Ubik and Dreams

Eternal life in a spray bottle. Safe when used as directed.

At least once a year I stop in to visit Runciter and the other odd but intriguing characters in Philip K. Dick's Ubik, which remains one of my favorite novels.  It is a favorite for the same reason a painting becomes a favorite. In examining it, it always rewards me with something new, something I hadn't seen before.

Ubik is new every time I open it up.  The flow of the plot doesn't change.  Its not a sequential thing that changes, but an idea thing.  The questions Phil asked about philosophy in Ubik present different answers every time I read the book.  Half life, after life, death, birth are all discussed at length in context of the novel, and every time I read it new levels open up, while others close or just outright disappear.  

Under the facade of a science fiction story, Dick created a parable that is both timeless and beautiful.  It is also deeply disturbing.