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Ubik is a 1969 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. In 2005, Time Magazine named it one of the hundred best English language novels published since 1923 .
Plot synopsis
Template:Spoilers The novel takes place in the American Confederation in 1992. The protagonist is Joe Chip, a debt-ridden technician for Glen Runciter's "prudence organization," which employs people with the ability to block certain psychic powers (for instance, an anti-telepath can prevent a telepath from reading a client's mind).
The company’s main adversary is Ray Hollis, who leads a group of psychics (Hollis appears only briefly in the novel). Runciter runs the company with the assistance of his deceased wife Ella, who is kept in a state of "half-life," a form of cryonic suspension that gives the deceased person limited consciousness and communication ability.
When business magnate Stanton Mick hires Runciter’s company to secure his Lunar facilities from telepaths, Runciter assembles a dozen agents. It includes, against Chip's warning, Pat Conley, a mysterious young woman who has an unprecedented parapsychological ability to undo events by changing the past.
When Runciter, Chip and the group reach Mick’s moon base, they discover that the assignment is a trap, presumably set by Hollis. A bomb explosion apparently kills Runciter without significantly harming the others. They rush back to Earth to place him in half-life.
Afterwards, the group begins to experience strange shifts in reality. Consumables, such as milk and cigarettes, begin to expire prematurely. Also, the group sees Runciter's face on coins and receives strange messages from him, in writing and on television. Group members who separate from the group are found dead, in a gruesome state of decomposition.
Eventually, the reality shifts back in time until the group finds itself in a world resembling the United States in 1939. They try to figure out what is causing these strange occurrences, prevent each other from dying and find a mysterious product called Ubik, which is advertised in every time period they enter. Messages from Runciter indicate that Ubik may be their only hope.
Themes
While the confusion between real and unreal, obscured by the perception of the main character(s), is common in Dick's work, in Ubik this confusion occurs in more than one way. Given the premise of half-life (no relation to radioactive half-life), one puzzle lies in resolving the false reality of the deceased with the real perceptions of those who are still alive. This is further complicated by Pat Conley, whose ability to change the past (and thus the present) may be causing the reality changes. Plus, the interference of psychics causes further confusion. As a result, the story presents unsettling shifts between realities and timelines and the reader is never certain what is real and what is illusion.
Another theme is the opposition between the twin forces of decay (the regression experienced by the characters) and restoration (Ubik, which reverses that decay).
Ubik features several character types common to Dick's fiction: Chip as the downtrodden, working class protagonist, Conley as the dark-haired, alluring, unattainable, possibly insane, vindictive and by some means empowered woman, and Runciter as a cynical but fatherly old man. These character types are nearly universal to his work and tend to follow similar roles: the downtrodden protagonist finds himself at odds with a large and complicated plot, not specifically agaisnt him, but in which he becomes inadvertently entanged, who is then alternately aided by, confused by, and maliciously harmed by the dark-haired woman, is helped indirectly by the fatherly old man (whose warnings are often unheaded or too late), and faces the spokesman of the evil conspiracy, who is mysterious, powerful, well-informed, and more or less undeniable, leaving the downtrodden hero with little or bittersweet success. Generally, multiple explanations for the nature of the events, the outcome of the story, and the nature and identity of the evil spokeman are available, especially if drug use or other psychic complications blur the lines of reality. Generally speaking, the narrator participates in the perspective of the characters, so if what they experience is a drug induced delusion or a bonafied happening is left vague for the reader. Ultimately, the reader is left to wonder what actually happened in the "real world" of the story and is left little clues, much like how a person rehabilitated from extended drug use might look back at the recent months of his life and wonder what was real, what was misinterpreted, and what was false.
Literary allusions
The term Ubik comes from the Latin word ubique, which means “everywhere.” It is also the source of the English language word ubiquitous, which means being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time. This may be considered ironic, considering that Ubik is much sought-after and rare in the novel, but it may also indicate that Ubik is a life-force of sorts.
Ubik also references Plato’s idea of Forms, great universals that define the essence of all matter. When the world begins to seemingly regress in time and all objects in it (such as television sets, refrigerators and automobiles) become that time period’s version of that object, Chip remarks that each is coming closer to barest, simplest Form.
Adaptations
Videogame
In 1998, Cryo Interactive Entertainment released Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, a tactical action/strategy videogame very loosely based on the book. The game allowed players to act as Joe Chip and train combat squads into missions against the Hollis Corporation. The game was available for Sony Playstation and for Microsoft Windows and was not a significant commercial success.
Attempts to produce a Ubik film
In 1974, French film maker Jean-Pierre Gorin commissioned Dick to write a screenplay for a Ubik film. Dick completed the screenplay (allegedly overnight) but Gorin never filmed the project. The screenplay was published in 1985. Some consider the screenplay too long, indicating Dick's inexperience in screenwriting.
Possible influence on other works
Though the connection (if any) is unknown, some specific elements in Ubik have appeared in subsequent motion pictures. The frozen starship captain in John Carpenter's Dark Star is in a similar state to half-life, as is the hero of Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky and its Spanish original, Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). Further films show a similar confusion between reality and dreams, again caused by an unreliable narrative viewpoint.
The concept of Ubik was also used in a French role-playing game, Rétrofutur, to represent an unstable source of spiritist psychic powers like in the Dick novel, in a way similar to mana.
Ubik is also the name of a French role-playing game publisher ().
In the manga Berserk by Kentaro Miura, one of the God's Hand has the name of Ubik, which is taken from the title of the science fiction novel.
One of the soldiers in the game Cannon Fodder is called Ubik.
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