The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

comparing The Man in the High Castle on the page vs. screen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzNwd...

I recently read Ubik and the Eye in the Sky in the same week. A month later, I went to a book club meeting on Ubik and found I was confused and was merging the details of the 2 books. I had not even realized how similar the stories were! One of our group members had brought a book about PKD and found a blurb stating that the author admitted that those 2 books plus a few others were the same story retold. I wish I would’ve know that before reading them! I wouldn’t have read them so close together.

Another of his two books that are basically the same story but with many differences are VALIS and Radio Free Albemuth.

Reading the two of them together is confusing but fun.

Pam wrote: "I recently read Ubik and the Eye in the Sky in the same week. A month later, I went to a book club meeting on Ubik and found I was confused and was merging the details of..."

Authors are notorious for making derogatory statements about their own writing. Austen frequently told people that her works were "nothing". Walter Tevis, who wrote Mockingbird, said that this amazing work was just him battling alcoholism. Ursula Leguin told people that The Lathe of Heaven was based on a misinterpreted statement of Chinese philosophy and was a monumental mistake. Etc., etc. You get my point.

PKD was no stranger to this sort of self-bashing. I read somewhere that he really wanted to be a general fiction writer and was crushed that his science fiction was what people wanted him to write. His general fiction never sold well. He beat himself up constantly.

I beg to differ with the author concerning those two works. You may think that no one knows the work as well as the author who created it, but that isn't necessarily the case. In Critical Interpretation class long ago we learned that once a work of literature has been published, the author loses control of its meaning. Publication is the time when various theories of literary analysis can be applied, and if you think you've read everything, you've never read an essay on how Queer Theory can be applied to Great Expectations.

Ubik is a book venturing into PKD's "Tomb World" (google it). This was a concept which popped up in many of his science fiction novels. Essentially, the characters have died and are completely unaware of it, with an even more final death looming right around the corner. Eye in the Sky is a classic work of simulated reality in which everyone is alive but mentally trapped in a shared delusion because of the technology which generated the field holding them. Simply because they are works of simulated reality does not mean that they are the same novel; I never took them to be the same. As a matter of fact, PKD wrote more novels concerning simulated reality than any other science fiction author, and all of his novels usually include at least some simulated situation. He was the master of this sub-genre.

Don't always listen to authors who beat up on themselves.

Anybody have anything helpful to say about The Crack In Space? I've read a few stories by PKD, but usually have some trouble appreciating them. This I happen to own, and so I want to at least try it....

Cheryl wrote: "Anybody have anything helpful to say about The Crack In Space? ..."

It certainly isn't one of his more famous ones. There is probably a reason for that. I've read lots of PKD and had never even heard of this one.

That said, I've never read anything by him that I didn't enjoy on some level.

Cheryl wrote: "Anybody have anything helpful to say about The Crack In Space? I've read a few stories by PKD, but usually have some trouble appreciating them. This I happen to own, and so I want to ..."

I own it but I haven't read it yet. It's about the first black president of the U.S. facing an overpopulation crisis. People are apparently stacked up in stasis boxes because there are just too many for available resources. Then someone finds a passageway to a parallel universe, which they at first think they can stick all of the excess people into it before learning that it's already inhabited by a native population. And time moves faster there than here. That's all I know.

Pam wrote: "I recently read Ubik and the Eye in the Sky in the same week. A month later, I went to a book club meeting on Ubik and found I was confused and was merging the details of..."

I also noticed the similarities between these two books. I commented on it in my review of Eye in the Sky.

I used to be a big PKD fan. I've read about 20 of his books. Lately, though, I'm enjoying his stuff less and less. I think I've read my last PKD for a while.

Buck wrote: "I used to be a big PKD fan. I've read about 20 of his books. Lately, though, I'm enjoying his stuff less and less. I think I've read my last PKD for a while."

I think I've hit that point myself. For awhile I was reading all of his major works, and all of the ones about simulated reality, definitely, but I was really disappointed with both Our Friends from Frolix 8 and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. So now I need a reprieve.

I have never greatly enjoyed PKD books, but often I'm urged to give it another try by friends, who like his work. This month I plan to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

That's my favorite of all of his, Oleksandr.

I prefer Ubik.

Ed wrote: "I prefer Ubik."

That's the first one I read. My experiment to see if I liked PKD enough to begin at the beginning.

He passed the test with flying colors.

Susan wrote: "Ed wrote: "I prefer Ubik."

That's the first one I read. My experiment to see if I liked PKD enough to begin at the beginning.

