The scene where Pat taunts Joe Chip as he struggles to climb the stairs up to his hotel room is one of the most oddly disturbing things I've ever read in a science fiction book.
If I were to ever meet Christopher Nolan, the first question I would ask him would be if the ending to his movie, “Inception," was inspired in some way by UBIK.
I know I'm coming to this late but I see a few core things about this book. I think this is a good companion book to "...Palmer Eldritch". While TSoPE deals a lot with Christian ideas and Gnosticism, Ubik, as mentioned in the book, seems to focus and base its ideas on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This is particularly noticeable in the descriptions of the colors of light that one can go to at the end of their half-life. But in this world of Ubik, half-life is a simulated world in which people either exist as if it is a reality, or they have some ability perceive this artificial world and through that be able to manipulate or shape this world. This is where I think the film The Matrix heavily borrowed its ideas from (among other sources). Ella and Jory are like the Neo's and Agent Smiths. The other aspect I see definitely seems to revolve around consumerism and class disparity. Jory is this youthful soul vampire that is from a wealthy family. While the Half-Life company knows that Jory is affecting and disrupting other customer's half-lives, they don't do anything to prevent it, because his wealthy and powerful family pays for that. Additionally, it's disclosed in the book that there is a "Jory" in every half-life facility. It's like the dirty little secret of the industry. These businesses provide a service for people to have contact with their loved ones after they pass on, but unless you are wealthy or powerful, you aren't going to benefit much from the service because these wealthy and powerful half-lifers just use up most of the resources. This can mirror the way our world is today in that 95% of the world's wealth is owned by 1% of the population. And that wealth doesn't circulate or benefit the rest of society. Ubik is not so much a thing in their half-life world but the choice of Ella to give "ubiquitous" control back to the non-privileged. One thing I really enjoyed about the prose in this book is that how the writing style and narrative will have these hard shifts, some at first you don't notice, or you reread a bit because you think you might have missed something. But it's clearly intentional that it was meant to signify how the world around the characters is changing, but may not be perceivable to them.
As far as I can tell, Pat Conley is the villain -- one of several. Hollis hired her. GG Ashwood conspired with her. Jory, however, is just the malevolent spirit in half-life…or perhaps he's needed to silence the voices of half-lifers in the event the Prudence Society investigates. The goal = eliminate the competition (i.e. Glen Runciter & associates). Pat kept tweaking a single detail, & then lets the new timeline play out. When it didn't work to perfection, she'd revert back & tweak another detail. We know this from her first meeting with Joe Chip, &, more importantly, when Runciter first introduces her to the group of inertials at his offices & then he has a flash forward experience of a memory that Pat Conley ultimately wipes out (i.e. it's a year later, he's retired, in front of a coin shop on 5th Avenue, studying a coin, & recalling a memory of the moment before he introduced Pat Conley -- the current timeline in the story). To perfect Hollis' scheme, Pat had to arrange for Glen Runciter to be present when the humanoid bomb exploded -- the final tweaked detail. Then, in essence, you have two timelines converging, one moving forward in time, one moving backward in time, the one in which Runciter lived, and another in which he died….each interfacing in half-life. THIS book is by far one of the best I have ever read.
***Spoiler Alert*** So the two villains just happened to have the same ability to "regress" things in half-life? Damn it's funny, the "half-life" stuff feels like a misdirection/faint early on, then the Pat sequence pulls the rug under your feet but then again so does Jory (this is why I think it was him all along.)
OR Ubik is God - being everywhere and all-healing. Jory is Satan Pat is a demon - acting out Satan’s will and eventually being cast aside/killed by Satan Ella is Jesus Christ - serving as an intermediary making God accessible to those who seek Him...and Glenn Runciter (being married to Ella) is the Church - the community Joe longs for throughout the whole book.
i think one of the most interesting part of the book is the description of the emotion of the characters when noticing a car and elevator from the early 20th century that doesn't fit in the current time; it reminds me of some drug experiences where history becomes extremely scary, and seeing your own reality change into history is described perfectly and i agree it also has so much detail it seems perfect for a film
I already read The Man in the High Castle, The World Jones Made, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Valis, Scanner Darkly, Our Friends for Frolix 8. I'm currently reading Penultimate Truth. I'm looking to get a copy Ubik and Wait for Last Year.
