Maybe I'm pointing out something painfully obvious to all but the most casual of observers but the ease at which you narrate makes these videos a delight to listen to. I wish more youtubers had this skill. Well done!
As a person who records himself speaking, YES! This guy is a natural. And his love and knowledge of classic sci-fi really makes the videos worth watching.
I got about 10 PKD novels in a cardboard box when I was 16. I became obsessed with him and read most of his stuff by the time I graduated high school. He was still alive then.
Wow, I can't believe someone is finally calling attention to Star of the Unborn. I read it years ago, and re-read it years later. It is indeed a masterpiece, and nobody knows about it. Yes, at times, I found it difficult to get through, but once the story kicks in, hold on for a great ride. It is very hard to find, I'm assuming out of print (shame). Thank you so much.
Unlike many other BookTubers, you have very specific criticisms which makes me respect your reviews even if we don't always have the same opinion. I have picked up a few classic Sci-fis because you've raved about them and I'm so glad I did! I'm halfway through Hyperion and its quickly becoming a favourite. Science Fiction is a genre that I thought I always hated but turns out I just can't stand Star Wars lol. Keep up the great work!
I’ve been a lifetime devotee to science fiction and, although my interests in this genre continue to change, my main stronger and traditional interests have always been in what is now called ‘hard science fiction’. Myself, I would also add the description of ‘ideas’ or ‘logically-based novel ideas’ to further define my interests. So, like you, Star Wars and the like stand completely apart. I’ve intensively disliked Star Wars. To me these kind of stories are not science fiction at all. Rather, they are merely ‘battles in space’ - a transposition and representation of the mundanity and unevolved problems of humanity that we still refuse to address adequately, despite the adequacy of our existing understandings and capabilities of living the human condition. In other words, Star Wars is both offensive and so boring to me!
He's also not placing blinders or limitations on his own perceptions within the sci-fi book 📚 tube community. It's well known that Moid isn't big on cyberpunk or Gibson for example - but that isn't clouding his own personal dive into that genre. Cheers 🥂
Star Wars falls under the 'space opera' genre. It's basically a western in space. Watch Outland from 1977. It's High Noon in space with Sean Connery instead of Gary Cooper. Dick's novels can't be changed into westernns.
Another excellent video; thanks! My PKD recommendations for people new to him are always TMITHC, Ubik, A Scanner Darkly and Radio Free Albemuth. All are well-written and don't have that pulp-y pounded-out-in-a-frenzy feel that so many of his works have. ETA: I'm a big Silverberg fan too; my personal fav is The Book of Skulls.
Martian Time-Slip is the book of PKD I enjoy the most. And I've read all his science fiction, multiple books more than once. I've read Martian Time-Slip the most of all
I'm a big fan of Dick, but I have to recognize that he's very hit or miss. VALIS to me it's a great novel, but it's not a novel to begin with PKD: "Ubik" or "Martian Time Slip" are a lot more accessible to new readers. I would add "Eye in the sky" (one of his first novels) or "Time out of joint" to the list. "Three stigmata..." it's one of his best novels, but it's a bit crazy to recommend as a first read.
For 1940s intellectually meaty literary science fiction to sit on the shelf beside Werfel's Star of the Unborn, Hermann Hesse's Magister Ludi / Glass Bead Game / Das Glasperlenspiel won Hesse the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1946. First published (in German, in Switzerland) in 1943. I see Magister Ludi was awarded a retroacrive Hugo for best SF novel of 1944. Thanks for keeping us creaky old SF fans on our toes! It's such a treat watching you recount your adventures discovering all this gold for the first time, just brilliant.
Congratulations on being (about) a third of the way through your challenge! After realizing that last year I only read 29 books out of my physical backlog, you have inspired me to focus on reading books I already own. The library is such a tempestuous place but my shelves are sorely neglected
Star of the Unborn sounds awesome. That feeling of discovering an unknown treasure, and being able to share it, is incredible. Will definitely be looking for taht one.
Dick Recommendation: Martian Time Slip - is cohesive, accessible, and has some complex ideas in a mundane enough frame to let you grasp them. Highly Recommend. Have I ever steered you wrong?
For all it is far from perfect, I think _Valis_ is one of the most astonishing books I have read. But you do have to be already familiar with and sympathetic to Dick's themes and concerns, to get a lot out of it. What impresses me the most is the extent to which Dick manages a distanced, critical reflection on himself. I also like the dry humour and the plain humanity of the narrator when facing the madness.
