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4.29 AVERAGE
4.29 AVERAGE
I hadn't read any Dick since I was a teenager, so it was interesting to read him again. The writing itself is pretty bad, but it seemed like each novel got a little bit better (even as I was getting tired of Dick, in general). The earlier books (and especially The Man in the High Castle) seem to suffer from the need to end with a very profound BIG IDEA--something that sci-fi writers seem to find too often necessary. By the last two, though, this tendency had receded a little, and the ideas themselves were fascinating enough that I could overlook the sometimes wooden prose. I think I liked Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the best. I would give it 5 stars, maybe, with 3 for The Man in the High Castle and 4 each for The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Ubik.
The Man in the High Castle
Something I both love and hate about PKD is the banality of so much of his writing. While most other alternative histories about WWII tend to focus on military maneuvers or politicians, The Man in the High Castle is mostly about the everyday lives of various everyday people. This is kind of a genius move, because it allows Dick to create a nightmarishly vivid alternate reality--vivid in its banality. He shows how the Axis hegemony changes American culture and individual America psyches from the inside out. This makes the wham-bam ending all the more potent and unsettling. I've heard complaints about Dick's female characters, but Juliana sticks out as a positive one, in that the entire thing hinges on her, and she is as nuanced as the rest of the dramatis personae.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
David Cronenberg, please make a movie of this. Why are all Dick's books so short? This book is a mindfuck in a way that was probably totally original in the '60s but is sort of old hat now, in that we've all seen Yellow Submarine at this point.
Something I both love and hate about PKD is the banality of so much of his writing. While most other alternative histories about WWII tend to focus on military maneuvers or politicians, The Man in the High Castle is mostly about the everyday lives of various everyday people. This is kind of a genius move, because it allows Dick to create a nightmarishly vivid alternate reality--vivid in its banality. He shows how the Axis hegemony changes American culture and individual America psyches from the inside out. This makes the wham-bam ending all the more potent and unsettling. I've heard complaints about Dick's female characters, but Juliana sticks out as a positive one, in that the entire thing hinges on her, and she is as nuanced as the rest of the dramatis personae.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
David Cronenberg, please make a movie of this. Why are all Dick's books so short? This book is a mindfuck in a way that was probably totally original in the '60s but is sort of old hat now, in that we've all seen Yellow Submarine at this point.
The Man in the High Castle- I have now finished my first Philip k. Dick book after having seen a bunch of movies based on his work and I was told this was the one to start with. I have not read a large amount of alternate history but I found myself sucked into and drawn to both the characters in the story. The ending had me questioning if I had understood the book and I had to reread the ending a few times just to make sure, but I am hooked and looking forward to the rest.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch- The second story. I loved this story way more then Man in the High Castle. His use of what was real and fake and his toying with the ideas of what is God and religion kept me hooked.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?- The third story. I can see why this was made into a movie, which is where I am approaching the story from. It has Dick's style and the writing is amazing. I still liked Eldritch more as a story but this has made me excited for the last book.
Ubik-The last and the most absorbing of the stories. This time Dick played with time and death in a way that I couldn't put down. I will have to find more of his books and read them as well.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch- The second story. I loved this story way more then Man in the High Castle. His use of what was real and fake and his toying with the ideas of what is God and religion kept me hooked.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?- The third story. I can see why this was made into a movie, which is where I am approaching the story from. It has Dick's style and the writing is amazing. I still liked Eldritch more as a story but this has made me excited for the last book.
Ubik-The last and the most absorbing of the stories. This time Dick played with time and death in a way that I couldn't put down. I will have to find more of his books and read them as well.
Yes, paranoia. Yes, science fiction with precogs and space ships and moon bases. But also explorations in the nature of textuality and transcendent experience.
There are sentences that will make you weep and nauseous sections that overwhelm not by some gross out detail but by a throbbing disconnection from reality. Claustrophobia.
There are sentences that will make you weep and nauseous sections that overwhelm not by some gross out detail but by a throbbing disconnection from reality. Claustrophobia.
these four books are excellent. each one has a very interesting take on their topic and i would recommend them to anybody who likes sci-fi and to some who don't!
I studied this year for a third year English course called Novel into Film. This was the first Dick book I've read and I really loved it. To think this book was written in the 1960s is revolutionary with the concept of thought boxes, mechanical animals, androids and colonisation of the planets, is exceptional. The book is very different to the film and both should be treated separately on their own merits. Overall, one of the best science fiction books I've read. I'll be tackling Dick's "The Man in the High Castle Next".
Bladerunner is one of my favorite movies of all time, but somehow I have never managed to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, or very much [a:Philip K Dick|7183829|Philip K Dick|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66-251a730d696018971ef4a443cdeaae05.jpg] at all other than a few (quite good) short stories. So I figured this handsomely bound volume of four novels in one would be a great way to get up to speed on an important author. I should have just stuck with Androids, which I quite enjoyed. The other three weren't really my thing, unfortunately.