Is it possible that all of his stories weave together into grand tapestry? Perhaps Pat Conley of ubik is somehow responsible for the Perky Pat dolls in 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch? Are her abilities to mess with precog ability by budging time merely the side effect of users visiting an earth domain from Mars? Moritorium Jory breaks into the neighboring half lifers ergic substructures the same way Palmer Eldritch has a ubiquity over the Chew z users perceived realities. He has come from proxima centauri which might just be a cold pak casket next to the milky way...I believe each novel to be stripes of a larger tiger that he had by the tail.
isn't ubik basically about finding the correct means for communing with God/reality/truth/oneness? ubik saves you from being messed with, but isn't that an analogy for how faith can gird you through a hopeless plight? it's about being too meta, essentially... and the penalties of that
In Ubik, there is maybe one moment where I felt that Dick departed from the strict 3rd person plural form, and lt seemed as if the author was smiling and letting you watch him smile. That's a rare moment for him as an author. Otherwise, the author is in the heads of all the characters at once rarely betraying himself as the guy behind everything.
I just started reading this book and was originally interested because I’ve been learning about PKD and his theory about simulated reality and consciousness and I was wondering what consciousness would be like in a world without time. Well I was listening to the exegesis of pkd and near the beginning he says something about how the world in Ubik is a world frozen in time but the characters are unaware. Did anybody else think about this concept ?
I know I am only just seeing this in 2018, but I saw the original Bladerunner with the narration in the theater and it became my number 3 favorite SF film of all time right then and there behnd only Solaris ('72 tarkovsky) and 2001. I had already been into PKD for a few years at that point and to see a movie get the layers of his books the way Bladerunner did made me so happy. It is a real shame it was overshadowed by Star Wars. the only visual versions of his work that impress me greatly are A Scanner Darkly and The Man in the High Castle.
I'm a big fan of On the Verge and Vergecast. I like your efforts here and attempt at this new show-book reviews. But, I also agree with the person suggesting a more relaxed atmosphere (possibly your couches and chairs which I see in 90 seconds on the Verge). Also, I am sure you will improve it in many ways, once you start tweaking it, as you go along. Good luck. Haven't finished watching yet, but hope you let us know which book is next in case we want to read it for next time.
they can film in the couch area in the background of 90 secs. Drinking coffee and using the clip-mics instead of the table-mounted ones. Cmon Vergeans! Make it happen!
Guys I think that this podcast is a great idea, however I think that you should film/record it in a different, more casual setting. Watching you guys discuss books in your current setting, for me, invokes a Pavlovian response, so I expect to hear news and banter about technology, not books. And where is Nilay and Paul!!!
***Spoiler Alert*** I confess that I couldn't listen to the entire show, but from what I did see, it seems that they completely missed the meaning of the book. Ubik is Jesus Christ, Ella is about to be born again ("reborn"). Jory is Satan. Joe Chip's atheistic, materialistic view of the world is being completely undone by a spiritual awakening that leaves him completely broken by his awareness of sin requiring the Holy Spirit to apply Ubik (the word, Logos). By Grace alone, through faith alone.
While this isn't the only layer of the meaning of the book, knowing PKD and his interests, this is a valid dimension that exists in the story. Another PKD story that deals with Faith and Reality is the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
OR Ubik is God - being everywhere and all-healing. Jory is Satan Pat is a demon - acting out Satan’s will and eventually being cast aside/killed by Satan Ella is Jesus Christ - serving as an intermediary making God accessible to those who seek Him...and Glenn Runciter (being married to Ella) is the Church - the community Joe longs for throughout the whole book.