This is the truth. I had already read about half of PKD’s novels by the time I first tried to read VALIS. I got halfway through it. By the time I got back to it, I had read almost all of the other novels and really loved it.
I could not have put it better. Valis assumes some knowledge of Dick and his life story. It is a book I always find very moving and I re-read it frequently.
What I so dearly love about PKD’s books is the way that he lets us in to his experiences, both real and imagined. Few writers have, so effectively, communicated the human condition. When I read Martian Time Slip, the journey into the mind of of someone suffering from schizophrenia had a profound effect upon me, eliciting an empathic response that is still with me almost 40 years later. With VALIS, he *validates* his experience so effectively that one has no choice but to question the natural skepticism of the seemingly obvious delusions and accept them as an alternate reality that may, or may not, reveal some important truths. It’s powerful stuff and, he remains, one of my favorite writers.
If I remember Valis properly, the backstory you need to relate to is the New Testament. After a certain period, Dick's work became a sort of mystical Christian writing. I remember being disappointed in The Man in the High Castle but loving most other novels he wrote. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is one I want to reread. It seems quite relevant to today's virtual reality ambitions. I think Ubik is the Dick Novel that should maybe be read first because it's really fun and has many of his themes.
I have found in my reading of PKD over the years that both personal maturity and familiarity with Dick's and Bishop's Pike's lives made an instrumental difference in my appreciation of the Valis trilogy. PKD is one of those authors who rewards in proportion to what the reader brings. The more familiarity you have with Gnosticism and early church history, or the facts surrounding the strange life of Bishop Pike (let alone PKD), the more the novels open up. At least that was the way it was for me. Both VALIS and Transmigration have two of the best closing sentences of any novels I've read, and Valis' "I kept my commission" shook me close to tears when it finally clicked. I have read both novels several times and have not read better. Equal, perhaps, but not better.
I agree. People hear about what important, or "great works" the Valis trilogy make up, but it really needs to be built up to. It's a mistake to jump at it as if his 50 other books have nothing to offer. I really feel his more bizarre, more paranoid books gain from having read his less groundbreaking but really brilliant,well structured middle-works, as well as a survey of his short stories (hit or miss) where his themes are boiled down to their essence.
Yeah, the final VALIS, Divine Invasion, Transmigration trilogy are concerned with religious belief as a phenomenon, and someone jumping in unprepared is likely to misunderstand them and think Dick had turned into a True Believer in mystical clap-trap.
@@nickwest9039 Yeah, I was going to say. Valis is one for people who are into esoteric studies. It was my first read and I was already into that stuff, so it became a favorite very quickly.
I have to stop watching your videos. I always end up on eBay buying more books. Last week I bought an A. Merritt novel (“Seven Footprints to Satan” came up immediately, so obviously that got purchased for the title alone). Now I want “Star of the Unborn” from Franz Werfel.
It seems to me that you were not ready to read VALIS in your mid to late 20s. You seem to be well read, and rather astute I would seriously recommend that you give them another go. The books in the VALIS Trilogy are to me indispensable contributions to literature, being of fuzzy mind. But I am aware that the VALIS books are not the most approachable of PKD’s works, But oh Holy jumpin Jehoshaphat do they go somewhere and mean something. The first analog that comes to mind is how unapproachable James Joyce’s Ulysses is too many as it is at the highest level of omnibus everything-all-at-onceness that Joyce assembled. I believe if you decide to take up the VALIS books again you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
The Gap Cycle, by Stephen R. Donaldson, which consists of five books, is a work that I really enjoyed reading in my late twenties*. *) The books do have some scenes of abuse that... while part of the story and context, would otherwise be troubling.
I think Dreamsnake's popularity had a lot to do with the time that it came out, and the fact that it was based upon an excellent award-winning novella. I remember there being little in the way of sff books centered around a woman with agency, especially that talked about women's issues the way that one did. It was considered a feminist novel and remarkable for the time. I read it when it came out and all I remember is the impact it had, and very little of the book itself.
The most influential Sci Fi book I've ever read was Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Apparently, this book is virtually unknown in the English speaking world. PS: Don't mention the movie by Steven Soderbergh of the same name. Stanislaw Lem once commented: The topic of my novel was not the sexual problems of humans in Space.
