Cover of the 1970 Dell paperback edition of Ubik

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 [1]. Image File history File links Philip K. Dick, Ubik (book cover) This image is of a book cover, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by the publisher of the book. ... Image File history File links Philip K. Dick, Ubik (book cover) This image is of a book cover, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by the publisher of the book. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Year 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended, generally fictional narrative in prose. ... Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American science fiction writer. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... (Clockwise from upper left) Time magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Plot synopsis

The novel takes place in the North 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). 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... The protagonist or main character is the central figure of a story. ... For other uses, see Debt (disambiguation). ... Parapsychology is the study of certain types of paranormal phenomena (parapsychology comes from the Greek para, “beside, beyond,” + psychology, derived from the Greek psyche, “soul, mind,” + logos “rational discussion”). The term was coined by Max Dessoir (1889). ... Warning: This is NOT a scientific article. ...

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. In cryptography, an adversary (rarely opponent, enemy) is a malicious entity whose aim is to prevent the users of the cryptosystem from achieving their goal (primarily privacy, integrity and availability of data). ... Cryonics is the practice of preserving organisms, or at least their brains, for possible future revival by storing them at cryogenic temperatures where metabolism and decay are almost completely stopped. ...

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. Apparent magnitude: up to -12. ...

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. 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

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 (the term is related to radioactive half-lives in that the partially dead person continues to slowly die and eventually is completely dead), 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. Half-Life For a quantity subject to exponential decay, the half-life is the time required for the quantity to fall to half of its initial value. ...

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 against him, but in which he becomes inadvertently entangled, 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 unheeded 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 bona fide 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. The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... The protagonist or main character is the central figure of a story. ...

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. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

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. For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Platonism is a philosophical term usually used to refer to the idea of realism regarding the existence of universals after the Greek philosopher Plato who lived between c. ... Refrigeration (from the Latin frigus, frost) is generally the cooling of a body by the transfer of a portion of its heat away from it. ... Car redirects here. ...

The name "Joe Chip" has the same initials as "Jesus Christ". Parallels can be drawn between Chip as a Christ figure (who suffers a temporary death or near-death and subsequent resurrection), Runciter as God-the-father, and Ubik as the Holy Spirit. However, these and other possible allusions to Christianity are by no means straightforward, and it is much more useful to examine the religious metaphors of Ubik in the context of Dick's larger spiritual and metaphysical worldview rather than as any sort of readily explicable religious tale.

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. 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Cryo Interactive Entertainment was a French video game developing company that appeared in the early 1990s. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... The original PlayStation was produced in a light grey colour; the more recent PSOne redesign sports a smaller more rounded case. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary operating systems by Microsoft. ...

Attempts to produce a Ubik film

In 1974, French filmmaker 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. ^{[citation needed]} 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Jean-Pierre Gorin (b. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Tommy Pallotta, who produced the film adaptation of Dick's A Scanner Darkly, said in a July 2006 interview that he "still [has] the option for Ubik and will be looking to make a live action feature from it." [2] Tommy Pallotta (born May 25, 1968, in Houston, Texas) is an American film director and producer. ... A Scanner Darkly is a 2006 film by Richard Linklater starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey, Jr. ...

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 state similar to half-life, as is the hero of Alejandro Amenábar's Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) and its American remake, Vanilla Sky. Further films show a similar confusion between reality and dreams, again caused by an unreliable narrative viewpoint. Additionally, the tug of temporal tides moving backward and forward in time experienced by Joe Chip outside of Archer's drugstore is reminiscent of the time tides of Dan Simmon's Hyperion Cantos. For other uses see film (disambiguation) Film refers to the celluliod media on which movies are printed Film — also called movies, the cinema, the silver screen, moving pictures, photoplays, picture shows, flicks, or motion pictures, — is a field that encompasses motion pictures as an art form or as... John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, film score composer and occasional actor. ... Dark Star is a 1973 motion picture directed by John Carpenter and co-written with Dan OBannon. ... Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos (born March 31, 1972) is a Chilean-Spanish film director, widely considered one of the most important Spanish directors working today even though he has directed only four films. ... Open Your Eyes redirects here. ... Vanilla Sky is a 2001 film which has been variously characterized by published film critics as an odd mixture of science fiction, romance, and reality warp [2], part Beautiful People fantasy, part New Age investigation of the Great Beyond[3] a love story, a struggle for the soul, or an... Hyperion The Hyperion Cantos form a tetralogy of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. ...

The concept of Ubik was also used in a French role-playing game, Rétrofutur, to represent an unstable source of spiritist psychic powers as in the Dick novel, in a way similar to mana. A role-playing game (RPG, often roleplaying game) is a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters and collaboratively create or follow stories. ... Spiritism is a generic term for various beliefs that claim the existence of immortal souls that can somehow be communicated with and interact with the real world (often through channeling) even after death. ... A psychic is a person who is able to experience extra-sensory perception, such as clairvoyance, psychometry, and precognition, or who has other paranormal abilities such as psychokinesis. ... Mana is a traditional term that refers to a concept among the speakers of Oceanic languages, including Melanesians, Polynesians, and Micronesians. ...

Ubik is also the name of a French role-playing game publisher ([3]). A role-playing game (RPG, often roleplaying game) is a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters and collaboratively create or follow stories. ...

In the early 1990s there was an influential Industrial-Techno Music group in Britain called Ubik.

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. 2nd English edition of InuYasha Vol. ... For other articles related to the word berserk, such as berserkers see Berserker (disambiguation) Berserk ) is a Dark fantasy manga by mangaka Kentaro Miura. ... Kentaro Miura (三浦 建太郎 Miura Kentarō, born 11 July 1966) is a Japanese mangaka most known for his manga Berserk. ...

One of the soldiers in the game Cannon Fodder is called Ubik. Cannon Fodder is an expression used to denote the treatment of armed forces as a worthless commodity to be expended. ...

There is a rock band based in Wiltshire called Ubik. Wiltshire (abbreviated Wilts) is a large southern English county. ...

The database replication protocol used by the Andrew File System is called Ubik. The Andrew file system (AFS) is a distributed networked file system developed by Carnegie Mellon University as part of the Andrew Project. ...

There is a track on Timo Maas's album Loud, named "Ubik The Breakz". Timo Maas (born in Hanover, Germany) is a very well-renowned electronic music DJ/producer and remixer. ... This article needs to be wikified. ...

There is also a track on The Alpha Conspiracy's album Cipher named "Ubik". Andrew Gregory Sega (b. ...

The NCR UK Development Engineering database engine was called Ubik, named after the book.

In the 1997 Blade Runner computer game by Westwood Studios, player action begins at Runciter's Animals, a pet store owned by one Mr Runciter. Front cover Blade Runner was a Westwood Studios PC game loosely based on the 1982 movie of the same name. ... Westwood Studios (1985-2003) was a computer and video game developer, founded in 1985 as Westwood Associates by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle and based in Las Vegas, Nevada. ...

See also

• Simulated reality

Simulated reality is the idea that reality could be simulated inside a computer to a degree indistinguishable from real reality. ...