Engagement:
Genre:
Science Fiction
Published:
1969
Page Count:
215
Where to Buy:
Ubik
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Content Ratings
Intense Themes
The novel creates sustained metaphysical disorientation as the nature of reality itself collapses; themes of entropy, corporate exploitation, and the terror of not knowing whether one is alive or dead are central.
Mild Violence
A bomb attack kills several characters; further deaths occur as reality destabilizes; violence is a consequence of corporate espionage rather than sustained action.
Synopsis
In a future of corporate psychic warfare and half-life—a state of cold-pac suspended animation where the near-dead linger—Joe Chip and his colleagues find themselves in an increasingly unstable reality after a bomb attack kills their employer, with no way to determine what is real and what is a dying mind's last dream. A vertiginous, unsettling novel of entropy and paranoia. One of Dick's most disorienting and philosophically rich books.