He passed the test with flying colors."

That was also the first PKD book that I ever read, and it remains my favorite.

My favorites (5 stars) are The Man in the High Castle and A Scanner Darkly but I really enjoyed (4 stars) Ubik, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and his short story collection The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 4: The Minority Report. I enjoyed (3 stars) Radio Free Albemuth and Vulcan's Hammer but not enough to recommend as a good place to start reading Dick's catalogue. The only one of his books that didn't do much for me was The Game-Players of Titan.

Randy wrote: "My favorites (5 stars) are The Man in the High Castle and A Scanner Darkly but I really enjoyed (4 stars) Ubik, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said was pretty lame. It was not one of PKD's better efforts.

I'm very big into the sub-genre of simulated reality so I would have to give five stars to: Ubik, Eye in the Sky and A Maze of Death, Time Out of Joint, The Penultimate Truth, and The Cosmic Puppets. Fours stars for me would be: Martian Time-Slip, Now Wait for Last Year, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and The World Jones Made.

Now what would be great would be a discussion of which PKD books we hated and why. I say with absolute sincerity that I HATED Dr. Futurity. It made my skin crawl.

I don't hate any of them. But didn't like Deus Irae.

Rachel Adiyah wrote: "Now what would be great would be a discussion of which PKD books we hated and why."

VALIS: Dick is an absurdist. Many of his writings are weird and bizarre. Valis is an arcane exposition of weird delusional theology. It is bizarre to say the least, and there even are a few tidbits of truth, but, like many other things in life, it is ruined by the fervor of religion.

Rachel Adiyah wrote: "Randy wrote: "...Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said was pretty lame. It was not one of PKD's better efforts."

Uh, I believe I was misquoted.

Randy wrote: "Rachel Adiyah wrote: "Randy wrote: "...Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said was pretty lame. It was not one of PKD's better efforts."

Uh, I believe I was misquoted."

Rachel, in message 17, messed up the html marker for italics and so her reply to you looks like you wrote it.

Rachel Adiyah wrote: "I'm very big into the sub-genre of simulated reality so I would have to give five stars to: Ubik, Eye in the Sky and A Maze of Death, Time Out of Joint, The Penultimate Truth, and The Cosmic Puppets. Fours stars for me would be: Martian Time-Slip, Now Wait for Last Year, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and The World Jones Made...."

I liked The World Jones Made a little bit more than Time Out of Joint, Eye in the Sky, and The Cosmic Puppets because of its philosophical themes.

Buck wrote: "Dick is an absurdist. Many of his writings are weird and bizarre. Valis is an arcane exposition of weird delusional theology. It is bizarre to say the least, and there even are a few tidbits of truth, but, like many other things in life, it is ruined by the fervor of religion. ..."

The theology is what primarily interested me in Dick. Valis in particular. But I thought I might not understand it without first getting to know Dick from his earlier fiction, so I tried Ubik as an experiment and now I'm reading his early SF novels. Soon I'll "graduate" and be ready for the Valis trilogy and the exegesis.

I'm currently reading The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Stories. It's taking forever because I'm writing a mini-review for each story.

I'm more of a novel person than a short story person, but Dick makes a solid argument for the short story as the "sf form par excellence." He says that many of his novels are "fusions of several stories." When I was reading The World Jones Made, I remember thinking that it seemed like four different stories. Looks like I was right.

Buck wrote: "Rachel Adiyah wrote: "Now what would be great would be a discussion of which PKD books we hated and why."

VALIS: Dick is an absurdist. Many of his writings are weird and bizarre. Val..."

Didn't Dick also say in VALIS that what he perceived to be a simulated reality might also simply be his own schizophrenia?

Cheryl wrote: "Randy wrote: "Rachel Adiyah wrote: "Randy wrote: "...Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said was pretty lame. It was not one of PKD's better efforts."

Uh, I believe I was misquoted."

Rachel, in message..."

I did mess up the italics, but that WAS Randy's quote, not mine. I never said that FMTTPS was pretty lame, that was all Randy, no matter what he wants to admit to or not.

PKD, the man and his books, are a ripe subject for parody, pastiche and satire.

Have any of you read Lint or The Cardboard Universe: A Guide to the World of Phoebus K. Dank. Both are essentially fake biographies of an author very much like PKD. I didn't enjoy "Lint" well enough to finish it, but did mostly enjoy "The Cardboard Universe".

I also enjoyed the homage Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas.

Any other books of this sort?

Ed wrote: "PKD, the man and his books, are a ripe subject for parody, pastiche and satire.