OR Ubik is God - being everywhere and all-healing. Jory is Satan Pat is a demon - acting out Satan’s will and eventually being cast aside/killed by Satan Ella is Jesus Christ - serving as an intermediary making God accessible to those who seek Him...and Glenn Runciter (being married to Ella) is the Church - the community Joe longs for throughout the whole book.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
The scene where Pat taunts Joe Chip as he struggles to climb the stairs up to his hotel room is one of the most oddly disturbing things I've ever read in a science fiction book.
Try UBIK!
@tropper55593 Try UBIK
its iconic
I imagine it filmed silent in sepia tones with Pat looking like Maria's android from _Metropolis._
If I were to ever meet Christopher Nolan, the first question I would ask him would be if the ending to his movie, “Inception," was inspired in some way by UBIK.
Ubik cosplay is a fantastic suggestion. I've read this book at least 4 times and I always marvel at the horrendous fashions PKD churns out .
I know I'm coming to this late but I see a few core things about this book. I think this is a good companion book to "...Palmer Eldritch". While TSoPE deals a lot with Christian ideas and Gnosticism, Ubik, as mentioned in the book, seems to focus and base its ideas on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This is particularly noticeable in the descriptions of the colors of light that one can go to at the end of their half-life. But in this world of Ubik, half-life is a simulated world in which people either exist as if it is a reality, or they have some ability perceive this artificial world and through that be able to manipulate or shape this world. This is where I think the film The Matrix heavily borrowed its ideas from (among other sources). Ella and Jory are like the Neo's and Agent Smiths.
The other aspect I see definitely seems to revolve around consumerism and class disparity. Jory is this youthful soul vampire that is from a wealthy family. While the Half-Life company knows that Jory is affecting and disrupting other customer's half-lives, they don't do anything to prevent it, because his wealthy and powerful family pays for that. Additionally, it's disclosed in the book that there is a "Jory" in every half-life facility. It's like the dirty little secret of the industry. These businesses provide a service for people to have contact with their loved ones after they pass on, but unless you are wealthy or powerful, you aren't going to benefit much from the service because these wealthy and powerful half-lifers just use up most of the resources. This can mirror the way our world is today in that 95% of the world's wealth is owned by 1% of the population. And that wealth doesn't circulate or benefit the rest of society. Ubik is not so much a thing in their half-life world but the choice of Ella to give "ubiquitous" control back to the non-privileged.
One thing I really enjoyed about the prose in this book is that how the writing style and narrative will have these hard shifts, some at first you don't notice, or you reread a bit because you think you might have missed something. But it's clearly intentional that it was meant to signify how the world around the characters is changing, but may not be perceivable to them.
As far as I can tell, Pat Conley is the villain -- one of several. Hollis hired her. GG Ashwood conspired with her. Jory, however, is just the malevolent spirit in half-life…or perhaps he's needed to silence the voices of half-lifers in the event the Prudence Society investigates. The goal = eliminate the competition (i.e. Glen Runciter & associates). Pat kept tweaking a single detail, & then lets the new timeline play out. When it didn't work to perfection, she'd revert back & tweak another detail. We know this from her first meeting with Joe Chip, &, more importantly, when Runciter first introduces her to the group of inertials at his offices & then he has a flash forward experience of a memory that Pat Conley ultimately wipes out (i.e. it's a year later, he's retired, in front of a coin shop on 5th Avenue, studying a coin, & recalling a memory of the moment before he introduced Pat Conley -- the current timeline in the story). To perfect Hollis' scheme, Pat had to arrange for Glen Runciter to be present when the humanoid bomb exploded -- the final tweaked detail. Then, in essence, you have two timelines converging, one moving forward in time, one moving backward in time, the one in which Runciter lived, and another in which he died….each interfacing in half-life. THIS book is by far one of the best I have ever read.
My favorite as well.
