Ubik
★★★★★
In a future world where psi and anti-psi powers are for hire, where objects are smart and require micropayments, where people are frozen at the moment of death to live out a prolonged half-life, we have a murder mystery wrapped in a speculation on the nature of reality.
Interesting ideas abound in the first half of the book leading up to an assassination on the moon. I liked the first half. It was a slightly unhinged view of the future which I’d like to have seen explored in more depth. Unfortunately, our characters were flat and unengaging, we’re often explicitly told what to think about them rather than letting them show us, and they’re mostly memorable for a sartorial Cambrian explosion where everyone seems to dress like a child run amok in the dress-up box (I particularly enjoyed these, both men: “tweed toga, loafers, crimson sash and a purple airplane-propeller beanie” and “fuchsia pedal-pushers, pink yak fur slippers, a snakeskin sleeveless blouse and a ribbon in his waist-length, dyed white hair”).
Dick is great at riffing, spewing forth rough ideas without explanation or exploration - what’s a crypto-chrome-plated reclining chair? It sounds fun but it doesn’t make for deep worldbuilding or a clear mental picture for the reader.
In the second half, post-assassination, the book changes tack as we descend through altered realities. We miss the opportunity to explore the future as our characters seemingly travel back in time - our protagonist moves aimlessly from location to location with little plot development while he tries to figure out the answer to what’s going on. Eventually the confused answer to the mystery is expositorially revealed with questions left unsatisfyingly hanging. As you can tell, I was much less enamoured by the latter half.
This was an interesting setup of a future with its psi tug of war and extreme capitalism, which wasn’t followed through, and a psychoanalytical reflection on the nature of reality, which had potential but was confusingly obscured by the narrative misdirection of the murder-mystery plotting. A fun read, but not a memorable one.
