I've read almost all of Dick's novels. My favorite is A Scanner Darkly, which deals with a number of his major themes and also has some autobiographical undercurrents. What really sets it apart for me is the ending, which I was quite moved by. Dick is not famous for jerking your tears, but in this case he really got me. The Linklater movie of the book is remarkably faithful and well done and deserves more love.
Starting to read again with 1984 as per your recommendation in your beginner books video and I just love it, particularly for its prose. I love the way you eloquently describe the core properties of books without spoiling them and love the lack of fluff in your videos. Still can't find another book related youtuber like you. Your "bookhaul" videos do nothing for me though lol, presumably because I don't get dopamine from collecting things.
The Midwich Cuckoos is one of my favorite books. Thanks for not giving away the big reveal. The title is perfect. By the way this is off topic but I want to thank you for introducing Peter Watts’ Blindsight a while back. Based on your review I purchased the Firefall omnibus that contains it. This book is fantastic. I’m not a big fan of hard sf but Blindsight is amazing. Thanks, again.
I liked Ubik but not as much as some other PKDs such as Do Androids Dream, Three Stigmata, Man in the High Castle. My most recent PKD was A Scanner Darkly. I really liked it, would be very much interested to one day see your review.
Idk if I will always agree with you, but I definitely like your clarity of expressing how and why you feel like you do for each book and author. Safe journeys!
I had a similar experience with Ubik but I enjoyed the ending more so I gave it a 9/10. I don’t think I’ll be reading The Goat Without Horns but I enjoyed the experience vicariously through your review haha
Oh, Thomas Burnett Swann! A lingering guilty pleasure from my adolescence. His work is-just that-twee, cutesy, sexy, sentimental, sometimes surprisingly touching. I loved the *idea* of the many strange races and creatures sharing the world with us, and ever more quickly retreating. The execution…mixed.
I’m honored you read this, Bookpilled! Swann’s most controlled, least embarrassing book is *Tournament of Thorns*. Also important is that while he never came out publicly, it’s clear that Swann was gay, and wrote proto-gay characters into most of his books, as well as related themes of sexual liberation. So, there’s that.
I got bookpilled and squatchmaxed again after falling off watching any RU-vid at all. I’m gonna embarrass you in front of the 30K viewers you have by getting super corny and saying that I really miss you, my friend, and I’m so happy and proud that you are shining and bookpilling the world straight from the Aztec promised land. ❤️🙏
I liked hearing your overview of these three books. I have not yet read any of them, though. The one thing I didn't notice is a tie between what you discussed and the video title, "Why is fantasy so often a crucible of literary sorrows?"
Finally, someone I respect in the YT SF universe has addressed this PKD novel (possibly also reviewed by that Outlaw in Wales but I was not able to find it in his archive). I read it in 1969 as soon as it hit the shelves, not because I was waiting for it, just because it was a new PKD. I wasn't disappointed but as you said, BP, I, too, "didn't walk away a changed person" but instead just noticeably more appreciative of what he brought to the stage. Thanks for this excellent channel, I'm sure it's a labor of love which makes it all the more endearing. Cheers.
I've only read some short stories and A Scanner Darkly and have enjoyed everything but I don't feel the itch for more like I do with writers like Le Guin or Ballard
I read Midwich Cuckoos for the first time few months ago. I was especially taken with Zellaby character. The way Wyndham portrays him at the beggining (as a half-senile, sleepy, self- absorbed , pompous eccentric ) & then as the novel unfolds you progressively witness what kind of sharp intellect is really behind that demeanor. I also recommend Strugatsky bros " Beetle in the Anthill " 1979 , because it is their very well done hommage to this novel.
I much prefer The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Martian Time-Slip to Ubik. I've never understood why Ubik has become the go to for PKD fans to suggest.
I always listen to your positive recommendations, but I LOVE hearing your "bad" reviews!!! Absolutely hillarious! Great to hear some thoughts on Midwych Cuckoos. I was pleasantly surprised by how he tackled writing gender dynamics - after all, there's a scene in this book which is the male community leaders deciding *not* to inform their female counterparts about what's going on "for their own good". Having grown up in Vatican-ruled Ireland, I really appreciated those descriptions, and felt that Wyndham actually captured a lot of nuance and depth.
I read Ubik when I was about 18 and felt really lost in the process. I'm pretty sure after reading all this time (a long time) I can approach this book in a different way. I'm officially putting it on the list. Thank you!!
I remember really liking Ubik a lot when I read it in my twenties, but like so many of Dick’s books they fade in memory over time. Man in The High Castle and Scanner Darkly are probably my favorites.
Ah, glad you liked Ubik! I think you're completely right on how its own influence has impacted it in the intervening years, but reading it as a teenager it was one of thing first times a book removed the floor from under me as I was reading so it's always close to my heart. I really need to read the Lems I have. Just so many books...
I read “Day of the Triffids “ and really enjoyed it. Haven’t read “The Midwich Cuckoos” but saw the movie recently “Village of the Damned”(1960 Version) Pretty good actually. I still want to read the book.