It shows that people in the shadow commentary have more time & IQ (?) to understand geniuses like PKD.
***Spoiler Alert***
So the two villains just happened to have the same ability to "regress" things in half-life? Damn it's funny, the "half-life" stuff feels like a misdirection/faint early on, then the Pat sequence pulls the rug under your feet but then again so does Jory (this is why I think it was him all along.)
Safe, when used as directed
OR Ubik is God - being everywhere and all-healing.
Jory is Satan
Pat is a demon - acting out Satan’s will and eventually being cast aside/killed by Satan
Ella is Jesus Christ - serving as an intermediary making God accessible to those who seek Him...and
Glenn Runciter (being married to Ella) is the Church - the community Joe longs for throughout the whole book.
i think one of the most interesting part of the book is the description of the emotion of the characters when noticing a car and elevator from the early 20th century that doesn't fit in the current time; it reminds me of some drug experiences where history becomes extremely scary, and seeing your own reality change into history is described perfectly
and i agree it also has so much detail it seems perfect for a film
I already read The Man in the High Castle, The World Jones Made, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Valis, Scanner Darkly, Our Friends for Frolix 8. I'm currently reading Penultimate Truth. I'm looking to get a copy Ubik and Wait for Last Year.
Ubik stops entropy, yet only for a limited time. Plus instead of Pat being the so called villain, I think Jory was the main villain.
Is it possible that all of his stories weave together into grand tapestry? Perhaps Pat Conley of ubik is somehow responsible for the Perky Pat dolls in 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch? Are her abilities to mess with precog ability by budging time merely the side effect of users visiting an earth domain from Mars? Moritorium Jory breaks into the neighboring half lifers ergic substructures the same way Palmer Eldritch has a ubiquity over the Chew z users perceived realities. He has come from proxima centauri which might just be a cold pak casket next to the milky way...I believe each novel to be stripes of a larger tiger that he had by the tail.
To this day no book has scared me more than ubik
Then you haven't read the 3 stigmata....
My interpretation of the ending was Joe Chip was invading real reality.
Nik Rinear pulled a neo in matrix reloaded?
Ubik means Upik
I thought the same
isn't ubik basically about finding the correct means for communing with God/reality/truth/oneness?
ubik saves you from being messed with, but isn't that an analogy for how faith can gird you through a hopeless plight? it's about being too meta, essentially... and the penalties of that
i missed the podcast yesterday. im so glad the verge can upload these in just one day
Great interview about a great novel, thank you for sharing it! :)
Was this the only episode they ever did?
In Ubik, there is maybe one moment where I felt that Dick departed from the strict 3rd person plural form, and lt seemed as if the author was smiling and letting you watch him smile. That's a rare moment for him as an author. Otherwise, the author is in the heads of all the characters at once rarely betraying himself as the guy behind everything.
I just started reading this book and was originally interested because I’ve been learning about PKD and his theory about simulated reality and consciousness and I was wondering what consciousness would be like in a world without time. Well I was listening to the exegesis of pkd and near the beginning he says something about how the world in Ubik is a world frozen in time but the characters are unaware. Did anybody else think about this concept ?
Nice discussion. We are releasing an episode on this one next week.
Isn't the ending about how the story doesn't matter? like there's no difference between joke and hell in a deistic universe?
Just finished this. The dialogue felt like a Wes Anderson movie. Often people’s responses aren’t connected to what the other character said to them.
I freaking love this book
“Everything is food for the Moon”
I know I am only just seeing this in 2018, but I saw the original Bladerunner with the narration in the theater and it became my number 3 favorite SF film of all time right then and there behnd only Solaris ('72 tarkovsky) and 2001. I had already been into PKD for a few years at that point and to see a movie get the layers of his books the way Bladerunner did made me so happy. It is a real shame it was overshadowed by Star Wars. the only visual versions of his work that impress me greatly are A Scanner Darkly and The Man in the High Castle.
