# Ubik
by [Philip K. Dick](/books/authors/philip_k_dick/)
★☆☆☆☆
## Review
_Ubik_, by Philip K. Dick,
is a 1969 science fiction novel about a prudence organization that hires out
anti-psis and anti-precogs to protect people's and corporations' privacy.
Everything begins to fall apart when they're lured into a too-good-to-be-true
job where their boss is murdered. Suddenly, reality starts deteriorating, with
objects reverting to older versions, and the characters start dying one by
one.
Twenty-five years ago, I read my first Philip K. Dick book: _A Maze of Death_. I
can't remember where I found it. If I had to guess, it was one of the books
left in my family's run-down Adirondack cabin, probably by someone who didn't
mind parting with it. I got halfway through and put it back for some other
bored traveler. I **hated** it. The ensemble cast was flat, disposable. I
didn't care about them getting picked off Agatha Christie-style. The mystery
hooked me, but then it collapsed as we learned nothing was actually real. The
prose just barely told you what was happening. Dick's ideas were wild, but they couldn't make up
for the lack of characters, story, and prose.
A few weeks ago, I decided to read _Ubik_. I wanted to give Philip K. Dick another shot. He's a titan of Hollywood sci-fi, and with 25 more
years of life experience and hundreds more books read, I thought I was finally
ready to appreciate him. Instead, I found myself reading almost _the exact
same book_ I'd hated before: another ensemble cast of disposable characters
being killed off one by one, another reality that wasn't real, another ending
where they're all stuck in pods.
Once again Dick packs a million great ideas into his
world: the nickel-and-diming of daily life where your coffeemaker, TV, and
door all demand payment and negotiate fees; half-life mortuaries where loved
ones offer advice after their bodies have died; telepaths used for corporate
espionage; newspapers printed fresh and tailored to each reader; a legal
system where you can murder your wife if a precog says she would never grant a
divorce. But just like _A Maze of Death_, his wonderful ideas can't prop up the lack
of characters, story, and prose. I think Dick suffers
from the same malady as Tolkien or The Beatles: he is so
widely copied that a new reader finds his work trite. But Tolkien had beautiful writing and characters, and The Beatles catchy lyrics.
Dick has only his ideas, and they don't hit as hard the
hundredth time you see them.
With so many ideas, it's no surprise I've seen many of them elsewhere. Jory,
the predator using the half-life world as a hunting ground to trap and consume
people, is like [qntm](/books/authors/qntm/)'s Alastair Grey, the SCP that traps and consumes
researchers in its own reality in [_There Is No Antimemetics Division_](/books/there_is_no_antimemetics_division/). The
noir dystopia with freely available drugs shows up in [Lethem](/books/authors/jonathan_lethem/)'s
[_Gun, with Occasional Music_](/books/gun_with_occasional_music/). The idea of minds as separate from the body,
able to go on after death, appears too often to count: in [Banks](/books/authors/iain_m_banks/)'s [_Culture_](/books/series/culture/), [Hamilton](/books/authors/peter_f_hamilton/)'s [_Commonwealth Saga_](/books/series/commonwealth_saga/), [Rajaniemi](/books/authors/hannu_rajaniemi/)'s [_Jean le Flambeur_](/books/series/jean_le_flambeur/), [Stross](/books/authors/charles_stross/)'s [_Accelerando_](/books/accelerando/), [Taylor](/books/authors/dennis_e_taylor/)'s [_Bobiverse_](/books/series/bobiverse/), [Watts](/books/authors/peter_watts/)'s
[_Firefall_](/books/series/firefall/), and others. Stephenson's _Anathem_ and [Wolfe](/books/authors/gene_wolfe/)'s [_The Book of the New Sun_](/books/series/the_book_of_the_new_sun/) have unreliable realities. [Butler](/books/authors/octavia_e_butler/)'s [_Patternist_](/books/series/patternist/) has psychics preying on regular humans, and Pat is almost
like Doro from [_Wild Seed_](/books/wild_seed/) in how threatening she is just by existing. The
evolution of humanity's psychic powers features in [Clarke](/books/authors/arthur_c_clarke/)'s [_Childhood's End_](/books/childhoods_end/). The advertisements at the start of chapters remind me of [Brunner](/books/authors/john_brunner/)'s [_Stand on Zanzibar_](/books/stand_on_zanzibar/).
I can see why Philip K. Dick is so beloved in Hollywood: he creates great
concepts with nothing attached. There's nothing to strip away to get them
ready for filming; bring your own characters and story and away you go. But I
don't think his writing is for me. I haven't liked a single book I've read by
him, not even a little. Still, I suspect I'll try _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ and _A Scanner Darkly_ at some point. I hope I like them.
## Reviews that mention _Ubik_
- [_Accelerando_](/books/accelerando/)
## Related Books
- [_Accelerando_](/books/accelerando/) by [Charles Stross](/books/authors/charles_stross/) --- ★★☆☆☆: Accelerando, by Charles Stross, is a hard sci-fi fix-up novel. Originally published as 9 separate stories, it follows 3 generations of the Macx family as they upload, fork, merge, and scatter across a solar system slowly being converted into computronium.
- [_Field of Dishonor_](/books/field_of_dishonor/) by [David Weber](/books/authors/david_weber/) --- ★★★☆☆: Field of Dishonor, by David Weber, is the fourth book in the Honor Harrington series. It reduces the scale of the narrative, trading fleet battles for political maneuvering and personal grudges.
- [_The Short Victorious War_](/books/the_short_victorious_war/) by [David Weber](/books/authors/david_weber/) --- ★★★★☆: The Short Victorious War, by David Weber, is the third book in the Honor Harrington series. Harrington takes command of the battlecruiser Nike as the People’s Republic of Haven makes its move and a revolution brews in Nouveau Paris.