@@shenanigans3710 well it's not the 'original' as it's an adaptation of the novel, 'original' would imply the newer movie is a remake of the old one when it's not, it is an adaptation of the same novel. Anyway, the comment from the author was referring to both film adaptations of the novel, he didn't see a difference between them and disliked them both for having focused on human relationships. Not everyone has this worship of Tarkovsky that online film circles will tell you to observe, Stanislaw Lem didn't and I don't (actual unpopular opinion: the one with George Clooney was better)
@@shenanigans3710 Even Andrei Tarkovsky's movie is not original in the sense that it captures the ideas of the novel. It's just the first attempt at turning the novel in a movie, albeit a much better one than Steven Soderbergh's. Differently than the last one, it is a master piece by itself.
I'm glad you ended up liking The Man in the High Castle. I gave it a proper read again recently and found its ideas quite thought-provoking. I think a lot of people expect an alt-history thriller or tons of action if they've come from the TV show first and are therefore disappointed. The book does something far different than that and more interesting in my opinion.
Absolutely! Islandia’s world building is up there with Lord of the Rings minus the magic and magical creatures. Such a vivid pastoral dream-scape that offers an attractive fictional alternative to industrial modernity.
PKD is a veritable goldmine of sci fi themes. His short stories are better than some of his later novels. A troubles soul who lost his twin 6 weeks into his life, he was troubled and doomed from early on. Think Salinger with a sci fi twist. Think TZ unfilmed. Coming to prominence in the 1950s ...prespace age when the political landscape was shaping into the cold war and with the rise of baby boomers and consumerism this is the world of PKD. Similar to Simak and maybe even Bester ...but i do not see PKD as New Age. Maybe not Top 15 ....but as essential as time pieces post WWII as essential as grand masters of the pulp and golden age. I envy you for i have read alot ...but it is also tragic that PKD was not given success and lived a poor impoverished life ...although he did lots of drugs and married 5 times ... Still a tragic artist who should be read by any and every sci fi afficianado!!!
The Robert Silverberg book at the end is in the form of what is known as a "Trade Paperback". This is basically a hardback print put into paperback covers, and originated as a way of circulating a new book to reviewers in a cheap format, back in the day when the paperback edition would only come out when the hardback sales had run out of steam. They originally had very plain covers with simply the author and title and no artwork. In the late 1970s and early '80s publishers started to see a demand for this format which offered the full hardback page size but in a paperback "perfect" binding, at a price point higher than a paperback but lower than a hardback.
I seem to remember finding trade paperbacks in airport or travel bookshops, too, at prices closer to hardbacks than paperbacks and ahead of the paperback publication. I bought John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman in this format way back in 1969/70.
With paperbacks, it's all about how the pages are held together. Stitching? That is perfect binding. A mesh glued to the spine? Thermal binding. They both have their pros and cons. A perfect bound book, because it's pages are sewn in groups will probably not fall apart very soon, but the cover may detach with time (the glue becomes too brittle - climate dependent). Thermal bindings (most small format paperbacks and some in the trade size), if broken open too widely, eventually the mesh having been repeatedly creased, will part along the divide between two pages somewhere around the middle of the sheaf.
Really cheapo thermal bound paperbacks (most of them) dispense with the mesh entirely which is why they are cheap (to produce) and soon fit for burning if you handle them roughly, leave them in direct sunlight, alternate hot and cold, moisture.
The TPB format was (and still is, in some circles) popular for large print editions because the Mass-Market Paperback format is simply too small for the larger text.
The Man in the High Castle was very interesting. Alternate history can be pretty weird in general... Recently I've read Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove and in the middle of my read I was like wtf am I reading here 😂 it was fun though
I gave the Amazon show a few episodes to see how it was...but it was just another interminably long melodrama. Hollywood is just so bad at adapting fiction. They always do the same thing they did with "House of Cards" - take a great story, stretch it out, and cram it full of irrelevant detritus. The Brits did "House of Cards" in less than a full season, and it was great. The American version was ten times longer and unrecognizable from the original book.
@@MrVvulf can't stand series. some of them start very well, but the format calls for ethernal and futile novelty. as bookpilled mention, in the man in the high castle there's non of the silly and lame resistance guerrilla tryng to be patriotic, and that's one of the powerful things that makes the book so unique. they literally killed the story in the show, as much as they did with Asimov's Foundation
Blade Runner being one of my favourite movies, of course I've tried to read Dick. But he really seems to up the dosage of whatever he's taking when it comes to the last chapters of his novels and it's just too much for me.
