This book had me at telepathic corporate espionage. Very creative concepts by the legend Philip K. Dick.

Loved it. One of my Dick's favorites. Thanks for your contents. Refreshing

You should do Slaughterhouse Five next

I think you hit the nail on the head when you say its satire with a hefty dose of his still-to-come lunacy. I think this one might have been the last coherent book he wrote before he want totally off of the deep end with ""Radio", "Valis" etc.

This is one of the few books I’ve read more than once. I think PKD needs a chance to sink in; each reading reveals more of the magic.

Ubik is that one member of the Godhand

I need to check out this book.

The ending could simply be related to the final conversation Runciter has with the head of the society in which he is assured that if he submits his report Hollis will be taken down for good. He puts it off till tomorrow - giving Hollis one last chance to finish the job he failed on the moon. The end could simply be a sign that he never got that report filed and has joined the rest in half life. Or it could be a sign that the world is even more ephemeral than it seemed. I think the ending actually works because it opens a question for the reader that encourages you to reflect back on the entirety of the sequence of events and hints given. I don’t think it negates the story inherently.

I've been a big PKD fan and I think this is one of his best novels. The entire story takes place in the UBIK (Ubiquiquitous Universe). At the beginning of the book, the reader is introduced to a new world with telepathy and the Ubik as a product. It isn't until after the rocket crash and the universe starts to get weird that the reader gets to know that the characters are in the Half-Life reality. If you re-read the story carefully, it's apparent that the entire story takes place within this altered universe.

How would consciousness be changed if everyone were telepathic? If you could read everyone's mind why would you develop language? Language is the interplay between meaning and agreement/disagreement. If you could read someone's mind how would they be able to lie to you? To "hide" anything from you? To disagree with you? When you can't read someone's mind meaning is harder to agree to, isn't it? Don't you have to be taught to agree to what you "call" the different colors? When you're telepathic red to you is red to everyone. When you're not telepathic you have to be shown the color and then, in a classroom setting, be taught the word or "sign" to call it. Everyone in the class has to agree to call red "red" and blue "blue" as part of the teaching of meaning of color through language. When you're a telepath you don't have to learn meaning through words, do you? Meaning to telepaths is not hidden. In other words, discovery is not "mediated" through endeavor or study, it is "immediate" depending on whose mind you're reading. Discovery would be equivalent to meeting new people, and not dependent on personal interactions with Nature. For how could your personal experience of/with Nature disagree or be different from someone else's? We who use language are used to the world through the slow progress of discovering the individual or collective experiences of others through time. To us death is a mystery. Unless a telepath is limited in his ability to read someone's mind, the entire past, present and future of someone else is immediately apprehended. Including at the moment of death. A telepath would know if there is an afterlife, wouldn't he? What would "time" be to a telepath? What would animals or plants be?

To me this book was a bit hard to follow, it almost requires a second reading. I'm also a bit slower than the average chap, so theres that.

This novel left me with a very bad existential taste in my mouth. It is GREAT.

RUN-sitter!

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