Philip K. Dick Books

In this omnibus, some of the Philip K. Dick stories that explore the borders of reality are brought together:
In "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch," Dick works through the nature of reality and illusion. Set in a dystopian future, Earth is going through a "fire" age and humans cannot survive more than a few seconds outside during daylight; this has forced humanity to spend daylight hours in a warren of buildings and tunnels. Additionally, a draft is set up to send humans out to the colonies on Mars and various asteroids - whether they want to or not. These colonies are living at subsistence level and the colonists there invariably end up hooked on a drug called Can-D, that allows them to live in an illusory world populated by Perky Pat and her boyfriend Walt, thereby escaping their miserable existence. They use miniature items to create these worlds; these "mins" are provided by the same company that supplies the illegal Can-D, which is run by Leo Bulero.
When the famous explorer Palmer Eldritch returns from his trip to Proxa, he brings with him some lichen, with which he creates a product called Chew-Z - a legal alternative to Can-D. This is a more potent drug that allows people to create their own universes, without needing the mins. However, what most do not know is that all these universes are controlled by Eldritch. Is Palmer still human, or did something else come back in his place?
Playing onto our worst nightmares - namely those in which we continually think we've awakened, only to find we're still inside the nightmare - this story keeps you guessing as to what is real and what is hallucination. It is difficult to explain too much of the plot without giving away key elements that will spoil the story, which is why I've stuck mainly to what is given in the editorial review or on the book cover. However, I found the story to be very much in the lines of a typical Philip K. Dick story - twisted and convoluted. Well worth the read, however.

In "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," we find ourselves alternating between two intertwining plot lines. One involves Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who "retires" escaped androids. The latest model - the Nexus-6 - can only be differentiated from humans through use of a sophisticated psychological testing mechanism that measures empathy levels; empathy being the one thing that androids quite simply lack. The other plot line revolves around J. R. Isadore, a "chickenhead" (that is to say, a man who has mutated enough that he is starting to lose his cognitive abilities, but not so much that he cannot still manage to take care of himself and serve the public in some small way). He works for the Van Ness Pet Hospital, which serves people who own electric animals. However, his day gets off to an uneven start when first he discovers another tenant in his previously empty building, and then he is given a real cat - which subsequently dies on the way in to the hospital before he even realizes it is actually alive.
Similar in theme to "Stigmata," this book explores the differences between reality and fantasy by probing the differences between man and machine(sometimes that line is very blurred), electric animal and real animal, and so forth. Always in the background is the constant back and forth of Mercerism vs. Buster Friendly, who always gently (and sometimes not so gently) accuses Mercer as a fraud and fake.
I found the story enjoyable; dense and difficult at times, but the interchange and interplays are always deft and intriguing. This classic bit of surreal sci-fi is not to be missed.

When reading "Ubik," the first comparison that came to mind was Don DeLilo's White Noise (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)" Not due to any special thematic comparison, but because of the advertisements for great new products named Ubik at the beginning of each paragraph in the story; this reminded me of the constant low-level onslaught of information that came at you while reading "White Noise."
As far as the story itself - what can one say without spoiling it? The main character is Joe Chip, a tester for the Runciter Group, which is a group of "Anti-psis" - they null out psionic power to help protect people's privacy. I was by stages amused and appalled by the vision of 1992 painted in this novel - apparently we were supposed to have made our way to Mars and the Moon by now, with colonies on each, and we're supposed to be dressing even more outlandishly than we do now. However, it seems odd to me to note the things that are kept in the style of the 50s and 60s. Women are either young and in the service industry or they are matrons and stay at home. If they are other than that, then they are shown as . . . strange, even dangerous, such as Pat Conroy in this story. It is this that makes her such an appropriate foil for Joe Chip, as he stumbles through his attempts to keep the group together after a major fiasco occurs when the Glen Runciter - the owner of the company - takes a group of his most highly skilled workers to the Lunar colony for a job and is there attacked.
The rest of the story shakes down while the surviving characters notice a strange combination of entropy and growth - recession and coming into being. The world seems to be regressing to an older era, but at the same time, they keep getting messages from "beyond" instructing them on what to do. Then the question arises - who is really dead? Who is really alive? What is reality? Who is creating it?
Not for a light evening's read, that's for sure! But well worth the slodge if you have the time. Most intriguing and something to keep the ol' cerebellum stretched. Give it a try.

"A Scanner Darkly" was the most difficult of the stories for me, personally - I'm not quite certain why, but it just didn't hold my interest as much as the others in the omnibus. Telling the story (on the surface) of the deterioration of the undercover narcotics officer "Fred," living as Bob Arctor - due to substance abuse - into paranoia and split personalities when he is told to begin investigating himself intensely (undercover agents wear a "blur" suit and none of them know each other, nor are they aware of whom is who in the field). Additionally, the federal government is seeking the source of Substance D, a deadly and highly addictive drug that invariably leads to burn-out in the case of users. Darkly comical in the earlier parts of the story - and in general any time when Arctor and his friends and roommates are sitting around and shooting the breeze - it is also in its way terribly depressing.

Overall, however, I give a big thumbs up to this omnibus. If you're a fan of Philip K. Dick, obviously you don't want to miss it. If you enjoy fiction that challenges your perceptions of reality, you definitely don't want to miss it!