Robert Herrick was a great poet - one of those who sort of bridge the gap between the metaphysical poets and the new Christian poets of the Reformation who effectively synthesize a lot of ideas about religion and spirituality in a reasonable way that won't be seen again until the nineteenth century intellectuals. I mean he's no Donne, but if you dig Elizabethan poetry he's an excellent extension of that. A little more formal and structured than I would normally recommend.
When I think of Franz Werfel, I cannot help but think of Tom Lehrer's song about his wife Alma with the lines: "While married to Walt she'd met Werfel And he too was caught in her net He married her, but he was carefell 'Cause Alma was no Bernadette."
Stern der Ungeborenen should be fairly easy to find here in Berlin in the original language. So I’ll give it a go in german. It sounds interesting. The Man in the High Castle I found underwhelming and though the premise was great and some of the characters were well drawn, I didn’t click with the ending. There was a set of books by Len Deighton (from the 70ies?) called SS GB - which had a similar premise but placed in England. I remember enjoying them back in the day.
Hi. I would recommend to you and your viewers Doris Lessing,s 'Canopus In Argos; Archives' (5 volumes). These are not easy reading and should be read slowly but they are the most memorable and rewarding SF books that I have read. On an easier (and cuter) level you could try 'Startide Rising' by David Brin - a star ship piloted by dolphins. Keep up the good reviews.
"Attempted to read Valis" so interesting different people's responses to various novels. I read Valis in a single sitting. Love PK Dick. Love your content, be blessed and keep reading!
I loved Valis but by the time I read it I'd read "Scanner Darkly," "Do Androids Dream...", "Man in the High Castle" and a bunch of other Dick. I would never recommend it as a first Dick novel for someone - you have to already be on his wavelength I think. But if you're there it's amazing.
I am pumped for the Rendezvous With Rama movie coming out. Read the book as a kid 40 years ago. The Practice Effect by David Brin is also very very good.
Your channel is a breath of fresh air. Actual intellectual reviews and insight. Not, “this book was good, it was fun and stuff”. You have inspired me to search for a copy of Star of the Unborn. Thank you.
Have you read C.S. Lewis’ scfi trilogy? The third book is godawful, so don’t bother, but the first two are surprisingly good! There’s a meta-narrative of angels v demons thinly disguised as alien spirits, but Christian allegory aside, the world building and the local aliens are really cool. Reminds me of Rendezvous with Rama, inasmuch as it creates an eerie landscape that sticks with you long after the initial reading. Worth your time…
The third book isn't awful. It's the least of the three but it is worth reading. It's kind of related to our current culture war. Maybe that's what is most interesting about it. I like the first book the most. When We Have Faces is my favourite of his books.
I like this trilogy because it reads a bit like pulp sci-fi, but it has Lewis' insight (often but not always allegorical). He was one of the sharpest philosophical minds ever and had a razor wit to match. Both were well exercised in these books. I do admit that his fiction sometimes feels a bit weird because his most common writing form was the essay, where he was only a notch behind Bacon and pretty much the equal of Orwell, so it feels weird when he's intentionally not being pithy and laser-focused in the longer form of a novel, but his prose is always excellent, too. He had a unique, elegant, and very British way of turning a sentence.
I read “Star of the Unborn” in the mid-70s, when the edition you show at the beginning of your review was released (by Bantam, I think). I found it staggering and have read it at least twice since then. Werfel also wrote “The Song of Bernadette,” which was made into a well-known film in the ‘40s.
"Crazy guy at a bus-stop" still isn't far wrong with PKD lol. I'd echo the Martian Time-Slip rec from others, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is another personal fave. Star of the Unborn is one I've not heard of but will keep an eye out for.
Thanks for this review, dude. I've never heard of Star of the Unborn but the way you describe it and compare it to Past Master makes me very interested. I thought Past Master was an intriguing, cryptic work, and I liked hearing about this old book. I will keep an eye out but it is likely that I will never find it in the outside world, so I will have to think hard about buying it but I want to do some more research first, because a 600 page book from the 1940s is not something to pick up lightly.
Neuromamcer is the definitive Science Fiction experience. It's to the point that every new piece of media in the cyberpunk genre always uses the same paint that was used to create Gibson's work. You can even release it today and it will seem like an amazing new book for the genre. A lot of writers will have muddy moments in their books like with Philip K. Dick's random tangents he'll go on because of his drug use but Gibson writes in such a crystal clear way that mimics freshly clean glass windows lol.
