Been diving back into Philip K. Dick's stuff lately and just wrapped up Ubik from 1969. What a wild ride that was!
The story follows Glen Runciter who runs this company that sends out teams of people with anti-psychic abilities to help corporations protect themselves from telepathic industrial espionage. Things go sideways when Runciter and his crew get attacked by competitors, leaving him badly hurt and stuck in this weird "half-life" state that's basically like being in a coma but still somewhat conscious.
The rest of his team starts noticing really bizarre stuff happening around them – Runciter's face showing up on currency, the whole world seeming to regress technologically, food spoiling instantly, that kind of thing. They're trying to figure out what's causing all this chaos and how this mysterious product called Ubik fits into everything.
Each chapter kicks off with these fake advertisments for Ubik, but they're all describing completely different products – sometimes it's a spray, sometimes it's something else entirely. Really adds to the confusion in the best possible way.
This one definitely falls into that same category as Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Scanner Darkly – the kind of book that starts normal enough then just spirals into complete mind-bending territory. There's this creepy undertone throughout that keeps you on edge without going full horror mode.
Really enjoying getting back into his longer works after reading some of his short fiction recently. Got a couple more from the late 50s sitting on my shelf that I'm excited to tackle next, plus I should probably grab some of his short story collections at some point.
by Practical-Sock441