Counterfeit Unrealities, a hardcover omnibus published by the Science Fiction Book Club, contains four of Dick's best novels:

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Ubik
A Scanner Darkly

While it lacks an introduction, notes, or any other exclusive content, the convenience of a single volume makes this recommended for any reader looking for all four novels.

Taking a look at the religious aspects of PKD's work shines an interesting pink beam of light on things. The knowledge base of the author across a wide variety of religions allows him to put forth many questions and answers about how/why/meaning of many books from PKD and what greater concerns of higher level he had. PKD used religion in books as varied as MITHC, DADOES to later books such as Divine Invasion and Valis. This pulling together into one source makes it easy to understand how from greek to christion to eastern religions they all fit into his pantheon of work. I'd also look into combining this with a couple of other good books, notably Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern by Christopher Palmer and The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick by Lawrence Sutin. All nicely written as well. Pick up the Pink Beams of Light..., and it will shed some illumination on this neglected aspect of PKD's writing.

Gabriel McKee's Pink Beams Of Light From The God In The Gutter is especially recommended to the attention of avid fans of Philip K. Dick's work in speculative fiction, as well as any the non-specialist general reader interested in religion. This a short but probing analysis of Philip Dick's works by Gabriel McKee deftly explores theology as reflected, discussed and represented by Dick. Science science fiction reveals texts that can be justifiably considered as religious - but can religion be 'science fiction'? An intriguing, scholarly, and highly recommended discussion evolves in Pink Beams.

I picked this book up in Kansas City where the art exhibit "Unnaturally" was on display. While the book and essay are fantastic, it pales in comparison to the exhibition which was sublime!!!

I don't know where the show is going to travel (I heard it was going west) but do yourself a favor and check it out. One of the best art shows I have seen. If not, check out the book with wonderful reproductions and thoughtful insights on the work.

This is a beautiful book - the pictures are delightful, but it does not have an essay in it by Barbara Kingsolver. I bought it for a friend because we both love her writing and I'm disappointed to see that there's no work of hers included. Fortunately my friend loves art and I think this will still be a nice gift for her, but it's not what I expected.

Androids is my favorite sci-fi book of all time & is the inspiration for one of the best movies of all time, Blade Runner. The movie & book are very different. Androids deals with future competing religions, the extinction of all animal life & humanities' use of android pets, mood enhancing technologies & other aspects that Blade Runner does not even touch. However the "bad guy" Roy's character (played by Rutger Hower) is much more nuanced in the film; we genuinely empathize with this complex character, even while he is committing unspeakable acts. Finally, the cinematography & music of Bladerunner are unmatched.

Having watched Blade Runner before reading this, I feel that my perspective throughout the book was a bit tainted, but I enjoyed it. It's a solid read if you enjoy science fiction, if I do say so myself.

Philip K Dick did very well on this book. I was a little dissapointed though in the fact that the retirement of the Nexus 6 was straight to the point and quick unlike the movie Blade Runner where there was more suspense. But with the exception of that it is a quick read and brilliant.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? follows a bounty hunter working for the San Francisco police in the year 2021. This particular bounty hunter doesn't track down humans, but rather androids. If this sounds familiar at all, it might be because the book was adapted into the movie Blade Runner (Four-Disc Collector's Edition) starring Harrison Ford. For those who have seen the film version, do not expect much consistency between the book and movie. It's probably more accurate to say that Bladerunner was inspired by this book, rather than adapted from it.

Our bounty hunter, Rick Deckard, is assigned to track down a half dozen androids of a new and more intelligent type than any previously created. Along the way, his experiences cause him to question a good deal about himself including his profession.

After reading this book, I can see why Dick is sometimes compared to Kafka as a writer. There is an odd, surreal quality to the world he creates and a recitation of the entire plot would sound fairly absurd in parts. Yet, I found it a compelling read even if I didn't have a perfect literal understanding of every scene. I would compare this to an abstract painting that evokes an emotion from you even if you're not quite certain why. I found the book to be thought provoking and enjoyable but if you're looking for a straightforward action tale in a sci fi setting you are unlikely to happy with this tale.

If you think you know what this book is about because you've seen the movie Blade Runner, you are mistaken. Only the character names and some of the settings / situations were lifted from this book for the movie. As in most books, there is a lot more going on here. Because the movie is so highly engrained in our (real?) memories, it is difficult to talk about one without contrasting it to the other, sadly. That said, this is a classic that any SF fan (philosophy major, medical student, or engineer) should read.

Blade Runner completely missed the invented religion / technology of Mercerism and the mood organ device. Later authors like William Gibson have PKD to thank for pioneering concepts such as these. How can a religion and technology be one?

In the book, Mercerism combined with nuclear fallout explain why animals are so expensive (and coveted) in the future. Why does an electric sheep exist (pride, vanity, religious devotion)? The mood organ usage contains references to the cold war (and presumed imminent nuclear war) - husband and wife "dialing up" the desire to win an argument at all costs.

The double yellow center line between human and androids is blurred often- taking the reader across into oncoming traffic. Did Deckard pass the VK test? Rachel and Pris are the same model android? What does it mean to have feelings? Why would an android seek revenge?

This was my first Kindle novel purchase. I no longer have a desire to dial 888 on my mood organ (desire to watch TV regardless of what is on). I'm going to dial up more PKD, Gibson, and others instead!

