Ubik

I can’t decide what I should write about this book, Ubik* by Philip K. Dick. Mainly because I don’t want to be a spoiler, so I don’t really want to talk about the story.

There’s the delightfully simple cover design for the edition I’m reading, of course. I think it speaks for itself, though.

Maybe this: It’s so interesting to read a book that was published in 1969, and set (mainly) in 1992. Alyson was born in 1992. She probably doesn’t remember too much about that year, but I’m here to tell her that it’s pretty different from PKD’s vision in Ubik.

Isn’t it funny to read another person’s vision of a future that’s in your own past? Like for instance in the 1992 of Ubik—this doesn’t spoil anything, promise—we have colonized Mars and the moon, and you have to pay to use pretty much everything: 5 cents to open the door to your conapt (apartment), for example. No, we hadn’t colonized Mars or the moon by 1992… or 2012, even. But then…

Then there’s the anachronistic stuff. Is that the word I mean to use? I think so. So the setting is, what, 25 years later than when the book was written. How’s the music scene? I worked at a record store that year, in real life. Yes, we still sold some vinyl, mainly 12-inch singles meant for DJs. We had lots of tapes, and cassette singles. And CDs. Crap-loads of CDs. CDs were our main source of revenue. How was PKD to predict CDs? Our hero plays an LP (OK, yes, LPs have made a resurgence, and Patrick and I try to buy music on vinyl when possible—vinyl is final, as Jenny’s dad used to say—but still). And he has some tapes. In PKD’s 1992, you mainly listen to LPs and tapes.

But your refrigerator charges you to open it—10 cents, I think. And speaks to you. And people don’t know how to drive what they call “surface vehicles” (cars). All travel is by air/spaceship/whatever.

And then the clothing. The clothing is hysterical! Everyone seems to dress like a caricature of a complete freak. And PKD describes everyone’s outfit in great detail. Killer. It’s all like real and everything. I mean it’s kind of actually sometimes pieces that would have been worn in 1969 and even earlier. They just put their ensembles together, let’s just say, eccentrically.

It’s really a fun read. And in true PKD form has me wondering what the heck is real… to the characters and to myself.