Philip K. Dick's "Ubik" is a science fiction novel that was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best novels ever published since the 1920's.
It was published in 1969, but the story is set in the futuristic world of 1992 in a place called as the North American Confederation. It's a world entirely different from the 1992 that we've experienced. Philip K Dick's vision of the future is both visually stunning and wonderful.
Glen Runciter runs a corporation called Runciter Associates, a security company that employs people with the gift to block certain psychic powers (for example, an anti-telepath can prevent a telepath from reading a client's mind). The company's main rival is an organization run by Ray Hollis, who then employs people with psychic powers.
So companies hires psychics run by Ray Hollis to spy on their rivals, their rivals in turn hires Runciter's company to prevent Hollis' psychics from reading the minds of their employees and so on.
Problem arises when a big shot business tycoon Stanton Mick offers Runciter an enormous amount of money to try and to secure his company which was based on the moon from telepaths. Arriving at their lunar moon destination Runciter together with his top gun anti-psychic technician Joe Chirp, and a few other employees of the Corporation. They discover that their work assignment is a trap and that nobody was there but them.
Before they could grasp about what's happening a bomb exploded that injured Joe Chirp and his colleagues which include Pat Conley a mysterious woman who had the ability to go back in time and undo events by changing the past.
Everybody survived the blast with few injuries, everybody that is except Glen Runciter, whom they found lying on the floor dead.
Transporting Runciter's body back to Earth, the surviving members of the group starts to experience sudden shifts in reality ( like a cigarette expiring prematurely, coins becoming phased out ).
They tried to persuade Pat Conley to go back in time to change the past, but Pat tells them that she cannot do it because time had already passed.
Upon returning to Earth they went to Switzerland to put the body of Glen Runciter in "half life" form in a place called Beloved Brethren Moratorium where Ella Runciter ( Glen's deceased 20 year old wife ) is also in half-life. It is a place where dead people can spend their half-life in a dreamlike mode, and occasionally communicate with relatives through a sort of psychic intercom.
Afterwards Joe Chip assumed control of Runciter Associates, eventually finding difficulties in running the company as the group who survived the Lunar Moon blast continue to experience unexplained events like going back in time, mechanical and electrical objects like a TV set turning into an old tube radio, automobiles being transformed to a much older model, coins turning up with the image of Glen Runciter. Going to the airport all Joe Chirp can find was a biplane.
What's worst are group members who wanders differently from the rest are eventually found dead in a state of decomposition that looks like they were dead for a number of years.
And from year 1992, they find themselves in year 1939.
To add confusion to Joe Chirp and the remaining group members was the series of messages from Runciter that mysteriously appear on bathroom walls, TV commercial, traffic violations ticket and everywhere else.
It seems that Glen Runciter is alive after all.
As the group started to feel tired and the decomposition process seems inevitable Glen Runciter tells Joe Chirp about a product stored in a sort of aerosol spray called UBIK as their only way of saving themselves by spraying its contents all over their body.
Pat Conley meanwhile believes that all of these transformation was her own doing, she later confessed to Joe Chirp that she was a spy sent by Rollis to Runciter's company to ruin all of their efforts, But as Glen Runciter later told Joe Chirp this wasn't the case because Pat Conley same with the others have lost all of her powers at the time of the Lunar Moon blast.
It was at this revelation that Joe Chirp and the rest of the group entertained the possibility that they were the ones who died from the blast and are in half-life mode and that Glen Runciter was the lone survivor communicating with them through facilities of Beloved Brethren Moratorium.
Upon getting his hand on a can of UBIK, Joe Chirp begun his rejuvenating experience, it was here that he meets Jory, a malevolent psychic juvenile lost soul who haunts the moratorium’s half-life realm. Jory is a projective psychotic who creates illusioned world or “realities” that seduce half-life dwellers into unreal realms and consumes their last remaining half-life longevity.
Finally realizing the truth, that him ( Joe Chirp ) and the rest are indeed dead and are merely existing in the half-life realm, even though, Joe Chirp will at least find a way to prolong his existence at the mercy of Jory who in order to exist herself needs to feed of every remaining half-lifers.
And thanks to Ella Runciter, Joe Chirp will finally get a half-life long supply of UBIK, which Philip K. Dick describes as:
"“A portable negative ionizer, with a self-contained, high-voltage, low-amp unit powered by a peak-gain helium battery of 25kv. The negative ions are given a counter-clockwise spin by a radically biased acceleration chamber, which creates a centripital tendency to them so that they cohere rather than dissipate.”
*****
Obviously the novel's theme was about the main character's perception of what's real and unreal. The character of Pat Conley serves as one of the part that either confuse the readers, as one would come in a conclusion that this is all the work of Pat Conley tweaking with the past. But Philip K. Dick writes in an unpredictable manner that offers more surprising twist. Thus the role of Jory is totally unexpected.
Over-all i can understand why this book was included in the 100 best novel ever written. Philip K. Dick's vision of the future are legendary his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" became the basis of the movie "Bladerunner", his common themes of psychics eventually morphed into "Minority Report" also based on one of his stories.
"Ubik" is a wonderful read, interesting as it makes you think you know where the story is heading only to let Dick's imagination take the rug out of your feet and have you land in another world with wonderful results.