BTW, to get the "Hit me with a rock" reference, you have to read the book...

the ending of the book, for people who are thinking about buying it, is confusing and probably leaves the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about it. It takes place in an alternate history where Nazis and Japs rule the US, or the east and west while the middle is neither. there is also a really confusing ending to it which will make you go "HUH?" for quiet a while where you would probably have to draw your own conclusions from it.

I read this recently after hearing about it years ago. I was struck by how accurately it depicts California today. I wonder if it was ever intended to be an "alternate" version of reality or actually a comment on America hidden behind the sci-fi premise. This would explain the end which is intentionally left unclear as to which reality is correct. Of course, today there are more foreign people in California and the Governor is not only foreign but the son of Nazis. Yet, there were signs things were headed in that direction at the time Dick wrote. He was interested in science like the space program, which was dominated by foreign people (even ex-Nazis). He had psychological problems and many doctors in this area were foreign. Mental institutions at the time tended to cause more mental strain then help and he likely knew about that. His books eventually became successful films but until late in his career he was shut out of Hollywood. Most Hollywood sci-fi was badly written, mostly cribbed, and the industry was controlled by foreigners. The businessman depicted in the book is easily recognizible as a Hollywood type mogul. The parts about Americans being shut out and not even being able to go to nicer sections of the city isn't far from reality today, and probably wasn't back then either. So Dick is really one of the American artists in the book, whose work is having an impact but is not repected, nor were probably his friends. He could see that things could go either way and maybe he would be successful or maybe not.

...and just to make sure, I re-read a chapter a night to the end. Slowly. Every word. There is so much going on in this novel, the detail, the books within books, the characters, the politics. You can get an idea of the plot from the other reviews, but don't dwell too much on what anyone else says. Get a copy. You won't regret it. It's even better the second time around.

1962: the Allies lost the war and Germany and Japan are the new powers of the world. America is divided between the two, Japan controlling the West and Germany the East. Genocide rages in Africa and Germany is exploring space with a vengeance. The picture is horrifying and brilliantly sketched by Dick. Believable character development. I will have to read it again to determine if I actually enjoyed this book. Of course, if you read it, be prepared for the Dick-ian twist at the end...

The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick's Hugo Award winning 1962 novel, is credited by many with the creation of the alternate history genre. It may not have been the first alternate history novel published but it does seem to be the one that jump-started the genre. And what an alternate history is tells.

Franklin Roosevelt was assassinated in the early years of the Great Depression and America's contribution to the Allied efforts during World War II were limited by its delayed recovery from those disastrous years. In fact, Germany and Japan have won the war and have pretty much divided the globe between them, with Japan in control of Asia and Germany of Europe and Africa. Even the United States has been divided between the two: Japan has the western part of the country, Germany the eastern part and there is a buffer of "free states" between the two sections. Almost twenty years later, Germany, still determined to finish its extermination of the Jews, has decided to do the same to dark-skinned peoples and has turned Africa into a massive killing ground.

Japan, on the other hand, rules its territories under the rule of law and those living in the San Francisco area, where much of the novel takes place, are the lucky ones. Americans, especially white-skinned ones, are definitely second class citizens in the Pacific States of America, but they do not live in fear the way that residents of the German territory do. However, Germany is the more powerful of the two superpowers and is able to demand the handover of all Jews identified in the PSA.

The Man in the High Castle focuses on ordinary Americans, many of whom were children during the war and who do not remember much of pre-war life, as they try to make their way from day-to-day. Dick cleverly included one character, Hawthorn Abendsen, who has written an alternate history of his own, a book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy in which Germany and Japan lost the war (an alternate history within an alternate history). The world described in Abendsen's book is very different from the real world and is an irritant to both the Germans and the Japanese. But, as usual, it is the Germans who want to take things to the extreme by exacting their revenge on the author and German authorities have sent someone to infiltrate Abendsen's supposed fortress of a hideout.

Dick chose to end The Man in the High Castle in such an abrupt and ambiguous manner that most readers will be left scratching their heads and trying to reconcile 99% of the book's content to what is disclosed on its last three pages. Readers usually enjoy surprise endings but this is not a very satisfying one and they are likely to find it more annoying than surprising, something that will ruin their overall perception of the novel. I found the core of Dick's plot to be well crafted and enjoyable but the book's ending is the reason I cannot rate it higher than I have.

Wow! This novel is akin to a beautiful train wreck. Unnerving, intriguing, bizarre, and potentially relatable. There are fleeting moments of lucidity intermingled with delusional streams of religious prattling. Admittedly, something I can rarely stomach, but appealing when combined with a historic, educated slant. The characters are interesting, with dimension to their actions, but most of the time regurgitating Dick's own newfound religious conclusions. Currently, and I'll explain why I say "currently" in a moment, my overall impression is that it was too tangential to vigorously enjoy. Some parts I found fascinating, others redundant and irrational. But, I can't help but feel that this was intentional. Though the real question is whether it was an enjoyable read. The short answer is yes, to a point. I found it fascinating to watch a great writer descend into madness, which seems to be the case from the biographical material I've come across about him during the time of this book's completion.

