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[Sheb]

So I was reading a review of Amazon's "The Man in the High Castle" in the New York Review of Books, and the author claimed that "The Man in the High Castle" was "widely accepted as Dick's best book. Now, I've read a fair numbers of Dick's works (Ubik, Flow My Tear, a scanner darkly, Do android dream of electric sheeps and a bunch of others), and frankly I found "The Man in the High Castle" lackluster. The idea of the Nazi winning light have been original then, but it's a trope by now. But mostly, the novel is too damn short. It doesn't take the time to really explore the setting (which, granted, isn't Dick's strength), but it also doesn't take the time to really explore how the characters cope with the occupation, which is the central theme of the novel.

Overall, it was good, but not great, certainly not Dick's best.

So what do you guys think? What's your favourite Dick novel?

[Nunzillor]

I'm quite partial to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

[Orange Wizard]

Blade Runner

[Nunzillor]

Blade Runner

Umm...

[Orange Wizard]

Pretty sure Philip K. Dick sang Blade Runner, or maybe I'm mixing up my poetry.

[Caz]

Pretty sure Philip K. Dick sang Blade Runner, or maybe I'm mixing up my poetry.

o__o no more bath salts for you

[Nunzillor]

I think you meant to say this:

I'm quite partial to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Why, I am as well, fine fellow!  Jolly good!  Pass the bath salts, please.

[wobbly]

Galactic Pot Healer is my favourite. I haven't read the man in the high castle, so no real opinion on that one.

[scriver]

So what do you guys think? What's your favourite Dick novel?

Hö hö hö...

Blade Runner

The movie Bladerunner was based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Ship by Mr Key Dick. The name however was taken from an different and entirely unrelated book by another author, which Ridley Scott the movie rights to solely for the purpose of using that name on his adaption of Androids.

[Orange Wizard]

The movie Bladerunner was based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Ship by Mr Key Dick. The name however was taken from an different and entirely unrelated book by another author, which Ridley Scott the movie rights to solely for the purpose of using that name on his adaption of Androids.

I know, I just felt like shitposting as a glorified PTW.

[SirQuiamus]

I have no idea which of Philip K's works is the "best" – I'm sure they all have their strong points and weak points, since he was such a brilliantly dopey and consistently inconsistent author. I think Scanner darkly may be one of his strongest efforts on the whole, although it's locally marred by the superfluous and weak ending. On the other hand, Ubik is an absolute mess as a narrative-driven novel, but it contains stark and powerful nightmare sequences that would have made a great short story in their own right. As a general rule, you can pick up any of his works and find quite a few striking passages, even if the book in its entirety is mostly crap.

I've also enjoyed his later non-SF works for the unbridled kookiness and cracked erudition: VALIS reads like a scholarly essay on the ideas of Gene Ray and Dr. Bronner, written by someone who has swallowed entire library aisles of ancient philosophy and Gnostic apocrypha along with reams of blotting paper. It's also semi-autobiographical, which makes it a rather eerie reading experience at times. Transmigration of Timothy Archer is also good: it draws on the same reinterpreted Spiritistic-New-Age-Acid-Christian mythology as the VALIS trilogy, but unlike most of his later writings, it's also a well-rounded work of fiction.

Pretty sure Philip K. Dick sang Blade Runner, or maybe I'm mixing up my poetry.

it was david bowie, you blasphemous philistine

EDIT:
I read most of Philip K's novels in my early teens, and The Man in the High Castle was one of those that I filed under "forgettable."

[Sappho]

Now and then a grab a random obscure Dick novel. He doesn't explore a setting well in one book, but he has many set in the same, or almost the same setting, most of them very little-known. There are a lot of concepts that you can find dotted all over a lot of his works. Right now I'm reading Now Wait For Last Year, which was very slow to start, but I'm getting into it at last. I'm partial to Clans of the Alphane Moon, The Simulacra, and The Game-Players of Titan. I loved all the more well-known ones as well, of course. Interestingly, the first time I read The Divine Invasion (part of the Valis series) I absolutely hated it. Then I re-read it and loved it.

[NJW2000]

Alphane Moon is great. I always felt "The man in High Castle" was one of those ones where there was something I wasn't quite getting, but the simple experience of the book nearly did it, but not fully. Sort of Kafka in that way, I didn't get all of it, but felt that was kinda intrinsic to the stuff going on.

I'm not really sure where it stands with his other works, the alternate-history one, as many of the others have that wonderful mix of K. Dick explaining the world and his experiences to himself (the druggier stuff) and somewhat lighter, very narrative driven scifi as was written in that era. His work has that conflict between well-crafted space opera or whatever, and rather spiritual, introspective stuff, and I think that's partially what makes him so unique.

By the by, I've found Brian Aldiss a bit short of Philip K Dick in terms of the depth I can percieve, but really liked him too. Anyone else?

And as for favourite... The Penultimate Truth or Deus Irae, I reckon.

[Gigaz]

I read Do Androids, Ubik, Minority Report and Martian Time-Slip and I think I liked Martian Time-Slip the most. Dicks visions of the future are never remotely plausible, but I guess they are more about people accepting and trying to cope with the things that cannot be, which kind of also removes some of the restraints of society.

[Sappho]

Actually, he did think they were plausible. That's why you see so many of the same technology and terminology across most of his books: simulacrum, precog, prefab, conapt, etc. All the drugs he took caused him to see visions. Many were religious (hence the Valis series) and others were of the future. He believed his visions were real. You have to admit they were pretty damn interesting, even if he was way off the mark in terms of reality.