a good way of putting it. I think a lot of his stuff was just published in a time when editors didn't do much, but also he was picked up by publishers who were pushing pulp, so there's a lot writing that feels "in progress".

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#86

Post by armitron »

Schiphol wrote: post #33

Has any of you read/skimmed the Exegesis? Is it any good?

If you've had mystical experiences and trying to make sense of them, PKD's Exegesis is required reading. If you haven't had any experiences of this sort, then it'll probably come across as disconnected ramblings indicative of serious mental illness.

After spending decades reading everything I could on the subject of mystical experiences, from Crowley (the English libertine) to Timothy Leary and Mckenna, the only other writers I'd put on the same "absolutely essential reading" list as PKD, worthy of intense study, are Carl Jung and Rudolf Steiner.

That a pulp scifi author made this list is, to me, supremely fascinating.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#87

Post by fluxinflex »

Is SciFi a genre that reflects societal health? I have the feeling that SciFi is a phenomenon that appears and disappears in waves depending on how well a society is function.

There was SciFi coming out of the communist block (Lem, Strugatsky brothers, Zamyatin) which was a comment on the system, there was SciFi from England in early 1900s (Wells) - comment on industrial revolution - and later Orwell - post war, societal controls - and Adams - the world should be more worried about external forces. In the US the genre appears to be a constant starting with Poe[1] followed by Huxley, Dick, Clarke, Asimov, Gibson, Bradbury, Heinlein commenting on all sorts of societal issues. And recently China with The Three Body Problem by Liu. France had Jules Verne but that was more for profit than comment on societal issues.

Coming back to the question, is the popularity of SciFi an indicator for potential fears within society? I know that my favourite bookstore recently had a run on PKD, the bookstore happens to be in mainland Europe.

And what is the relationship between SciFi and philosophy? Philosophy being one of those sciences whose purpose is to question societal forms, constructs and norms.

[1]=https://psyche.co/ideas/are-successful-authors-creative-geni...

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#88

Post by xhevahir »

keiferski wrote: post #6

PKD is one of my favorite sci-fi writers and I recommend Ubik if you're a new reader, although like the article mentions, you definitely need to be in a certain mindset to "get it." The Man in the High Castle has an interesting concept but I don't think it's particularly well-written. One thing that I think goes unnoticed about PKD is how some of his earlier short stories are undeniably, unquestionably bad. Fair Game…

Ubik is the only PKD novel I've read and man did I struggle to finish it. Once in a while a passage caught my interest and then I would realize that I was reading was basically a summary of some myth from Gnostic scripture. A real slog, on the whole.

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#89

Post by js2 »

sbf501 wrote: post #84

I've read 45 of all 49 PKD novels on the Wikipedia page. It was a goal I set about 7 years ago. I tried to read the books in order, but had trouble finding some. His style goes from Twilight Zone / Amazing Stories, do thought-provoking alternate reality, to alternate people, to alternate "reality" which is different than what I said earlier. There is "alternate reality" where we are in a different timeline, or aliens…

Any favorites you'd like to call out and why those were your favorite?

Did you also read his short story collections?

Re: The Essential Philip K. Dick

#90

Post by Eisenstein »

sbf501 wrote: post #84

I've read 45 of all 49 PKD novels on the Wikipedia page. It was a goal I set about 7 years ago. I tried to read the books in order, but had trouble finding some. His style goes from Twilight Zone / Amazing Stories, do thought-provoking alternate reality, to alternate people, to alternate "reality" which is different than what I said earlier. There is "alternate reality" where we are in a different timeline, or aliens…

Which are your favorites? Do you have one that you would consider to be the magnum opus? If I had to pick one of them I would pick Ubik.
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