I ❤ Gibson. I first read Neuromancer when I was 11 or 12. At that point a lot of it went over my head. I’ve read it again a few times over the years and its like a deeper conversation with an old friend each time. It’s also been very interesting to see a few parallels in tech that have played out over the years. I also like Gibson’s writing style and agree with @DoubleStarships, there is a certain clarity to his writing and it has had a profound influence on the genre. Honestly, I’m slightly surprised that “The Sprawl” stories haven’t been overtly turned (bastardized) into a movie or series by now.
Gibson is one of my favorite writers and Nueromancer changed my idea of what Sci Fi could be as a young man. That said, I think he really gained his voice and perfected his craft in stories that came after this book. The Virtual Light series is compelling and The whole series starting with Pattern Recognition is criminally underrated.
Werfel sounds interesting. I looked up Star Of The Uborn online, Internet Archive has it. 664 pages will take some time. Currently rereading James H. Schmitz personal masterpiece, The Witches of Karres - 394 pages.
On the German book cover "Ein Reiseroman" means "a novel of travelling." Funny. This sounds more akin to "Seven Years in Tibet," "Conquistadors of the Useless" or "Around the World in 80 Days."
This has become one of my favorite RU-vid channels. Past Masters is one of my favorites. Had to pick up Star of the Unborn after your comparison. Thanks for bringing obscure titles to light. I think I have pick up a half dozen books since discovering your channel.
Just dropping in - having recently discovered your channel - to say how much I'm enjoying your appreciation of this classic SF. As for the Man in the High Castle, I know it won awards but for me it's inferior to The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Ubik, though of course Electric Sheep also gets some plaudits. I've tried to find the Werfel book online but can't - but I'm currently reading Blindsight as a result of one of your previous lists. I'm going to say again here what I said in my comment on that 'best 15 SF books' video - if you don't know him, try Thomas M. Disch, especially Camp Concentration and 334. He was masterful, a brilliant writer of prose and in Camp Concentration, a brilliant plotter. I can't praise him highly enough as a writer and an SF seer. Thanks for your work!
One of your best videos, Matt! I'd read everything published by Dick by the late eighties and everything that has emerged since then, including letters etc- apart from one volume of selected letters I never got around to. I think he's essential on every level, despite flaws and even the bad books are worth reading. Although I've been saying for decades that other American SF writers that came in his wake (Silverberg, Disch, Delany) are underrated compared to him, his body of work as a whole is incredibly important. No reader can begin to judge him properly until they have at least six to eight of the major works under their belt - I'd cite (chronologically, more or less) 'Time Out of Joint', 'High Castle', 'Martian Time-Slip', 'Ubik', 'Three Stigmata' and 'Do Androids Dream...' as focal points in his 60s work (sans 'Time', which is earlier) ...but we could go on and on! Gibson made such an impact back in the 80s - I've read all of his books as they were published and re-read the early ones many times. He shook things up in American SF at exactly the time they needed shaking up. I'd urge multiple re-readings of the original trilogy and related stories- but for a full understanding of Cyberpunk early Sterling and Shirley complete the picture and K.W. Jeter's 'Dr Adder' shows what could have been ten years earlier had any publisher the nerve to publish it. I'd say to any reader under fifty 'forget what's happened in the last 30 years in SF, as although there is good stuff, the real period of innovation was 1950-1990,'. A lot of the key authors of that time can't be fully appreciated without reading of whole swathes of their oeuvres. It's very hard now that there is almost 100 years of genre SF that one's reading can get very scattershot. Well done for pulling a real obscurity out of the hat there too - notice the Dante thing in it? My feeling is that NYRB Classics will reissue the Werfel at some point in the not too distant future.
I did notice the Dante motif, yes. I recall you saying you hadn't read Star of the Unborn - have you read it since? I hope NYRB does republish it, seems like a good fit. Dick is on a short (medium?) list of Important Authors with whom I have a lot of catchup work to do. I own the majority of the titles you list and may set aside a chunk of time to read them uninterrupted. I read DADOES when I was a teenager, which means I realistically haven't read it. Have been looking for Dr. Adder but it is a rare one, as you know.
