UBIK is top 5, easily
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 26 January 2016 17:24 (eight years ago) link
i read Ubik in two sittings, the second one going from the first bomb blast to the very end. i was vibrating when it was over. ridiculously brilliant book. that's my second favorite after flow my tears
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 26 January 2016 17:27 (eight years ago) link
The most widely-renowned ones which I still haven't read are, I guess:
Flow My TearsPalmer EldritchValis
But it's been so long since I've read the other biggies that I really ought to go back to them
― scarcity festival (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 26 January 2016 17:27 (eight years ago) link
I feel like PKD has been a similar figure to Bowie for me the last couple of decades of my reading life: with Bowie I would just never play the records because I had this feeling like "Oh Bowie, sure, that stuff's in the water at this point, there's more important stuff for me to spend my time listening to." After he died, though, and I went on a still ongoing giant bowie jag I was like "damn why have I been minimizing the power/uniqueness of these records in my mind for so long? There's still so much food for me in these!"
And in the last couple of days reading this PKD thread it has occurred to me that I have been kind of sweeping him under the carpet too for a long time, in some kind of subconscious prickly-ego reaction against the ubiquity (lol) he has now attained as an influence. That's dumb. Honestly the idea of reading and rereading PKD sounds incredibly exciting to me rn. He conquered all of hipsterdom for a very good reason.
― scarcity festival (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 26 January 2016 17:35 (eight years ago) link
you should read all three of those, they're great
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 26 January 2016 17:35 (eight years ago) link
i tried getting into him four years ago, borrowed my friend's copy of The Man in the High Castle, and was totally thrown by the workmanlike prose and the relatively simple conceit. gave up 30 pages in. i read VALIS a year later and was hooked for life. Strange that so many people say VALIS is an awful place to start.
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 26 January 2016 17:40 (eight years ago) link
Ubik is great, really prime PKD. Obvious choices, I guess,but that and High Castle would be my favourites from his novels
― like Uber, but for underpants (James Morrison), Tuesday, 26 January 2016 21:17 (eight years ago) link
flappy you are living the lyfe
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 26 January 2016 22:07 (eight years ago) link
I read about one or two a year, Our Friends from Frolix-8 most recently. Good, but not top tier imo
― woof, Tuesday, 26 January 2016 22:20 (eight years ago) link
This was pretty good light zany reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zap_Gun
― dow, Wednesday, 27 January 2016 03:38 (eight years ago) link
Think the copy my local library used to have sported a better cover.
― dow, Wednesday, 27 January 2016 03:39 (eight years ago) link
Clans is so much fun
― flappy bird, Thursday, 28 January 2016 17:19 (eight years ago) link
it's funny how much of Dick's b-grade material just runs together for me, given that he recycled so many tropes and types and scenarios I always have a hard time remembering which one is about the people living underground in a post-nuclear drug-induced haze as opposed to which one is about the people living in a drug-induced haze and being controlled by telepathic aliens and Richard Nixon automatons or time-traveling idiot savants
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 28 January 2016 17:37 (eight years ago) link
so many homeopapes and conapts and wubfurs
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 28 January 2016 17:38 (eight years ago) link
and battleaxe ex-wives
― flappy bird, Thursday, 28 January 2016 18:54 (eight years ago) link
and mysteriously alluring innocent ingenues
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 28 January 2016 18:55 (eight years ago) link
slime molds
― carly rae jetson (thomp), Friday, 29 January 2016 11:23 (eight years ago) link
flapples
― めんどくさかった (Matt #2), Friday, 29 January 2016 17:16 (eight years ago) link
rubbish
― flappy bird, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:15 (eight years ago) link
GUBBISH
― flappy bird, Monday, 1 February 2016 01:36 (eight years ago) link
it would be kind of interesting to run data on his themes and motifs, intentional or un-.
slender dark-haired woman?character named 'pat'pottery?black iron prisons?WASPy guy with two-syllable name who works in HVAC or equivalent? Jim Gunt? Hank Zip? Gord Hapfh? gormless alien schmo?
― remy bean, Monday, 1 February 2016 02:36 (eight years ago) link
WASPy guy with two-syllable name who works in HVAC or equivalent? Jim Gunt? Hank Zip? Gord Hapfh?
oh man i never even noticed this one!
― carly rae jetson (thomp), Monday, 1 February 2016 11:58 (eight years ago) link
i thought and still think a good critical study could be written of dick that focuses on the themes/motifs/obsessions, not as psychologically revealing or whatever (blah) but as a kind of key to the processes of a certain kind of paraliterary reading, idk
― carly rae jetson (thomp), Monday, 1 February 2016 11:59 (eight years ago) link
character named 'pat'pottery?black iron prisons?
tbf these are only in a couple.
I would swap in "powerful male businessman w/fluid ethics and/or bitchy ex-wife"
― Οὖτις, Monday, 1 February 2016 16:12 (eight years ago) link
that pynchon thread revive makes me think that PKD is my TP. only PKD's shaggy hepcat hijinx easier for me to read and more entertaining and i get more WOW factor than i ever did from TP. PKD slays all beatniks too. in my book. no need to try to endure burroughs with him around.
(i never tried very hard with pynchon though. would get frustrated and bored and give up...)
― scott seward, Monday, 1 February 2016 16:20 (eight years ago) link
this is neat, i had no idea The Owl in Daylight was basically the premise of TRON, which came out seven months after PKD died http://www.avclub.com/article/read-philip-k-dicks-unfinished-final-novel-might-h-231491
― flappy bird, Monday, 1 February 2016 20:41 (eight years ago) link
huh. never heard that before.
― Οὖτις, Monday, 1 February 2016 20:44 (eight years ago) link
I have put holds on three P.K. Dick books at the library and plan to read one of them as my next book. Among these three titles, which should I read first:
Flow My Tears, the Policeman SaidA Scanner DarklyValis
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Tuesday, 8 December 2020 20:55 (three years ago) link
scanner darkly is my favorite of those three
― the late great, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 21:22 (three years ago) link
Mine too
― Lily Dale, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 21:24 (three years ago) link
Scanner is the most powerful of these three, but it's depressing
I like Flow My Tears, it's sort of a throwback (from 1974) to his classic style of the 1960s
Valis is theological metafiction, not my favorite of his modes but biographically important
― Brad C., Tuesday, 8 December 2020 21:38 (three years ago) link
scanner fucked me up, but is prob the best.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 21:43 (three years ago) link
Valis def for last, though I like them all, it's just a particular thing that is probably best coming at after you've read a few.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 22:17 (three years ago) link
yeah i think i've said it before on another thread (maybe the one about the film adaptation) but the end of scanner destroyed me
a more astute reader might see what's coming, but i didn't :(
― the late great, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 22:48 (three years ago) link
Scanner was the first thing by PKD I read, and though nothing else I've read by him has quite measured up to it, it wasn't a bad place to start. I actually think it gave me a lot more patience with his less coherent books than I would have had otherwise.
So I'd say Scanner, then Flow My Tears, then Valis.
― Lily Dale, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 23:34 (three years ago) link
Had totally forgotten about this thread (incl. my posts), thanks! On ILE, also worth keeping up with: philip k dick C/D, S+D
― dow, Wednesday, 9 December 2020 00:53 (three years ago) link