The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history (never my favorite sub-genre) in which the US, which lost WW II, is ruled from afar by the Germans and Japanese. Despite some interesting twists (like a recursive, fictional book-within-the-book in which the US did win the war) and a few interesting characters, nothing really grabbed me in this story.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is more standard sci-fi at some level, with spaceships, colonies on Mars, and menacing aliens. But these are only background. The principal action revolves around the confused mental states of various people, some of them telepathic in various ways, and most of whom are addicted to a drug that causes them to have communal hallucinations. Very trippy and "far out" in a 60's kind of way.
My favorite among the four was definitely Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the novel that the movie Bladerunner was based on. Although I did enjoy this story, it's one of the few cases where the movie is better than the book. The film kept all the best parts of the book, and even stayed remarkably close to it in many by reproducing dialogue, character descriptions and scene details essentially exactly. Then it layered on the fabulously dark, detailed visual atmosphere that Bladerunner is famously known for. And best of all, it ditched several of the plot features that I disliked most -- again including psychic powers, metaphysical pseudo-religion, and communal hallucinations. These are apparently some of Dick's favorite themes, but I don't think they translate well now that the 60s are over.
Ubik was again a little heavy on the metaphysical and paranormal. A key feature of the plot, and indeed the entire imagined future economy, is the existence of people with various flavors of psi powers, and others with the ability to inhibit them. Additionally, communication can be maintained with individuals after their death via a a pseudo-scientific version of psychic mediums, using "protophasons". The underlying concept -- an existential thriller in which you're never sure what is the "real" universe -- has some promise. But again the topics haven't aged well in the nearly five decades since they were published.
I have enjoyed much of the short fiction of Dick's that I have read, but I don't think I'll be seeking out any more of his novels. Browsing his biography, I see that he struggled in later years with his own hallucinations and confusions over alternate realities. Although those episodes occurred years after these four novels were written, he was clearly obsessed with such topics much earlier.
The fiction itself is reasonably well constructed and passably written, but I had to read it through a very thick filter to see past all of the 60's-flavored metaphysics and obsession with psychedelic and paranormal phenomena. It's sort of like having a discussion of serious topics with someone whose opinion you think you probably respect, except that they have dramatically different political or religious opinions from yours, and can't help focusing their arguments through those lenses: it's usually just not worth the trouble.
The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history (never my favorite sub-genre) in which the US, which lost WW II, is ruled from afar by the Germans and Japanese. Despite some interesting twists (like a recursive, fictional book-within-the-book in which the US did win the war) and a few interesting characters, nothing really grabbed me in this story.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is more standard sci-fi at some level, with spaceships, colonies on Mars, and menacing aliens. But these are only background. The principal action revolves around the confused mental states of various people, some of them telepathic in various ways, and most of whom are addicted to a drug that causes them to have communal hallucinations. Very trippy and "far out" in a 60's kind of way.
My favorite among the four was definitely Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the novel that the movie Bladerunner was based on. Although I did enjoy this story, it's one of the few cases where the movie is better than the book. The film kept all the best parts of the book, and even stayed remarkably close to it in many by reproducing dialogue, character descriptions and scene details essentially exactly. Then it layered on the fabulously dark, detailed visual atmosphere that Bladerunner is famously known for. And best of all, it ditched several of the plot features that I disliked most -- again including psychic powers, metaphysical pseudo-religion, and communal hallucinations. These are apparently some of Dick's favorite themes, but I don't think they translate well now that the 60s are over.
Ubik was again a little heavy on the metaphysical and paranormal. A key feature of the plot, and indeed the entire imagined future economy, is the existence of people with various flavors of psi powers, and others with the ability to inhibit them. Additionally, communication can be maintained with individuals after their death via a a pseudo-scientific version of psychic mediums, using "protophasons". The underlying concept -- an existential thriller in which you're never sure what is the "real" universe -- has some promise. But again the topics haven't aged well in the nearly five decades since they were published.
I have enjoyed much of the short fiction of Dick's that I have read, but I don't think I'll be seeking out any more of his novels. Browsing his biography, I see that he struggled in later years with his own hallucinations and confusions over alternate realities. Although those episodes occurred years after these four novels were written, he was clearly obsessed with such topics much earlier.
The fiction itself is reasonably well constructed and passably written, but I had to read it through a very thick filter to see past all of the 60's-flavored metaphysics and obsession with psychedelic and paranormal phenomena. It's sort of like having a discussion of serious topics with someone whose opinion you think you probably respect, except that they have dramatically different political or religious opinions from yours, and can't help focusing their arguments through those lenses: it's usually just not worth the trouble.
“I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am."
Philip K. Dick, Ubik
Perhaps my favorite collection of Philip K. Dick Novels:
1. The Man in the High Castle - Read December 2015 (5-stars)
2. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Read May 2016 (4-stars)
3. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Read December 2013 (5-stars)
4 Ubik - Read December 2013 (5-stars)
Philip K. Dick, Ubik
Perhaps my favorite collection of Philip K. Dick Novels:
1. The Man in the High Castle - Read December 2015 (5-stars)
2. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Read May 2016 (4-stars)
3. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Read December 2013 (5-stars)
4 Ubik - Read December 2013 (5-stars)