Have any of you read Lint or [book:The Cardboard Universe: A Guide to the World of Phoebus K. Dank|402..."

I take it that you're one of those people who consider PKD pretty ridiculous?

Rachel Adiyah wrote: "I take it that you're one of those people who consider PKD pretty ridiculous? ..."

No. He is one of my favorite authors.

Ed wrote: "Rachel Adiyah wrote: "I take it that you're one of those people who consider PKD pretty ridiculous? ..."

No. He is one of my favorite authors."

He has been one of my favorites, but lately I've found that I've grown tired of him. Maybe I read all his good stuff. Never thought he was ridiculous though.

Buck wrote: "Ed wrote: "Rachel Adiyah wrote: "I take it that you're one of those people who consider PKD pretty ridiculous? ..."

No. He is one of my favorite authors."

He has been one of my favorites, but lat..."

I believe that I've exhausted his best works, as well. Aside from one of the last two major works of his which I hadn't read, I'm now mired in books like The Game-Players of Titan, which is just absolutely absurd. Aliens challenging the human race over a game vaguely resembling Monopoly, really?

Also I did not enjoy Our Friends from Frolix 8 at all, certainly not as much as I thought I would. I would have preferred it if there had been some innate flaw in the New Men that would have lead to their downfall, rather than just an alien taking them out; because if they were the next phase in human evolution, wouldn't the Old Men continue to birth them anyway?

The Game-Players of Titan was my least favorite of the PKD books I've read.

Randy wrote: "The Game-Players of Titan was my least favorite of the PKD books I've read."

Haven't read it, but sounds crazy. I don't think PKD is ridiculous, but some of his ideas are. Even in his best works, there are flaws that I choose to ignore. Even in the less-successful books, even when some parts of the story are ridiculous, there is always something there that is interesting. So, even though the basic idea of Counter-Clock World, for example, is unbelievable, the story is still engaging.

Randy wrote: "The Game-Players of Titan was my least favorite of the PKD books I've read."

My least favorite PKD book is Dr. Futurity. I just can't stomach it. The future society he imagined was simply loathsome, from their suicide highway overpasses to their "ethics" about dying from an injury rather than having it healed. When I read the word "euthanor" I wanted to vomit. I won't say anything further about it because it would include spoilers about the later parts of the plot, but I kept wishing that Dick would end up pulling his typical "this isn't real; this is all simulated" hat-trick, and for once he didn't. Yeach.

Rachel Adiyah wrote: "Randy wrote: "The Game-Players of Titan was my least favorite of the PKD books I've read."

My least favorite PKD book is Dr. Futurity. I just can't stomach it. The futu..."

Haven't read that one but I do have it on my shelf.

Susan wrote: The theology is what primarily interested me in Dick. Valis in particular. But I thought I might not understand it without first getting to know Dick from his earlier fiction, so I tried Ubik as an experiment and now I'm reading his early SF novels. Soon I'll "graduate" and be ready for the Valis trilogy and the exegesis.

Rachel Adiyah wrote: Didn't Dick also say in VALIS that what he perceived to be a simulated reality might also simply be his own schizophrenia?

I read VALIS not too long ago, and am still letting it all sink in. Loved the ride, it is absolutely beautiful.

I would say that the question whether 'simulated reality' coincides with PKD's personal delusions is transposed into a question of faith within the book. For me, this makes the answer (whether the exegesis is true or not) not necessarily the most interesting - conveying the experience and attitude is what makes the story of VALIS very powerful.

Theresa wrote: I read VALIS not too long ago, and am still letting it all sink in. Loved the ride, it is absolutely beautiful. "

Goodreads tells me that PKD is my fifth most read author. I've read 20 of his books. Valis is the only one I've rated lower than three stars.

Buck wrote: "Goodreads tells me that PKD is my fifth most read author. I've read 20 of his books. Valis is the only one I've rated lower than three stars."

Yikes! I've got that one coming up for a read this summer...

Theresa wrote: "I read VALIS not too long ago, and am still letting it all sink in. Loved the ride, it is absolutely beautiful. ..."

I plan to read a few more early novels first, then I'll probably "cheat" from chronological order and read Valis.

Randy wrote: "Buck wrote: ".... Valis is the only one I've rated lower than three stars."

Yikes! I've got that one coming up for a..."

Have no fear. It is pretty good, though a bit insane.

I think that PKD was best when he was drugged up and miserable in the fifties and sixties. When he became religious I just couldn't go on that ride with him.

