The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

The July group read author was Philip K Dick and there was a joint winner of Ubik and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Whether you have already read them or plan to do so feel free to discuss here.

I know it's not one of the chosen books but I quite wanted to read Dr. Bloodmoney. Has anybody read it and if so is it one of his better books?

I have read both Ubik and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I hardly remember Ubik, but I thought it wasn't one of PKD's best. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was better, but I don;t remember a lot of the detail. I think it is so well known because of the movie they made of it, Blade Runner.

Sorry Jo, I haven't read Dr. Bloodmoney.

I'm reading Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep at the moment. It's quite a weird experience having seen Blade Runner probably half a dozen times over the years - very much "the same but different".

I'm about to start reading Do Androids Dream. I've heard that Bladerunner is better but that it's still worth reading. A convenient coincidence that it should be the July read!

I've finished Do Androids Dream now. As I mentioned above it was quite strange reading something when I was so familiar with the (loose) adaptation.

I quite enjoyed this book - I thought in some ways it worked better than Blade Runner. I thought the whole artificial / real animal theme recurring through the book was a little on the nose at times, but making more of it than the film did was a good counterpoint to the main human / android theme.

I've nearly finished, like it quite a lot so far. It has a very different tone to the film, touching more on different aspects. I really like the whole animal concept. It's interesting how a persons status seems to be defined by whether or not they can afford a real/android animal.

I don't want to spoil the book for anyone so i won't go into detail but I really enjoyed a particular moment in the book where the plot suddenly takes quite a different turn to the film and makes you question a lot of things.

I think Joel nailed my feelings of 'Do androids' very well.

Just finished it. Good book. The whole mercerism sub-plot is quite odd though.

I've been re-reading Ubik and I had forgotten what it was about. It's one of his confusing novels with telepaths and pre-cogs where you never know what is real. There's a nice quote midway through which says:

"One has to pay attention to such admonitions, he realised, if one expects to stay alive - or half alive.
Whichever it is."

I think it sums it up nicely.

I just finished reading Dick's The Man In The High Castle with my meetup group. About ten of us met tonight to discuss it. It was one of our better discussions, in my opinion. Most people liked it at least a little, some liked it a lot. It was the perfect book to read after 1Q84. I think Murakami borrowed a lot from it. It has a lot of layers to it. Definitely one of Dick's best books.for today, I like it better than either of these, but I suspect that might change if I reread one of them. I think my favorite of his books shifts depending on which I've read most recently.

Though I didn't do the group reads, having read them before, I did read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick. It is typical of PKD in it absurdity and bizarreness. It reads like a drug induced dream story about people having drug induced halucinations. I don't know why I read Dick. There is not book of his that I can call a favorite and yet, I have listed him (officially) as a favorite author. He is among my most read authors, right up there with Heinlein and Asimov. Every time I read a PKD book, I wonder why do I read this stuff? and then I anticipate reading the next one. It's not that Dick's writing style is so great, it's not. I guess it's the weirdness that keeps bringing me back. And then after having read them, they fade from my memory like a weird dream, because they are like weird dreams. And so, even though I read our two group reads in the not too distant past, within the last two or three years, I can't remember them well enough to discuss them.

Buck wrote: "Though I didn't do the group reads, having read them before, I did read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick. It is typical of PKD in it absurdity and bizarreness. ..."

Stigmata was the book that scared Dick himself the most after he finished writing it. I think Dick's writing style is often pretty good, but it's his structure that he's known for. He based his novel structure on French classics, so his novels are quite different from what was typically going on in the U.S. I think it's also what makes Dick a difficult read for some people.

I don't find Dick particularly difficult to read. I didn't realize that some people did. It is the style of the stories that he wrote - they are unique. If people don't care for Dick, I would expect it to be more a matter of taste. Vonnegut is the closest to Dick, in story style, that I can think of offhand, but Vonnegut's generally had more satire than Dick's and are weird in a different way. With regard to French classics, that reference is far too arcane for my meager literary erudition.

The Man in the High Castle is sometimes cited as Dick's masterpiece, but I didn't much care for it. With an alternate history premise, it is perhaps one of his least weird works.

I think I tend to like his shorter works better. I recently enjoyed The Minority Report. The movie they made of it also was quite good, though it diverged quite a bit from the story. There have been a number of movies made of Dick's stories that are like that, Blade Runner being one.

I didn't like Man in the High Castle much the first time around. I've read it 2 or 3 times since and it definitely gets better with repeat readings. But I think my favorite Dick book changes depending on which I've read recently, so Man in the High Castle is my current favorite. I want to reread Palmer Eldritch soon, but I'm not sure when I'll have the chance.