It occurred to me throughout the reading that Dick was not only weaving an intricate plot line, but purposely involving the concepts thematically into his own life. Like Dali and his egregiousness behavior in the public eye, purposely falling out of windows, obvious attempts at gaining attention. It occurred to me that perhaps Dick was performing a show of his own. One which would leave a lasting impression on those who studied him beyond his death. If intended, I concur that it worked. If not, opinion concludes he truly was on the brink of insanity.

Upon finishing the book I feel a bit let down, compared to my responses regarding the two other PKD works I've read. The Man in the High Castle and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Though, reflecting over it now, I feel I may be coming to the conclusion that my initial responses to those other two novels weren't held in as high regard as my current opinion. I feel a comparison to Asimov's writing would help fit my impression. Asimov is a renowned sci-fi author because of the ideas he has written about, not necessarily the prose. This is something I've read in other reviews of his work upon many occasions. Dick on the other hand, has magnificent prose, and well structured writing. I'm not going to reverse the analogy and state that his concepts don't compare to Asimov's. Absolutely not. But I feel that Dick's ideas aren't immediately noticeable. Like a pebble's wake in a pond, there is a delayed wave effect as to when Dick's concepts hit you, and they repeat (congeal) this with each introspection. Perhaps I will leave this novel thinking it was decent and be content with my immediate impression, only to find a year from now that I'm able to see its genius. Either that, or I'm really just a romantic who is a bit disappointed in an author previously held in such high regard.

This is my first book by Philip Dick. I am now reading the follow up to Valis, "The Divine Invasion". I was motivated to pick it up because of the several references to Dick's work in another amazing (non-fiction) work by John Lamb Lash, "Not In His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology and The Future of Belief". If Dick blows your mind, this book by Lash will also, and it provides a lot of insight into Dick's at times bizarre ideas. Dick incorporates images, ideas and narrative (myth) from the gnostic "Sophia" myth. He obviously takes these ancient myths very seriousy, using stories and motifs from the myth to populate this book and perhaps many other of his works. If you are open to some ancient ideas that will seem new and fresh, Valis is sure to intrigue you.

Like most of Phillip K. Dick's novels, the main characters around which the story of Valis revolves are engaging, sympathetic, and mirrors of the social and psychological complexities faced by mankind. Unlike his other novels, however, the main characters in Valis are actually PKD himself. This results in the occasional switch from first and third person narrative, and several instances in which the author and the author surrogate interact with one another.

Valis (the name assigned by the main characters to their vision of God) is less of a novel than it is a fictionalized account of PKD's own spiritual journey. Because of this, a good portion of the middle becomes bogged down with in depth descriptions of PKD's theological views and theories. Anyone not well versed in Gnosticism and Metaphysical Theory will be tempted to skim several pages of text at a time, and might even debate whether finishing the book is worth the trouble. This will be especially true of readers who are only familiar with his early science fiction work and not prepared for a crash course in PKD's exegesis. In some ways, Valis could be considered PKD's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, except the focus of this road trip isn't the American Dream, but the True Nature of God.

Above all else, PKD is a master storyteller, and this is what saves Valis from being a stuffy and unintelligible pseudo-memoir about a spiritual journey. The uncertainty of the narrator's true identity (both to the reader and the narrator), as well as the sympathetic nature of his plight and the conspiracy-drenched plot twists reminiscent of Robert Anton Wilson (whom PKD mentions in the book) will keep you interested enough to struggle through the denser passages. But you also find yourself riveted as you gain closer insight into the mind of one of the greatest science fiction authors of the last century.

Valis is a perfect snapshot of a time not so long ago, when there existed a movement of authors that eagerly blended the lines between science-fiction and spiritualism. It was a time when optimism regarding mankind's future potential was almost intoxicating, and the experimental expansion of the mind and spirit were deemed as important as technological advancements. Looking back, it may seem a bit naive and fanciful, but it was also full of hope and wonder, two traits that seem to be lacking more and more with today's sci-fi authors.

I have a feeling that the conversation between Dick and his publisher went something like this . . . Dick: "I'd like to write an autobiographical book about my quest to find the true nature of God and my ruminations on the philosophies derived from such a search." Publisher: "We'd rather you write a science-fiction novel. The kids seem to like that better. Spaceships are big these days." So in a classic case of getting what you want and yet, not really, Dick basically just went and wrote that autobiography, sticking it inside a novel so nobody could complain. Amazingly, this has all the recipes necessary for a big mess but perhaps what most surprised me about this novel is how utterly coherent it is. I'm serious about this. I've read several other Dick novels in the past and each of them has a habit of starting out decently and going totally off the rails at some point to where it's barely comprehensible by anyone whose mind has not been blown. That doesn't happen here and I kept expecting it to. Don't get me wrong, this is a seriously weird book, any time you have a novel where the main character's name is Horselover Fat you know you're not going to be in for anything resembliing a normal time. But it's a consistent weirdness, which is key, in the past the trippy elements have tended to evolve out of nowhere, leaving the reader behind. Here it's unrepentently strange right from the start, make no bones about it. Mr Fat is also Philip Dick and the two keep switching back and forth between first and third person narration. He has friends who have their own quirks but otherwise seem rather normal. One day Horselover gets convinced that he has received a direct message from God, and it turns out that he might be right. Or maybe not. He and his crew then embark on a ramshackle quest to discover the nature of God, or if there even is one. What's impressive about this novel is that he's actually able to tell a story with all of this, it may not be the most tightly plotted tale around but considering that it could have devolved into a series of rambling rants about the nature of reality, it works as a piece of entertaining fiction as well. For some reason, he seems remarkably focused and clear-headed here, so that the story never gets off track and once you get used to its internal logic, you find yourself just accepting the bits of oddness and getting into the novel's searching nature. It also helps that it's really funny in parts, Dick always had a deadpan sort of humor and some offhand lines can make you laugh out loud (one friend wants to meet God so he can ask the deity why his cat had to die by getting hit by a truck . . . the answer to this question, regardless of the source, is funny in a rather dark way) which makes all the philosophy go down easier. It may not be a head-spinningly ground breaking as earlier novels, but the stuff is fairly out-there although that may just be because I'm not all that familiar with gnosticism, which I think some of this is partially based on. But as I said before, this had fantastic potential to be an utter mess and yet it winds up being thought-provoking and entertaining (the whole sequence when they watch the movie and then talk about it is great) and funny and hardly boring at all. Dick may have started to lose it toward the end (from what I hear) but at least for one book, he manages to pull out something that's almost better than anything else from him I've ever read.