I'm halfway through The Search for Philip K. Dick. (I'm tempted to shorten the title to "The Search for Dick" because I am permanently immature.)

It is written by his 2nd wife Anne. So some of the personal stuff in it about their marriage and divorce likely means much more to her than to me. He seemed like a pretty normal, but imperfect guy during the period they were together. It is only slightly interesting to me to hear about which fictional characters were based on which of his real-life friends. I'm more looking forward to later stuff.

Some points so far:
* Some of his books were submitted to be published long after they were written, so publishing order might not mean all that much.
* At least one of his SF books was written as a mainstream novel, and only converted to SF by moving part of the action to Mars. (I've forgotten which one.)
* At least one of his mainstream novels would have been published if he had been willing to make changes suggested by an editor.
* He used LSD once and only once and didn't like it. Amphetamines are a different story.
* He had Anne committed to a mental institution once. It was much easier for husbands to do that back then.
* He dated Grania Davis while she was still married to Avram Davidson. At one point Anne was having dinner with PKD while Grania was hiding in the closet!
* He lived for a little while in Berkeley with Walter Breen and Marion Zimmer Bradley. (Yikes! The book hasn't mentioned any of the stories about their sordid private life and controversies.)

Only a few hints of mental illness have started showing up yet. Like, he believed the CIA and FBI were investigating him (possibly true) and bugging his cat's litter box (hopefully not true). And he seems to have believe that Anne was spying on him via a manipulated Magnavox VCR.

Ed wrote: "I'm halfway through The Search for Philip K. Dick. (I'm tempted to shorten the title to "The Search for Dick" because I am permanently immature.)

It is written by his 2nd wife Anne...."

Interesting! Never knew that stuff about PKD, even though he's my favorite author. Now you've got me trying to figure out which novel was supposed to be general fiction but got switched to Mars. Let's see, there's Martian Time-Slip and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. There's a brief scene on Mars in Now Wait for Last Year.

But those books were definitely science fiction.

Does anyone know what this book might be?

Just looked it up. It was We Can Build You.

Ed wrote: "Just looked it up. It was We Can Build You."

Thanks! I haven't read that one, yet. But I'm putting it on my To-Read list.

Rachel Adiyah wrote: "Ed wrote: "Just looked it up. It was We Can Build You."

Thanks! I haven't read that one, yet. But I'm putting it on my To-Read list."

Per Wikipedia, author Gregg Rickman (who wrote a book about PKD - To the High Castle, Philip K. Dick: A Life, 1928-1962) has suggested that We Can Build You can be read as a prequel to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

I finally finished reading The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Stories. I wrote a little review of each of the stories, so it took forever. If anyone would like to talk about the stories, my review is here.

I finished with The Search for Philip K. Dick.

I had hoped to learn more about the "Pink Light" experience from someone who knew him. But unfortunately, Ann doesn't have any first-hand knowledge of that. She pretty much says that it happened just as described in Valis. But, to me, the way it is described in Valis makes no sense, so I'm still confused.

Ann says that the situation in A Scanner Darkly was also fairly accurate about what his living situation was like at one point.

I did get a better feel for what PKD was like as a person. Mostly he seems like a nice guy, but not someone you should get romantically involved with.

He did use lots of drugs, but mostly amphetamines, and mostly ones that were prescribed to him. Starting from an early age his mother had him take Ephedra for his asthma. He continued various uppers for his whole life, sometimes going for many days without sleeping, then crashing for a few days. It is hard to tell whether he had any mild mental disorder that was exacerbated by the drug use, or if he just experienced the same paranoia and other effects that anyone using such drugs and not sleeping gets.

It also became clear that you couldn't always trust him when he said weird things like thinking the VCR machine was spying on him, because he sometimes liked to just say things to trick people or see how they'd react.

A few provocative statements appeared one single time in the book with no follow-up. The biggest examples are that one time PKD told Ann that he had been sexually molested as a child. But there is no follow up. Was it true or was he pulling her leg? Another time one of the people Ann interviewed said that PKD's mother was an auditor in Scientology. Was that true?

He definitely had a complicated relationship with his mother, often saying that he hated her. But the root of that is unclear.

Hi Ed. This sounds like a book I should add to my TBR. I have two biographies of Dick on my bookshelves and I'm waiting until after I read Valis to read them.

Wikipedia has a list of the novels in order by date written, with notes about date published.

It would be nice to be able to create two "Series" here on GR to list the novels in both of those orders. However, GR policy only allows a "Series" for books that share the same characters or setting, so we'll just have to refer to an external resource like Wikipedia.