I just finished Ubik last night. It's one of my lesser-liked Dick books. 2-3/5. I found it difficult to get into over the years that I've had it in my book collection - I realise now that I disliked the character of Runciter and his first few scenes don't grab me. Joe Chip I liked, and I liked Pat Conley, but was ultimately disappointed with her role in the book which could have been much more. I pretty much agree with your comments about Ubik, but just have a different level of enjoyment about it. Your point about Dick's ideas becoming well-known, and we the modern readers unable to be shocked by it, was something that a Goodreads reviewer pointed out about The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. He referred to it as the "Citizen Kane Syndrome". I also realise now that I prefer Dick's books that encompass metaphysical and theological explorations. And Ubik played out like a sort of who-done-it/what-is-happening story, and not much else.
It's something I've found with his books that there is a big dividing line with people preferring his more straightforward books or those delving further into the metaphysical and theological. I have never really connected with "A Scanner Darkly" but I love the theological madness that is "Galactic Pot Healer," despite it having far less acclaim. I really feel he's best when the plot is laid out by his philosophical ramblings rather than the other way round.
@@Jared-qy1jh Likewise! I actually think A Scanner Darkly suffers from being partly written by his wife(?) - while the story may be authentic Dick, the sentences aren't. Previous to Ubik, I read The Cosmic Puppets, an early pulp novel about Zoroastrian Gods controlling a town. Not a long novel, but it worked, and there was no labouring over certain points (though there was a seriously cringey and dodgy scene...).
of course cukoos was adapted in the 1960s into a very creepy and popular movie that became even more popular as a saturday afternoon tv type movie, plus i guess alater remake, but i wont name the title. its also a recent series, which i have not seen. anyway, i see wyndham started to write a sequel, but gave it up. apparantly he did get thru a few chapters of it, which i would not mind reading out of curiosity if its available. i just wonder if it indicates what new direction the story might have gone.
... lol.... Mariana Trench lows... that is saying something! I love The Midwich Cuckoos and have been reading and re-reading it since I was a teenager. I have to say, I never noticed anything about gender dynamics. I guess I will just have to re-read it again soon and look for them.
Now, that you’ve read UBIK, will you read Three Stigmata next or have you read it already? I read them back to back a few years ago and enjoyed them both. (No, they didn’t change my life 😂)
I love how PKD took SF and parodided many elements into something more serious than may authors who took them seriously could ever hope to achieve. Lem had the best way of describing Dick's themes in his prime. I disliked the alternate history in the Man in the High castle. But some moments where very good. Like how the Italian discribes how he learned to appreciate manual labour. But we as the readers know you don't have to go through what that guy went to be able to appreciate that. He also drops the fact that the USSR was probably nowhere as strong as in the real world. Because Stalingrad is described as some small village. While in reality it was the opposite and one of the most important strategy points to be taken by the Germans if they wanted to win the campaign.
NGL, The Goat Without Horns premise, i.e viewed through the eyes of sentient dolphins, intrigues me but erotic fantasy is not my bag and will take your word for it on quality. I’d be up for that type of book though with no main human characters. Listening to another earth creature recount its evolutionary journey on this planet sounds like it would be an interesting read otherwise.
you might be interested in "The Idiot Gods" by David Zindell. I haven't gotten to it yet so I can't speak on quality but I'm pretty sure it's a SF/fantasy type thing from the perspective of an orca
I have found that sometimes I manage, apparently through luck, become completely on the same wavelenght with a particular book, it has only happened to me, maybee 3 o 4 times. One of the times it was a book by Philip K Dick, but it wasn't UBIK, which I struggled with the first time I read it. For some reason I really jelled with his VALIS, which he wrote right after an LSD trip, and tells the tale of a man struck in the brain by a pink laser from God from outer space. I reread it a decade later and the magick was gone... Perhaps that is what happens with people that read UBIK, that they were in the perfect mindset for it when they read it.
Yeah, we can't fully appreciate PKD because we're so unconsciously saturated in him. Calling him "pulp" is like judging the box your gift comes in more than the gift itself.
THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS was adopted into a movie twice, both called VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, one in 1960 and one in 1995. I'm surprised you were worried about spoilers for it because it's not really that obscure a work thanks to the movies.
Sorry, but I have to know - You, man of old SFF, great prose writers, eccentric ideas... Have you ever read Brandon Sanderson? 😂 If so what did you think? Feel like the review would just be a sigh 😂
I imagine fantasy writing attracts a larger crowd. I also would wager the Pareto Principle still stands. There is definitely gold in the fantasy genre, but there is simply MORE garbage. Science fiction is riddled with garbage, too. Garbage everywhere. Additionally, perhaps you have honed your sci-fi-shit-detector razor sharp and your fantasy radar is retarded by prejudice. Furthermore, perhaps it's just not your thing. I couldn't enjoy a K-pop song if you put a gun to my mother's head. It's horrendous and bankrupt of any value.... yet, still, since I'm stuck here, I will entertain the slim possibility that one day I will find a decent K-plop song. Maybe you should start with fantasy short stories. I believe that is where the qualities of literature you value in sci-fi may be easier to detect. Bloat is definitely a problem with fantasy (points a crooked finger at Robert Jordan's dusty remains).
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