This is one of my favorite PKD books, so as far as a review of the story itself, it is incredible. A must have for every seeker in the cosmos.

Now, having said that, I bought this edition, and was saddened deeply that it is unreadable. There is a huge portion of the story which is missing altogether, (perhaps 10 - 15 pages?), and in it's place is some modern political essay about the European economy. A publisher's mistake, I'm sure, but I can't have the only one like this. If you can find a different edition or version of this book, then by all means buy it. Then it would be 5 stars rather than 0 stars.

The plot will have you guessing throughout, but always guessing wrong. The reader always guesses consistent with his own prejudiced conception of reality; he's over-matched by the mind-blowing stuff Dick throws at him. Seasoned readers of Dick are perhaps an exception. If you're new to Dick, I suggest re-reading the book a second time, especially if you have to fully "get it" it to be satisfied.

Dick probes the profound mystery of personal identity and its particularly effective because it's set against the backdrop of a neo-Stasi, dystopian America. In this world, existence means a dossier, an ID card, a micro-transmitters, etc. It's inconceivable that existence remains undocumented. Nevertheless, as Jason Taverner proves, it is possible -- somehow! We ought to take note of the implications of this type of society considering the Real ID Act of 2005 will soon require us all to carry National ID cards.

The finale of the story is very provocative and satisfying. I adored all the female characters in the book -- they were all so colorful.

Altogether, and satisfying and trippy read!

This book is so good that it's almost criminal to sit back and let it languish in a mere 4 star status. This book is a paranoid adventure from start to finish.

Do yourself a favor; get this,"The Man Who Japed" and "Ubik".When you have finished, come back and help this book get the rating it deserves. Take it from a fellow six.

I really liked this book.
Written back in 1974, the plot is intriguing and still futurist, of course in an old-fashioned way, which makes it an unique book.
I recommend this reading, especially to every sci-fi fan.

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is one of Philip Dick's more accessible books to read. The plot is intriguing and pulls you along as Dick ponders the question of identity. If there is no record of you and no one knows you, who are you? Jason Taverner's mysterious loss of identity leads the reader on a suspenseful story that asks this question without boring the reader with a metaphysical lecture on identity. While not my favorite ending of Dick's it does tie up all the loose ends so the reader is not left dissatisfied. For people who like other Philip Dick novels as well as people who like Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night this book is highly recommended. For people who have yet to get into Philip Dick this is a good place to start.

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said was published in 1974, the same year Philip K. Dick had his famous "revelation" that led to his extremely different later works such as VALIS. Presumably this book was completed before that revelation -- thus it stands as perhaps the last of what might be considered his "middle period." (If we call the early period the apprentice work in short fiction and the flood of uneven novels mostly for Ace, and start the "middle period" maybe with his Hugo winner, The Man in the High Castle (1962).) It seems to me quite characteristic of that body of work, though to my mind it ranks below the peak of his oeuvre.

The plot and setting are something of a mess, though I think this is partly by design. Jason Taverner is a successful pop singer (more in the Frank Sinatra mode than in any plausible 70s mode), and also the host of a very successful TV variety show. He lives in the US in 1988, in a future where almost all black people have either been killed or sterilized. There are flying cars, but otherwise the milieu is somewhat seedy and not too different from our real 1974. He believes himself to be a "six," one of a group of genetically enhanced individuals.

Then one day Jason Taverner is erased from existence. His records do not appear anywhere in the government's exhaustive databases. As such, he is vulnerable for arrest and assignment to a forced labor camp. His agent has never heard of him, and neither has his sometime mistress and costar and fellow "six", Heather Hart. He stumbles through a couple of difficult days, mostly marked by encounters with differently needy women: Kathy Nelson, who forges papers for him; Ruth Rae, another former mistress who doesn't remember him but is happy to take him in again; Mary Anne Dominic, a talented potter who helps him out of another fix; and perhaps most importantly Alys Buckman, the drug-addict sister of Police General Felix Buckman, with whom she carries on an incestuous relationship. Taverner is constantly under purview of the police, especially Buckman (the title "policeman")... confusingly arrested and released repeatedly, even as his identity is eventually restored.

