Ubik by Philip K. Dick
188 pages
Published 1969
Read from February 22 to February 25
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
I believe the correct term for this sort of book is a yarn.
A fast-paced, delectably balls-nuts yarn. It took me a while to get
into it, but once in, I read it with a nearly constant dumb grin on my
face. There's something Gaiman-esque about Joe Chip's plight, with
furnishings, appliances, magazines, and everything else around him
reverting to older forms as his version of reality degrades, haunted all
the while by the ubiquity of Glen Runciter. Put less anachronistically,
Dick prefigures Gaiman by about three decades. Further, its plot in
outline anticipates (or inspired?) Tad Williams' Otherland series in
many respects. Whichever way you want to look at it, this book was good.
It even featured women and "Negros" in positions of responsibility,
which put it considerably ahead of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,
at least in terms of a (slightly) more retroactively plausible future.
Not bad, considering it was published a scant year later.
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