Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans (1975)

> Is [Ubik] a symbol, and, if so, of just what? This is not easy to answer.

I thought Ubik was the in-breaking of the divine Logos ("I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and the places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them there. They go as I say, then do as I tell them. I am the word and my name is never spoken, the name which no one knows. I am called Ubik, but that is not my name. I am. I shall always be.") Ubik is thus the only force capable of rolling back entropy and rescuing man from death.

The subtle thing about the book is its gnostic philosophy, and the implication that "the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it." Which is the point of Ubik's appearance in canned aerosol form: the divine force permeates the world and takes presence even in the detritus of the sort of mass consumerism that the novel shows subverting man's relationship with the divine.

I've been on a PKD kick recently, because I had read some of his short stories as a teenager and seen movies based on his work, and kept hearing how much of a genius he was. In the past month or so I've been going through his body of work, and my mind is getting blown at every turn. My goal is to read all that he's ever written over 2015.

Here's a rough progression I recommend for those who want to delve into one of the best writers who has ever lived (of course hardcore PKD fans might disagree with the following, and I'd be happy to debate with them :-):

STARTING POINT:

- Ubik, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, The Man In The High Castle, A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - those are his most famous novels, self contained, and the most accessible. They're fantastic, and a great entry point into PKD's mind. Most of these are from the later years of his life, when he had developed a pretty consistent, high quality style. You just can't go wrong with these, and if you don't like them you probably shouldn't bother with the rest of his work.

- Movies based on his work, notably Blade Runner (which he himself expressed appreciation for, although he never saw it fully), and A Scanner Darkly, the first Total Recall + the adaptation of Confessions of a Crap Artist. While they're not strictly PKDian, they're a good way to get immersed in his way of thinking as the directors did a pretty good job of conveying his themes. The more recent ones (Adjustment Bureau, Total Recall remake, Minority Report, etc.) are fun as well but uneven in quality - but they can be a completely fine introduction to his mind bending ideas, especially if you want to convince friends who aren't into reading to try out his books.

INTERMEDIATE:

- Stuff from his mid-years: Galactic Pot Healer, Time Out Of Joint, Martian Time Slip, Confessions of a Crap Artist, The Crack In Space. Still very good stuff, but I think you need to be already well acquainted with PKD to fully appreciate them and see how his style and ideas were developing.

- The Valis Tri/Tetralogy (Valis/Divine Invasion/Radio Free Albemuth/The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). That's where you start to get deep into PKD lore, and you should read about his life to get the context in which they were written.

- Most of the short stories from ~1960 and onwards. Some are great, some less so, but they're short so you can easily get through the ones you like less.

FOR THE HARDCORE FAN ONLY:

- all the obscure short stories and remaining novels not mentioned above - they're not necessarily harder to get into, but they're from his earlier years and thus don't have the same level of craftsmanship (a few are not even really sci-fi). Also he wrote so much stuff that you should only spend time with those dozens of works if you're really, really into him.

- The Exegesis of PKD: a selection of about 10% of his personal notes, written towards the end of his life when he was completely {drugged out | schizophrenic | a religious nutjob} (pick one or more, or invent your own). It's basically his interpretations of life, the universe, and everything else, based on (somewhat sound) insights from philosophy, physics, biology, etc. This is an insane book that you can only appreciate (and have the strength to go through) if you already have a solid understanding of his world views and ideas.

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Someone recently wrote on reddit "Nobody writes like Feynman; but luckily he wrote a lot.", which is a quote that I love and would apply equally well to PKD.

Interesting that you consider A Scanner Darkly minor. I'm guessing you're referring to the book, not the movie. Why's that? I found it to be really good- it'd probably be in my top 5 (Ubik being #1 so far).

All his novels that I’ve read are boring, weird, and mystical without seeming to have a big point to them. I’d avoid them.

I would, however, recommend his short stories highly. There’s a five-volume collection of all of them, which I recommend. (Most people don’t seem to realize that the movies based on his writing was almost all of them based on his short stories, not his novels.)

PKD aside, wow, whoever wrote that review needs to /* */ out #include pompous_wordy_dickbag.h