As I said, the plot doesn't really make much sense. And the setting is absurd if one attempts to see it as a plausible 1988: certainly it makes no sense today, but it was also impossible from the point of view of 1974. One almost wonders if the original notion for the novel was conceived in the 50s. (Especially given that Taverner is much more an early 50s pop star than a 70s or 80s pop star.) But I actually think that Dick had no interest whatsoever in displaying a plausible future. He just wanted a vehicle for his wild speculations. Which turn out to be rather interesting: Taverner's situation, his loss of identity is given a philosophically intriguing explanation. And the main characters -- Taverner and Buckman -- are well depicted though neither is very sympathetic.

The novel is well worth reading, for reasons that are hard to explain. For all that it's an implausible mess, it is weirdly intriguing. Dick's ideas are always absorbing. That said, the ideas here are not as thought-provoking as in his best novels, the characters not as interesting, the plot not terribly strong. And of course Dick was never anything special as a stylist. In all ways, I must rank this novel as Dick at less than his best. But still somehow he held my interest.

I liked Time but was a bit disappointed in it only because I assumed Gumm was going to be trapped inside a computer. I read a review that seemed to hint at this, and I had been warped by too much Matrix and Dark City. Thus I was surprised to see that Gumm was really living in a big prop-town like Truman Show. It's like seeing the movie preview like Batman and saying, "This is gonna be awesome," and then walking away not totally satisfied. I must, however, give the Dickman his due because his books about hidden reality and alternative history strike me deep.
One more thing about Joint: Why did Dick start his book with a secondary character and not Gumm himself?

This was a very enjoyable book. Things slowly start to fall apart. The only weakness was the ending to me.
** SPOILERS **
One thing that kept hitting me as I read this, was several scenes were used almost exactly in The Truman Show. The filmakers should have given some credit to this book. I liked the way this book did it better than Truman Show though. In the movie, the viewer knows what is going on from the very begining. In this book, the story is told from the perspective of the protagonist, so you are in his shoes and are slowly made aware that something isn't quite right about this world, as it is slowly revealed.

It's difficult to talk a lot about what this book is about without giving important plot elements away. This was the first PKD book that I read and, while it is not as deep in meaning as some of his later works, I still think it's one of his best. Time Out of Joint takes place in a 1959 small town world where nothing is as it seems, and it should appeal to both the non-science fiction fan who wants a good suspenseful read, and to dedicated sci-fi readers.

Most serious student's of Philip K. Dick's literary career consider the height of his art to be a string of amazing novels that he wrote in the sixties. But even Dick's earliest novels are at least very interesting. THE COSMIC PUPPETS, for instance, is one of Dick's earliest works, far from the great works of the sixties, but still utterly fascinating. TIME OUT OF JOINT is one of the last novels before Dick's narratives became more complex and polished in the sixties. But that "more" has to be qualified. As one critic has written, Dick never wrote a truly great book. As a pulp writer, he was under tremendous financial pressure to wrap manuscript up rather than polish them. Even his best books like THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE and DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? are filled with literary infelicities, awkwardly constructed characters, and sketchy narratives. But this same critic remarked that while Dick never wrote that one great masterpiece like LeGuin's THE DISPOSSESSED or Keith Roberts's PAVANE, he may have written more "good" books than anyone else in the 20th century. He may have been merely a pulp writer, but he was a brilliant one.

TIME OUT OF JOINT, like so many of Dick's books from all periods of his career, reflects a preoccupation between what appears to be the case and what truly is. In a situation that other reviewers here have noted is reminiscent of THE TRUMAN SHOW, Ragle Gumm is at the center of a reality that has been constructed around him. He thinks it is 1959, but in fact it is 1998. He thinks he is the world's greatest champion in an ongoing newspaper contest, but in reality he is the central figure in the defense of Earth from attacks from Lunatics on the moon (it turns out the Lunatics are the good guys). The brilliance of the book comes from the way that Gumm's world is gradually undermined by bits of experience that don't quite jive with all the rest. Dick pretty much invented the alternative reality genre and while he would write even better examples in the sixties, few other writers would ever come up to the level of this book in any decade. In the world of alternative reality, Dick's main competition is himself.

The great thing about Philip K. Dick is that it is so hard to go wrong with any of his books. Even his weakest books, such as COUNTER-CLOCK WORLD or VALIS, have a lot to recommend them. If you have already read a great deal of Dick but have not read this one, I enthusiastically recommend it. If you have not read any Dick whatsoever, this is a great place to break in. Only, make sure it is not the last thing you read by him.

One of Philip Dick's more noted early novels is Time Out of Joint, from 1959. This was originally published in hardcover by Lippincott -- perhaps Dick's first appearance between boards.

The setting is what seems a first a slightly altered 1950s. The main character is Ragle Gumm, who makes his living solving a puzzle for a newspaper. Ragle lives with his sister and her husband. He carries on an somewhat unsatisfying affair with the rather immature wife of a not very pleasant neighbor. And he worries about his curious standing as the reigning puzzle-solving champion.

Slowly we realize that his world is somehow artificial. He (and his brother-in-law) uncover curious buried items, occasionally see strange things that seem to imply most everyone in the town in artificial, hear via crystal radio odd transmissions, and so on. One of the most symbolic findings is slips of paper with names of objects -- "the word is the thing", anyone? Most significant is when Ragle stumbles across newspapers and magazines from the future (1998 or so).