@@Bookpilled No, I've not been able to read 'Star' but read up on it a while ago- and his Armenian genocide novel is in print in the UK. It's interesting looking back on how as a teenager I circled around a handful of writers working through their oeuvres before exploding into others in my early twenties- it is much harder now, I think, with so much out there! Hope you manage to get the Jeter- try and pick up 'City Come A' Walkin'' by Shirley and 'Involution Ocean' by Sterling for the nascent Punk attitude that they lined up for Cyberpunk before it really got going. I noticed the other day that someone bought Moid the Shirley the other day - that man needs to come bookshopping with me, one day...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I have only managed to find one Jeter book - Seeklight, which I have yet to read. I've been on the look for Involution Ocean since you mentioned it in a video but no luck so far. Wasn't familiar with City Come A' Walkin, will add it to the list.
@@Bookpilled 'Seeklight' is one of the very early ones. Put it aside for now. Pick up 'Wolf Flow' and 'Madlands' if you come across them, they're more representative. But any Jeter is worth owning, sans the 'Bladerunner' sequels - but even they have their charm. He really is quite special.
Your views of Dreamsnake match my experiences with other Vonda McIntire books. There is something in her prose style that is kind of pared down and simplistic, even with sophisticated concepts.
In a way, Philip K. Dick is also a very underrated author, usually cornered in the sci fi genre, as sort of a dreamer, or a visionary, but he is much more than that. Specially now, his ouvre gathers solid prescience. In a way, he is to us now (lost creatures of the matrix) what Kafka was to the late 70's 80's and 90's
First off...Love your channel. What an old little duck of viewing pleasure. RU-vid truly has something for everyone. Dick was one of my favorite authors in High School. Started with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep 'cause Blade Runner had just come out. Even though different, I was really taken by his style. Then I tried VALIS. Ugh. TOO MUCH STYLE! Gave up, read The Divine Invasion and Man in the High Castle. Faith restored. Then UBIK, Confessions of a Crap Artist, Time out of Joint, etc with a lot of short stories (most are familiar with the movie versions of these) and just realized he was a heavily drugged, depressed, paranoid and spiritual guy that actually had FANTASTIC ideas. I get you on the I-Ching. I tend to not like too much spirituality / mysticism in my SCI-FI. I threw Stranger from a Strange Land across the room when I finished it. I have since accepted it and it has expanded my boundries in my SCIFI menu. (Still think Hyperion by Simmons is bleh...)
IT HAPPENED. Went to a local used bookstore, just killing an hour. I’d last been there a month ago - even going so far as to go through their stored books that time - so I wasn’t expecting anything major this visit. And there it was, in the paperback W’s, right at the end of my browsing when I was getting ready to go. For $3. Going for $70-80 on eBay as I speak. I just started laughing....
Some of Philip K Dicks are incredible, but the standard drops so much in many (he was churning out one a week with no editor at one stage). VALIS should come with a warning, it's interesting but he was completely crazy by the time he wrote it, it's very hard to read and not really worth it. For me the three stigmata of Palmer eldritch is his masterpiece, I have never read such a paranoid book, incredible.
probably most impressive of star of the unborn is that he never got to polish it, which might explain flaws and a lower pace. Ther is an audiobook on youtube too with a really good narator who wants to have a relaxing audiobook read, he really has a meditative style thats still fun.
Making my way through the 100 book challenge videos. Would love to hear your thoughts on count zero or mona lisa overdrive by gobson if youve read them. Been sitting in my TBR and im excited to get to them. You keep putting me onto books that are way to pricey to pick up online it seems :) keeping an eye out for Star of the Unborn next time in trawlong used book stores.
For Man In The High Castle, I enthusiastically agree with your synopsis. I especially remember the Japanese businessman’s appreciation of older American music lost on the American. Now I have to re-read it.
Thanks. I grabbed Burning Chrome from our local library. I remember reading Chrome back when it was published in Omni and at least a couple of the others. Good old 80s cyberpunk. Hinterland was good too, kind of Lovecraftian a bit. All these various civilizations poking at the unknown in the hopes of finding something useful and not caring so much what it cost. Or maybe an inside out Roadside Picnic. I'm getting a bunch of stuff on my reading list. Keep up the good work.
