Ubik
A Novel
HarperCollins · Print & ebook · April 17, 2012
Named one of Time's 100 Best Books, Ubik is a mind-bending, classic novel about the perception of reality from Philip K. Dick, the Hugo Award-winning author of The Man in the High Castle. “From the stuff of space opera, Dick spins a deeply unsettling existential horror story, a nightmare you’ll never be sure you’ve woken up from.”—Lev Grossman, Time Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business — deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies.
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- Who it’s for
- A cerebral science-fiction nightmare where reality refuses to hold still.
- Themes
- Perception of reality, Existential horror, Psychic espionage
- Genres
- Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi Crime, Visionary Fiction
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For younger readers: The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza, Mindwar, Game Over
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Named one of Time's 100 Best Books, Ubik is a mind-bending, classic novel about the perception of reality from Philip K. Dick, the Hugo Award-winning author of The Man in the High Castle. “From the stuff of space opera, Dick spins a deeply unsettling existential horror story, a nightmare you’ll never be sure you’ve woken up from.
Continue reading
”—Lev Grossman, Time Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business — deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter’s face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time. As consumables deteriorate and technology gets ever more primitive, the group needs to find out what is causing the shifts and what a mysterious product called Ubik has to do with it all. “More brilliant than similar experiments conducted by Pynchon or DeLillo.”—Roberto Bolaño
Reality Unsteady
A cerebral science-fiction nightmare where reality refuses to hold still.
Come here for
- Reality-bending ideas edged with existential horror
- The pleasure of watching familiar rules come undone
Expect
- A layered, unsettling ride through shifting time and perception
- Technology growing stranger—and more primitive
Where it sits
| Sci-Fi | 80% |
|---|---|
| Sci-Fi Crime | 28% |
| Visionary Fiction | 24% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- The Classics
- Contemporary Fantasy
- Horror
- Literary Fiction
Show all 8 publisher categories
- Sci-Fi
- Hard Sci-Fi
- Space Opera
- Time Travel Fiction
- Authors
- Philip K. Dick
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Published
- April 17, 2012
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Perception of reality · Existential horror · Psychic espionage
- Reading lane
- The Classics