Ubik

Science fiction · Absurdism · Satire

First published: 1969
Print length: 227 pagesMariner Books, 2012

Description

In a future 1992 of lunar colonies, commercialized psychic powers, and cryonic “half-life,” debt-ridden technician Joe Chip works for an agency whose inertials can neutralize telepaths and precogs. A security assignment for magnate Stanton Mick takes Joe and a team of these specialists to the Moon, where they suspect they have entered a trap. After an explosion, familiar objects begin deteriorating and the world appears to move backward through time. Contradictory messages direct Joe toward Ubik, a mysterious consumer product that can temporarily arrest the decay, even as certainty about life, death, and reality itself collapses. Chapter-opening advertisements recast Ubik in ever-changing forms, giving this paranoid science-fiction novel the language of commerce while its characters struggle to determine what world they inhabit.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Direct · Experimental · Witty

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Absurdist · Cerebral · Dark · Unsettling

Structure

Fragmented · Nonlinear

Focus

Ideas · Mystery · Plot

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 4 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

IdentityKnowledge and truthMortalityTechnology and society

About Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick was an American science fiction novelist and short story writer whose 45 novels and roughly 121 stories repeatedly examined reality, perception, identity, and human nature. He approached these questions through ordinary people living under pressure from corporations, authoritarian governments, surveillance, drugs, and altered states of consciousness. Familiar settings often become unreliable, leaving characters unsure of their surroundings or even their own identities. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Rick Deckard’s pursuit of escaped androids weakens his confidence in the tests used to separate humans from machines. In Ubik, objects regress through time and contradictory messages make it difficult to determine what world the characters inhabit. Such disruptions are central to Dick’s work, but so are the practical choices people make when the systems around them no longer provide dependable answers.

Books by Philip K. Dick

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Mariner Books
Language: English
ISBN: 9780547572291

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