I recently caught video of a futurist named Rizwan Virk, who asks the question: Are we living in a simulation? (See "The Simulation Hypothesis") He attacks it from many angles, including Science Fiction. Virk discussed PKD significantly: * In 1977 PKD stated this at a SF conference: "We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in reality occurs. We have the overwhelming impression that we were reliving the present - deja vu." 1977, let that sink in. *Virk also interviewed PKD's last wife, and she related that PKD was convinced that the "history" of Man in the High Castle occurred in simulation, it was "re-run," and our (current reality) timeline was the outcome "allowed to move forward." Wild Stuff 😎
Some of my favorite Philip K. Dick books are Ubik, and the Simulacron. I found the Man in the High Castle sort of boring. There are a number of films based on Dick's books. The Rotoscoped Through a Glass Darkly is pretty good, but my favorite is Radio Free Albimuth.
I think Count Zero is the best of the Sprawl books. Idoru is really good aswell (so is most of Gibson, Zero History...) But The Peripheral must be his best so far.
Paperback of the English translation of Star of the Unborn is selling for $100+ ! A reissue would be wonderful. The German original is far cheaper, ~$14. German dictionary, $20 - come out ahead that way
Phillip K Dicks best novel is "Flow My Tears The Policeman Said" if you want criminally underrated, With "Ubik" being his best fast pace thriller novel lol. He has alot of different eras, some books he wrote in a week and I admire them differently. "The 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich" is probably the wildest of them all. They haven't even adapted anything I'd put in my top 5 lol. "Man in the High Castle" was the 2nd book of his I'd read, I crushed it in a weekend one of his easier reads and thank god
My favourite short stories from Burning Chrome were “The belonging kind” (its been a Really long time since I read it btw) about a guy with no fashion sense that turns out to be a sort of larval alien and that one about the guy that photographs art deco buildings and gets transported into a sort of Flash Gordon alternative reality. Loved them! Neuromancer is one of the all time greats. I remember the first time I read it there’s this one scene where Case gets a phone call in Turkey and you finally work out what’s really going on and it’s like a bomb going off in your mind.
07:09 what happened was terrible during armenian deportation but it was not genocide, because Armenians killed lots of Turks before that and Turks killed many Armenians but it was not driven by Ottoman empire, not state policy. Please choose your words wisely.
My attention is piqued again by your spirited and descriptive references to William Gibson. I’ve attempted a few times, some years back now, Neuromancer. Never finished it (or read enough to inspire me to finish). So, time to try again, hopefully successfully this time around. I think indirectly though, via a look at some of the short stories of Burning Chrome, particularly the three you highlighted.
You are missing out. There are a huge number of Dick novels with tons of great stories and ideas. Complaining about VAILIS being weird and whacked out is like reading Burroughs cutup novels and complaining they are disjointed. Or reading Bukowski and taking issue with the nihilism and drinking. Dick was undergoing a breakdown when he wrote VALIS. Or he was being initiated and assimilated into ZEBRA or he was tripping on amphetamine psychosis. @Ronald Williams made a comment you should heed.. He recommends Flow My Tears, Ubik, Maze Of Death and Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch. Some of my favorites. I would add A Scanner Darkly, The Simulacrum and (mostly for the cool ideas) Now Wait For Last Year. But, I'm a total Dickhead. So... So... I'll also recommend The Exegesis, so you can reconcile your issues with VALIS before reading the rest of the VALIS books (including Transmigration Of Timothy Archer). It's a short easy read compared to say, Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, but more cohesive and fun.
GREENER THAN YOU THINK (Ward Moore, 1947) is IMO a masterpiece of sardonic speculative fiction. I compare it to CATCH-22 but with a terribly narcissistic narrator who is obnoxious to the nth degree. Every character is a caricature, deliberately, and Moore is ruthless in his depictions. The book is one of the funniest and most unforgiving I’ve ever read. He plays with words by combining them frequently. There is a musical quality to the narrator’s speech, at times discordant, at times mellifluous. You must not have read it, else it would top your list.
To the neutral reader who hasn't read Dick, I might suggest a book of short stories of his called *We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.* Now, this book title has many different covers. The one you want to get (because they're not all the same content, which I know from direct experience) is the one where you're looking at the underwing of a giant jet plane.
Mate, I just read this book that I think you might find interesting: The Egghead Republic by Arno Schmidt. It's weird, with strong notes of Vonnegut, Dick, Farmer, but also something really unique. I'd love to see your reaction to it!
Thanks. So thoughtful, and didn't ask for thumbs up or subscription, so I subscribed, and put Star of the Unborn on my search list. Already liked Dick. Not crazy about Tolkien. Didn't care for Necromancer, Pattern Recognition (dense terminology?), so Gibson not for me. Can't remember what I read of Silverberg or why I don't think I like him. Maybe give him another shot some day. Thanks.
