Ubik
By Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick certainly lived in a strange, magical, and uncomfortable world. Drugs, paranoia, and spiritualism constitute the primary ingredients. In Ubik, Dick puts all on display in a mind bending romp through the worlds of the living and the almost dead, in what was for those of 1969, the publication year of Ubik, the near future, 1992.
In this world of the tomorrow, Earthlings have settled on Luna, which they reach by rocket in an hour or so. They use rockets, too, to jump between Earth cities. And they number among themselves all manner of psychics who can read and manipulate (telepaths and precogs) ordinary people.
Thankfully, there exists also a population of professionals (called inertials) who can intercept these psychic signals and block them. Principal character Glen Runciter, in his eighties, operates a company (known as a prudence organization), Runciter Associates, comprised of the latter. He consults with his very young wife from time to time for guidance.
Ella, unfortunately, died. She exists in a state called half-life, which is a form of cryonic suspension. Half-life doesn’t equate to eternal life; eventually, over many years, the last brainwaves diminish to nothing and true death takes over. Lurking within this world of weakened brainwaves are half-lifers bent on extending their slim hold on existence by eating weaker half-lifers. One of these, fourteen-year-old Jory Miller, has been harassing Ella and her fellow half-lifers at the Beloved Brethren Moratorium, where she rests.
The novel opens with Glen Runciter taking on a new assignment, clearing magnate Stanton Mick’s lunar facility of psychic interference. To accomplish the mission, Runciter assembles a large team of inertials, chief among them Joe Chip and Pat Conley. Chip is something of a spendthrift, always finding himself lacking funds for the most mundane purchases, not a good state of affairs in a world that literally nickels and dimes you to death (for example, you must pay your front door a nickel each time you want to enter or exit, your refrigerator to put in and take out food, etc.; it’s capitalism run amuck in a funny way). He’s Runciter’s second in command. Conley, new to the team and on her first mission, possesses an unusual, and new to both Runciter and Chip, talent. She can alter time or create alternative realities. Once on Luna, in the Stanton facility, they encounter an ambush, an explosion that seems to leave them pretty much unscathed, except for Runciter, who dies and needs to be rushed immediately to the Beloved Brethren Moratorium. It appears to be a trap set by Ray Hollis, chief of a band of psychics, designed to eliminate a primary impediment to expanding business.
All find their survival and Runciter’s sole death peculiar. By their estimation, all should have been killed in the exposition. Back on Earth, though, one by one they begin to perish. Also, the world takes on an odd dimension. Everything appears to be regressing into a former version of itself, or in the case of perishables, crumbling to dust. As each dies, the survivors discover themselves moving back in time, until they arrive at 1939. Reality doesn’t seem to make sense anymore. Suspicion falls on Pat, as she has the ability to distort time. Joe suspects that Hollis has planted her in Runciter Associates. In fact, their dilemma turns out to be something completely different, as readers will learn for themselves.
In Ubik, Dick manages to blend the supernatural, science fiction, spiritualism, a mystery, and unhealthy doses of paranoia into one very satisfying novel. Time magazine’s book editors compiled a list of the top 100 novels from 1923 to 2010, the year they published the list. Ubik made the list that included Lolita, The Lord of the Rings, Slaughterhouse-Five, among them. If you are looking for a good, approachable introduction to Philip K. Dick, you’ll find Ubik an excellent entry point. w/c
Writer / Critic 