Until recently the only Dick book I’d read was “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?” back in the early 80s when the “Blade Runner” movie came out. I was a big Blade Runner fan and the book was disappointing to me at the time, because it was so different from the movie. (I re-read it again recently, and loved it, and the movie no longer holds the same interest for me.)
A few months ago “Flow My Tears The Policeman Said” came across my hands, and I started reading it. Now I want to read everything Dick has written. However, his stories are so unique, and his writing is so sharp and intelligent, so personal, that I have to take long breaks between stories in order to digest his numerous, alternate worlds.
“Flow…” was written after Ubik, but there are some similar themes. Here is the description from SLPL’s Bibliocommons:
Ubik (1969), with its future world of psychic espionage agents and cryonically frozen patients inhabiting an illusory "half-life," pursues Dick's theme of simulated realities and false perceptions to ever more disturbing conclusions, as time collapses on itself and characters stranded in past eras search desperately for the elusive, constantly shape-shifting panacea Ubik. As with most of Dick's novels, no plot summary can suggest the mesmerizing and constantly surprising texture of these astonishing books.
This book would’ve been better in one sitting, but I had to read it in three sittings. Each time I had to go back and re-trace a few pages, because the story is so layered, and this world is so complex. (Warning: there may be some spoilers.)
An agent of the Runciter Corporation is called to action against the psychics. One of the psychic agents can alter time and appears to be working for Runciter- but is she? They go to Mars and an accident occurs, and for the rest of the story you are left wondering who is dead? The boss Runciter, who seems to be communicating with them as an “inertial”- someone who is dead but can still be communicated with in the after life? Or are they dead, and is Runciter communicating with them?
And what is this Ubik? It is everything and everywhere. I love each chapter’s Ubik advertisement. I loved the many twists in the already twisted plotline. The end was satisfying but I had to read the last chapter twice, and I am still not sure who lived, and who was only alive in an artificial, inertial, Ubik afterlife.
I recommend this to anyone who likes mind-benders and alternate realities, with a paranormal, futuristic setting.
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