Philip K Dick

tyler71

johnnyskeleton

Johnny Storm wrote: »

Total Recall has a few good moments like when Arnie pulls the bug out of his nose while shielding himself by wrapping a wet towel around his head :rolleyes: and of course there's Sharon Stone :cool: but it falls flat once they get to Mars.

But what about the tripple breasted prostitute? I'm sure PKD would have approved.

Culann

'VALIS' was also good as I recall. He also wrote 4 or 5 mainstream fiction novels, when he wanted to be recognised as a 'serious' author. They are worth tracking down just to get another side of his writing.

Broken Bubble
Puttering about in a Small Land
Man whose Teeth were all exactly alike
Humpty Dumpty in Oakland
Confessions of a Crap Artist

El Tarangu

Confessions of a Crap Artist is quite good, well worth a read. It's kind of disconcertingly normal if you've only ever read Dick's SF, I found.

mcgovern

I remember reading some of his work for hours on a long train journey before, and actually ended up feeling like I was on some sort of drugs for a few days, it made the phrase, "made me see the world in a different way" take on quite a different meaning!

The_Drums

The thing about Philip K. Dick is that I often have to read the same book more than once before I actually understand it properly (I'm only a teenager, by the way, which I think is a reasonable excuse). This, however, is not a bad thing - I love Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and A Scanner Darkly even more after repeated readings, as well as the shorter stories. Valis was also a favourite of mine for a time. I still have to add The Man in the High Castle to my list, but I'm looking forward to it!

Malice

The_Drums wrote: »

The thing about Philip K. Dick is that I often have to read the same book more than once before I actually understand it properly (I'm only a teenager, by the way, which I think is a reasonable excuse).

I'm 31 and I regularly re-read his stuff . Speaking of which, I just finished Clans of the Alphane Moon and have started to re-read Ubik.

Dudess

Started The Man In The High Castle a while back, which I thought I'd be unable to put down, as that's really my kinda thing... but couldn't get into it. Heavy-going...

tyler71

From what I remember of 'The Man in the High Castle' really only the last chapter was worth reading, but that was pretty damn good. There were a few interesting ideas in the rest of the book but nothing like what you'd get from his short stories - I really don't think he 'did' plot, other than to string some great ideas together. I could be mistaken, the last few pages were very subtle, so maybe I missed more in the bulk of the book that other people didn't. But my advice would be - skip to the last few pages.

indough

it wouldnt make any sense if you did that, its by far his worst book in terms of storytelling as far as im concerned, incredibly boring, and the use of the i ching as a plot device was just so irritating

El Tarangu

I really enjoyed MITHC, though it was only the second SF novel I ever read. I thought it was good up until the end, where it just kind of fizzled out to some extent (but most of his novels do, to a greater or lesser degree, and are none the worse for it, either)

tyler71

Well maybe the first chapter, then the last, I dont know, all I know is the last few pages is all I enjoyed, the rest of the book was filler. Anyway confusion is part of the deal when reading Dick. What I'm really confused by is that 'The Man in the High Castle' is one of the first books that gets mentioned whenever Philip K Dick is profiled or something and he's written 10-15 better books than that - it would have made a good short story, but that's about it. Mind you, it's still better than 'Fatherland' which has a similar setup.

El Tarangu

It won the Hugo (Nebula?)

I agree, though: TMITHC ain't no Ubik or Scanner

tyler71

El Tarangu wrote: »

It won the Hugo (Nebula?)

I agree, though: TMITHC ain't no Ubik or Scanner

Aaah that explains that then. Hugo Awards must be a bit like the Oscars, they give them to the right person, but possibly not at the right time. I think we're agreed though, Ubik and Scanner are a class above (and Palmer Eldritch, Flow my tears, I could go on)

OxfordComma

Haven't actually read any of his stuff yet, but A Scanner Darkly has been sitting on my shelf since January, and hopefully I'll start that soon

indough

El Tarangu wrote: »

It won the Hugo (Nebula?)

I agree, though: TMITHC ain't no Ubik or Scanner

yeah it did but i dunno, just didnt like it at all

it doesnt even really have the same feel to it as his other, better works imo

i got the impression he didnt really know what he wanted the underlying message to be, or else he had one then had a change of heart midway through

thats probably just me rambling though

Kinski

I'd been meaning to check out this guy's work for years; pretty much since I saw Blade Runner back when I was about 14. After it was recommended to me by a number of Dick fans, I read The Man in the High Castle. Boy, did it suck. Dismal prose, supermassive plotholes, characters with zero psychological credibility, and some of the cheapest attempts at generating suspense I've ever seen. I've got Ubik sitting on my shelves, so I may give Dick another chance, but this is one terrible novel.

Revolution9

Ever since I seen A Scanner Darkly I've been meaning to read a Dick novel (:rolleyes:), I'll make sure to pick one up soon.

indough

Kinski wrote: »

I'd been meaning to check out this guy's work for years; pretty much since I saw Blade Runner back when I was about 14. After it was recommended to me by a number of Dick fans, I read The Man in the High Castle. Boy, did it suck. Dismal prose, supermassive plotholes, characters with zero psychological credibility, and some of the cheapest attempts at generating suspense I've ever seen. I've got Ubik sitting on my shelves, so I may give Dick another chance, but this is one terrible novel.

dont worry, hes my favourite author and i hated it too

to be honest though unless you like extremely off the wall ideas you wont be into anything he wrote

Kinski

indough wrote: »

dont worry, hes my favourite author and i hated it too

to be honest though unless you like extremely off the wall ideas you wont be into anything he wrote

The more off-the-wall the better! That strange twist at the end was about the only thing I did like. I'll give some of his other novels a shot.