The general outline of what's going on with Ragle and his family should be relatively clear -- I'll leave the specific solution and the motivations for readers to discover. The basic idea is, then, familiar enough -- redolent of Daniel Galouye's slightly later novel Simulacron-3, just to name one. What makes the book stand out is for one thing the way Dick uses the 50s setting to comment, as if from the future, on the 1950s (and to do so with an aspect of nostalgia that almost makes the book seem as if written in 1998), also the portrayal of the characters, and finally a certain charged feeling of strangeness -- very much a central feature of much of Dick's work -- that gives the idea of inhabiting an artificial world -- "word as thing" or "signifier as object" if you will -- real psychological immediacy.

Having read many Philip K. Dick books, I find myself returning to this one the most (after _Man in the High Castle_, of course). I love the weirdness of the society on Mars, and I find the characters compelling and captivating. Like so many of Dick's books, one persistently approaches themes of reality in this one. Fun book with an ending I REALLY enjoy!

I really enjoyed this one. It slowed down a little in the middle, but after that, it got really good and pretty creepy. I have read Ubik, Flow My Tears, Scanner, and I think this is my favorite one of his books so far. The character of Manfred is especially cool.

I not a huge reader of science fiction, and the only Dick I've read is The Man in the High Castle. Seeking to remedy this underexposure, I picked up this entry in the "Masterworks" series. Originally written in 1964 (and boy does it feel like it), the story is set amidst struggling human colonies on Mars. There, we meet a whole host of one-dimensional characters -- union boss, electronics repairman, robot teacher, poor native Martians, black marketeer, psychiatrist, and so on. The plot is set in motion by the impending United Nations-led development of the "FDR" mountain range. This sparks a greedy union boss to embark on a harebrained scheme to channel the untapped psychic abilities of schizophrenics in an attempt to see into the future in order to learn which parcels of real-estate are worth speculating on. No, really...

I managed to make through most of this setup, about 1/3 of the way into the book, before giving up. The story moves at a glacial pace, with a ton of plodding discussion of schizophrenia and autism and how they relate. The characters are so flat, the dialogue so mundane, and the plot so banal, that the book feels mainly like Dick's attempt to write his way to understanding schizophrenia. (Dick apparently suffered from mental illness himself.) Not being a mental health professional, I have no idea to what extent the portrayal of schizophrenics or autism is realistic -- but at a certain point I realized that I didn't care about any of the characters and I didn't care about the situation, and so there was little point in continuing. The ideas aren't interesting, the writing is pedestrian at best, and it's hard to imagine Dick being capable of worse.

In this major novel, first published in 1964, Dick effectively utilizes multifocal viewpoints to comment on the nature of the schizophrenic experience and its implications for our evaluation of "normal" experience. The precognitive schizophrenic boy, Manfred Steiner, into whose mind the narrative sometimes strays, sees the world as entropic, in continual decline, as the horrifying spirit of the Gubbler pervades everything, reducing all communication to meaningless "gubble" and all life to dust and rot. Schizophrenia is seen here as a horror in which the dark shadowy fears and inner demons are let loose into the day world of ordinary consciousness. Manfred innocently projects his deranged vision so powerfully on others that they begin to see things the way he does, causing one main character's time-sense to become non-chronological. It seems to have the power of a pervasive, infectious disease in this novel, replicating itself throughout the fabric of society. It is interesting to read this in contrast with another sixties book about the schizophrenic experience, R. D. Laing's The Politics of Experience (1967. Dick hardly soft-pedals the horrific aspects of the disorder, but like Laing also plays with the possibility that the psychotic may sometimes glimpse reality more fully than "normal" people can.

Next to reading "The Man in the High Castle", I was prepared to read something as deep and as drawn out as that Hugo winning quasi-science-fiction novel from the same author. "Martian Time-Slip" is described as being similar in nature to that style of writing. I also discovered "Clans of the Alphane Moon", "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (Blade Runner), "Ubik" and "The Simulacra", all of which are 5 star reads, "Martian-Time Slip" comes highly recommended because it is in the top twenty science-fiction books, Orion Publishers and the SF Masterworks series listing it as #13 in their collection. Unfortunately I was surprised by how little I enjoyed any of it and in fact I hated a lot of it, however the author should be credited and published for creating this world, but as for reading it... well that is a totally different matter. This is an oddity, more for collectors than readers. I am glad to have it in my Philip K. Dick collection.... However, it is at the back of his collection.

Mars is populated by settlers from Earth, starting a new world there, with Bleekmen Martians, like primitive man, selling trinkets to earthlings, who mostly need clean water, which is owned by the waterworks manager, Arnie Kott, who has acquired a former mentally ill repairman, Jack Bohlen, to plug into the mind of an autistic boy, Manfred, who might be able to see the future and tell him why the UN wants to buy in on Mars soil. Jack's father arrives from Earth, turns out to be a prospector and Jack ends up double-crossing Kott, over and over again in alterative universes, until he figures what is going on and by that stage you just don't care because there is no ending, there is no science-fiction, the politics and extraterrestrial real estate scams became moot long ago, the penetration of the mysteries of being and time totally abstract to the point of meaninglessness anywhere else except in Dick's mind, then we get his over-excuse for adultery neatly wrapped in a package "Sleep with other people so that you get to know what your spouse is doing right and wrong", Dick who happens to have been married five times, really doesn't come across as that faithful to his characters and his alter-ego chews through them, mostly sexually, and quite disturbingly, ending up in a Dick book that doesn't quite have the same panache as anything I have read from him before.

