Ubik

Nobody but Philip K Dick could so successfully combine SF comedy with the unease of reality gone wrong, shifting underfoot like quicksand. Besides grisly ideas like funeral parlours where you swap gossip for the advice of the frozen dead, Ubik (1969) offers such deadpan farce as a moneyless character's attack on the robot apartment door that demands a five-cent toll:

"I'll sue you," the door said as the first screw fell out.

Joe Chip said, "I've never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it."

The true, chilling state of affairs slowly becomes clear, though the villain isn't who Joe Chip thinks. And this is Dick country, where final truths are never quite final and--with the help of Ubik--the reality/illusion balance can still be tilted the other way...Another nifty choice from Millennium SF Masterworks. --David Langford

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Superb novel, one of his best! - Rated
Being a recent convert to the futuristic world of Philip K. Dick, this was the fifth of his novels that I'd read. Bearing in mind that the first four novels provided some pretty stiff competition (i.e. Martian Time Slip, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Penultimate Truth, A Scanner Darkly), I can honestly say that I was blown away by this one.

One of the most interesting points about this novel is that it really does throw you after the first few chapters. I started off thinking that it was going to be a reasonably standard sci-fi yarn all about pre-cogs and psychics, etc., etc. However, from Chapter six onwards, it takes a complete left turn and becomes a different kind of story altogether.

Brilliant stuff!

Amazing! - Rated
From start to finish Ubik is a fantastic rollercoaster of a read. Do androids dream of electric sheep? is good but Ubik is great.

Incredible, funny and memorable. - Rated
This was the second Philip K. Dick novel that I had read, after "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" and I have since read "A Scanner Darkly". All three were absoloutely terrific, but UBIK was incredible. Like other reviews have already said, UBIK is mind blowing.

It would be difficult to give a description of UBIK, because I couldn't do it justice in this brief review. UBIK is a book that will keep you thinking all the way through, and when you think you understand wht is going on, everything changes! It is also incredibly fast paced and at times very funny.

The characters are superb, the story is sensational and so is the writing. I genuinely believe this to be one of the best novels (if not the best novel) I have ever read. Everybody should read it, particularly fans of Science Fiction.

Brain-burstingly imaginative - Rated
This was only the third PKD book I read, (the others being Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Martian Timeslip) but I found it to be one of the most amazingly imaginative, bizarre and thought-provoking stories I've ever read. It seemed a little hard to get into at first but after a while the story takes off and gets progressively stranger and intriguing. You can never predict where the story is going and the whole concept of 'UBIK' is absolutely fascinating. PKD has a very unique writing style and a great sense of humour. Science Fiction doesn't come much better than this and Ubik is easily one of Dick's greatest novels. it requires a bit of effort and concentration (even I'm not quite sure what happened at the end) but it's immensley rewarding. Recommended for anyone with a brain if they don't mind their head spinning afterwards and the result of reading this book will make you look slightly differently at the world afterwards - I did. Amazing.

An intense page turner - Rated
The adventure of Joe Chip in this frenzied escapade make me wonder what exactly Dick was on when he wrote Ubik.
A must read for anyone with a brain.
For a more modern madness try Chasm City by Alistair Reynolds.