Joe chip as he climbs
up the stairs, give me that key you, witch.
I'm a big fan of On the Verge and Vergecast. I like your efforts here and attempt at this new show-book reviews. But, I also agree with the person suggesting a more relaxed atmosphere (possibly your couches and chairs which I see in 90 seconds on the Verge). Also, I am sure you will improve it in many ways, once you start tweaking it, as you go along. Good luck.
Haven't finished watching yet, but hope you let us know which book is next in case we want to read it for next time.
Are there any more episodes?
This is great. Thanks for doing this show.
just loved this dicussion
they can film in the couch area in the background of 90 secs. Drinking coffee and using the clip-mics instead of the table-mounted ones.
Cmon Vergeans! Make it happen!
Russian Doll remind me Ubik very much.
I want them to sit in a starbucks setting
keep us posted
Whose idea was this?
that's funny, I have quite the opposite view on the endings of this books
(but sure, the concepts are great)
33:00 falsifiability?
what its really about @ 46:40
cheers, mate
Guys I think that this podcast is a great idea, however I think that you should film/record it in a different, more casual setting. Watching you guys discuss books in your current setting, for me, invokes a Pavlovian response, so I expect to hear news and banter about technology, not books. And where is Nilay and Paul!!!
Ive just read it in 2020
Scarry huh?
Yes
What is the most terrifying part of the book
@@gisellegradvohl7654 The part where all the people in masks lined up for the military shipments of UBIK, and Joe Biden was on all the money.
I thought Chip picked up Ella cause he noticed Jory's anti sex.
raymond chandler - the big sleep 33:38
***Spoiler Alert*** I confess that I couldn't listen to the entire show, but from what I did see, it seems that they completely missed the meaning of the book. Ubik is Jesus Christ, Ella is about to be born again ("reborn"). Jory is Satan. Joe Chip's atheistic, materialistic view of the world is being completely undone by a spiritual awakening that leaves him completely broken by his awareness of sin requiring the Holy Spirit to apply Ubik (the word, Logos). By Grace alone, through faith alone.
While this isn't the only layer of the meaning of the book, knowing PKD and his interests, this is a valid dimension that exists in the story. Another PKD story that deals with Faith and Reality is the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
OR Ubik is God - being everywhere and all-healing.
Jory is Satan
Pat is a demon - acting out Satan’s will and eventually being cast aside/killed by Satan
Ella is Jesus Christ - serving as an intermediary making God accessible to those who seek Him...and
Glenn Runciter (being married to Ella) is the Church - the community Joe longs for throughout the whole book.
OR Ubik is God - being everywhere and all-healing.
Jory is Satan
Pat is a demon - acting out Satan’s will and eventually being cast aside/killed by Satan
Ella is Jesus Christ - serving as an intermediary making God accessible to those who seek Him...and
Glenn Runciter (being married to Ella) is the Church - the community Joe longs for throughout the whole book.
Christian Barry Wow. That was 7 years ago. I’ve all but forgotten the plot and characters.
@@LaissezFaire09 I think you were right. And you should read it again.
the ending 28:45
Dick's Novel "A Maze of Death" has a satisfying ending...Ubik doesn't, but the concepts are great.
two worlds mashed into one 29:40
I read thiss exactly whe he said it. Crazy.
Jump in the urinal and stand on your head, I'm alive and you're all dead!
Josh got fucking upstaged on his own show.!
What you did there, I see it
She has a name you know
Muthor6 r
You guys want to do it all. Books? Du fuck.
david lynch 41:24
martian time slip 26:43
15:30
33:40
love the book, but you guys are over-thinking it.
UBIK could imply egoism.
What iS THIS!
technology 5:35
magicians 38:24
:)
i feel like this girl is a destroyer of talents or at least dosent know great work when she reads it...
misinformation
Just finished this. The dialogue felt like a Wes Anderson movie. Often people’s responses aren’t connected to what the other character said to them.
26:00