Even though "Martian Time-Slip" puts forward some very interesting notions that make you think ah, here it comes, the plot or the twist, it never really does. Instead you end up with an extended soap opera on Mars, not that this is a bad idea, Dick writes good soap into his science-fiction ("Clans of the Alphane Moon" does it well), but the soap here pretty much envelops any science-fiction under all the smut and suds that come out of nowhere around page 100 and continue to dominate the later half of the book with the theories discussed in pages 70 to 100, never going anywhere, after the huge 70 page opening, yes many of you will be wasting your time, characters are introduced far too slowly, jacked around half way through the story and replaced by new characters towards the end, meaning what you have covered so far has been lost to the warping and bending of time in the story, unfortunately not working out as a good read, but maybe as good writing, and certainly Philip K. Dick can not be faulted for his literature skills, dialogue or introduction of descriptions that should have occurred towards the start of the book, we don't mind all of this, but the story thus is boring, without centre and does not deliver on a payoff like the last two or three pages of "The Man in the High Castle." It isn't like that work at all. This is a self-serving science fiction rant to explain the author's own problems with mental health and infidelity.

As many of you know Dick can be more suggestive than fleshing out those suggestions. Here he makes a suggestion that quite frankly we are not in the least bit interested in because of the way he puts it forward, that some people's mental illness can be confused with people who really have special talents, but the story boxes this concept into replaying a scene a couple of times over again in variation each time, the Martian Time-Slip explained by changes in people's perceptions, this concept comes up in the middle of the book, then takes a back seat to more suds and soap about adultery... and never emerges again. I am glad to be free of this book. That is not a good sign.

It hurts me to say this but... "Martian Time-Slip" stinks. Only get it to see into the mind of a science-fiction writer beginning to question the depths of the mind and reasons for his own unfaithfulness. If you want to learn more about Dick through his work, then certainly this has lots of insight, but the story, not even close to what he is capable of doing.

I am going to move onto "A Scanner Darkly" next. Hopefully that will go a bit better than this one did. Five stars all the way and then this bumpy ride. Only get this Philip K. Dick if you have read everything else. Comes nowhere even close to #13 place that Orion SF Masterworks gave it.

I've been an avid PKD fan for years, but I've never been able to work my way through his VALIS trilogy. Not sure why. Radio Free Albemuth is a good alternative, in my opinion, to VALIS. It's classic PKD but more accessible than VALIS. The idea behind Radio Free Albemuth, similar to all of PKD's stories, is brilliant: there was once a link between humans and a higher intelligence, helping humans to advance. The link has become tenuous and is about to be lost forever, thanks to the fear and stupidity of some humans. Unlike some PKD novels, Radio Free Albemuth remains a satisfying read to the very end -- it is highly recommended.

Essentially, this is another version of VALIS. I recommend VALIS often, especially to readers who tell me they've read a book or two of his (usually Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and haven't been all that impressed, or people who are looking for something totally out of joint. VALIS, if you're even considering this book, should be read first. Radio Free Albemuth is actually an earlier version of VALIS. It's bland, by comparison, though more firmly delineated in its themes. So if you've read VALIS and are having trouble grappling its web, pick this up and chisel. Many don't realize that Dick, though hardly a great prose stylist, is a formidable literary mind that speaks in very complex ways to many of the themes studied in his more respected contemporaries.

RFA combines concepts from VALIS, The Divine Invasion, A Scanner Darkly, The Man in the High Castle, and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. This is the rejected original version of VALIS, althouth I find that hard to understand after reading it since it's so brilliant and unique. It's arguably better than VALIS for the fact that it contains all of the same themes in the context of a better story. One of the strong points of this novel is the dialogue - there are some unforgettable conversations here between Phil and Nicholas, the two main characters. Two other memorable characters are a mysterious cancer patient named Sadassa Silva and an ex-preacher named Leon at the very end. This book gives you the perfect combination of Dick's religious cosmology and his political philosophy. In most of his books, one of these is prominent over the other, but RFA gives you the perfect blend. I also felt that this completed and complemented VALIS. In an amazing way (fitting of one theme in the book itself), it's a good thing that RFA was rejected by Dick's editors 30 years ago. It caused him to write two masterpieces about the same things, and now we get to read them both.

This was one of the most satisfying and important reads of my life. Everyone should experience it - especially those with an affection for metaphysics - but even if you don't, this will open up your mind.

some interesting ideas of course, but tiresomely paranoid. Dick is reaching for religious explanations for his own madness. his brain at this point is like a pinball machine that has experienced "tilt". one of my very favorite authors, but unlike many who love the Valis trilogy i don't much care for his work after 1970. your mileage may vary.

Book five of my 39 book PKD odyssey. Radio Free Albemuth is Dick's last book. So far it's my favorite of the lot. Radio Free Albemuth has two main characters, one of which is Philip K. Dick - who watches his friend receive information from mysterious extra-planetary sources. The other is that friend. Taking place is a typically PDK police state in the US and amusingly self-referential (if you're the main character how can you not be), Nicholas receives incomprehensible information that slowly forms into a coherent message. A very controlled book without much of the frenetic pace of his earlier works.