Whew! I like how you went straight into showing us what book you were referring to in the title. Valis is pkd's most harrowing and difficult work. In fact, he meant valis to be read after all his other works. Cheers, excited to watch this one
With THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, there are certain elements appearing very early in the book which would alert anyone who's familiar with Japanese society that some things were amiss. [SPOILERS COMING UP] 1. In the book the Japanese occupiers of the United States all speak English to the "natives." This is completely at odds with their policy in all the territories they conquered. There was always strong and immediate pressure for the conquered peoples to learn Japanese, starting with the educated classes. The occupiers were never keen to learn or use the local languages. "Why should we?" was their attitude. 2. The American art dealer Robert Childan interacts with a Japanese husband and wife who go by the names "Paul and Betty." Japanese people in that period - acutely aware of their status as conquerors - would never ever contemplate adopting such a practice. When the Japanese conquered Taiwan in the 1890's, took over Korea in 1910 and were awarded most of the Micronesian islands after World War 1, their policy was to have the conquered people take Japanese names. While this would have been uphill work in Japan's slice of the USA, it would have been absolutely unthinkable for Japanese officials in their new vassal state to adopt English names. The conquered Americans would simply be expected to learn to pronounce Japanese names. 3. The Japanese in the book make frequent use of the I Ching 易經 oracle. In fact they rarely make an important decision without consulting it. While Japan absorbed many Chinese influences over the centuries, using the I Ching oracle was definitely *not* one of them. In fact, far from being a feature of everyday life, the I Ching was practically unknown in 20th-century Japan. All of these things would alert readers familiar with Japanese society that the world Dick is describing could not possibly be authentic. And, as we learn by the end of the book, the characters are indeed living in a "false reality."
Claiming that some no name like Franz Werfel is far superior than Tolkien is a crime. Tolkien is probably on of the 5 best authors of 20th century, a figure ofvthe same life as Ernest Hemingway. And in some cases even more superior than Hamingway. How we can recognize a true timeless classic? By the impact it gave to the world through time. And Tolkien's impact is akin of nuclear explosion. He not only changed literature and intertaiment industry. He literally changed society, politic, history. Images and ideas from his books, his influence you can se in almost all fantasy and many sci-fi books, movies, tv series. Matrix trilogy is a retelling of Lord of the Rings not the Neromancer! Felowship broken: one part go to defend Minas Tirit (Zeon), but Frodo and Sam (Neo and Trinity) went into Mordor (dead lands, the house of enemy) and sneaky Gorlum (agent smith in human body) follows them and attaks from the dark. So author, be so kind. Do not even try to compare Tolkien with people like Franz Werfel.
VALIS is probably the worst possible first introduction to Philip K. Dick. It's actually my favorite Dick novel, but it probably shouldn't be tackled by anyone who doesn't have a good base familiarity with his work. The Man in the High Castle is a much better choice for starting to read Dick. Other good 'introductory' novels include A Maze of Death, A Scanner Darkly, Clans of the Alphane Moon, and Eye in the Sky.
I love Dick's 1950s and 60s era "straight" novels, but oddly enough I generally have not liked his science fiction. TMitHC is a great book, nonetheless. The Amazon series not so much. I honestly think his later books were adversely affected by his drug induced psychosis.
Philip K. Dick was unique, far from being typical sci-fi. Lots of great short stories, some amazing ( even though not exactly "perfect" - whatever that means) novels , like Ubik, The three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do androids dream..., Martian time- slip, flow my tears the policeman said.. Some others are partially good ( or uneven) like A Maze of death, The man in the high castle, A scanner darkly, The eye in the sky ... Others ( especially some of his early works ) were hastily and sloppily written, but they had their moments. Twists and turns, strange sense of humor, lots of great ( or weird or disjointed) ideas, closer to Borges than to classic science fiction sometimes , not everyone's cup of tea. Great author, IMO.
Having been previously unfamiliar with Star of the Unborn, I did a Google search,and, lo and behold, a 1946rview from The Atlantic, which amounted to extremely brief critique that simply called it a piece of shit without giving even the slightest quantum of a synopsis. Now my curiosity is extremely piqued, but there's neither Kindle edition nor print currently available on Amazon. I hate it when that happens.
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