ThReads Must Roll: the new, improved rolling fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction &c. thread

Reading Ubik, my first PDK. It's good so far! Read eight pages. The writing is *way* more graceful than High Castle, which I found almost unreadable.

I mean, actually unreadable, because I couldn't finish it.

Ubik is amazing. Definitely in the top 5 of the 15 or so pkd i have read

yeah it's peak PKD

High Castle is overrated imo

Yeah, feel like there is too much, um, naturalism and not enough paranoia.

turns out the i ching is not really a great sf author

Ubik is maybe my favourite PKD

Tell it to the homeopape!

High Castle is not an especial PKD favourite of mine either, but I'm slightly puzzled by Chuck Tatum saying that it's the quality of the writing that put him off. Dick was never known to be an particularly elegant prose stylist - could be downright clumsy/ugly when he was really churning books out - but it's generally agreed that High Castle is his most 'polished' SF novel. He spent a comparatively long time writing it, it was a rare hardcover original for him, and it won him his only Hugo award. Whereas the opening chapter of UBIK has always struck me as quite an clunky beginning, before the whole thing hits that sweet PKD zone.

Oh, and I recently started Blood Music by Greg Bear, but the first twenty or so pages were so filled with science-speak - that I didn't understand a word of - I quickly set it aside. 'Hard SF' is just not for me, I guess.

I don't think I'd enjoy super Hard SF either but I value the existence of niche and obscure art more than ever, even if it makes me feel frustrated and insecure sometimes.
Anything that makes the "plot and relatable/likable characters are all that matters" crowd miserable is a good thing.

the opening chapter of UBIK

iirc a significant chunk of this chapter is descriptions of people's ridiculous clothes, which, tbh I always find hilarious

i like reading technical stuff for some reason. even though i'm dumb. i like reading really long interviews with audio engineers and stuff like that as well. even though i'm dumb. i find it soothing. i figure i'll get the gist of it. i am the least math and science-oriented person you will ever meet.

i like that too, it's like I'm resting on a thick comfortable mattress of science which I do not understand at all but feels good on my back

JnJ otm!

this blish story ("this earth of ours") from 1959 mentions "lysergic acid grenades"? Who was hip to LSD back then?

Blish worked for Pfizer after WWII, maybe that's how he heard about it. I wonder if that phrase gave Brian Aldiss the idea for Barefoot in the Head.

yeah I made that connection to

too

Whereas the opening chapter of UBIK has always struck me as quite an clunky beginning,

Interesting! Given how much I'm enjoying Ubik I will probably go back and try MITHC again. The first chapter of Ubik is entertaining, though! It's full of exposition but I like how the PKD narrator keeps including jaded phrases like "of course" and "as usual" as if everything happening is just the same old same old - it's quite a nifty way of doing world-building without being square about it. (I'm guessing this is a typical PKD trope?)

iirc a significant chunk of this chapter is descriptions of people's ridiculous clothes, which, tbh I always find hilarious

Yeah lol I read this description and was, like, I have no fucking idea how to picture this but it's funny and gets the vibe across:

He wore a varicolored Dacron wash-and-wear suit, knit cummerbund and dip-dyed cheese-cloth cravat. His head, massive like a tomcat’s, thrust forward as he peered through slightly protruding, round and warm and highly alert eyes.

(I'm guessing this is a typical PKD trope?)

this is def a thing he does a lot. The off-the-wall descriptions in the opening chapter stuck out to me though, in that it seems like a sustained riff that I don't remember him really leaning on much in other books. (He does generally have a tendency to throw in silly/cheap elements into any given scene but he really lays it on thick in the beginning of Ubik)

got this for father's day, looks fantastic. Pic of him on the jacket is great, sad that he died when he was only 34

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fd.gr-assets.com%2Fbooks%2F1376407621l%2F41605.jpg&f=1

that looks great

iirc he had abominable oral hygiene (where did i read that)

aw the lovable scamp
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nndb.com%2Fpeople%2F218%2F000077984%2Fcmk-2.gif&f=1

iirc he had abominable oral hygiene (where did i read that)

Damon Knight, The Futurians.

Kornbluth said there was a story in his family that one day when a passerby cooed at him in his baby carriage, he announced, "Madam, I am not the child you think me." His parents, like Wollheim's, were nonreligious Jews; Kornbluth didn't find out about dietary laws until one summer at Grossinger's, a famous Jewish resort in the Catskills, when he innocently asked the waitress for ham and eggs.

He had a deep voice, Tartar eyes and a sullen expression. He rarely smiled, and when he did, did not expose his teeth. The reason for this may have been that he never brushed them, and they were green.

That first sentence quoted there caused genuine lols

Books i find on the street pt. 973 pic.twitter.com/r6bL235Gsu

— Chief Rocketeer (@JoshuaBizabcock) June 20, 2017

that cover fucking ROCKS

1955!

Silverbob's first published book

trying to remember what paperback that kornbluth cover is from...i know i have it at home.

looks like a Richard M. Powers

yeah, he was so awesome. the painting was for sale!

http://www.artnet.com/artists/richard-powers/man-on-earth-paperback-cover-b4rsyQCyN6t4VOT32cZGUA2

best covers:

https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&biw=1366&bih=662&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=richard+powers+paperback+cover&oq=richard+powers+paperback+cover&gs_l=img.3...34350.43905.0.44353.68.42.5.0.0.0.171.3778.28j12.40.0....0...1.1.64.img..33.14.1319...0j35i39k1j0i67k1j0i7i30k1j0i7i5i30k1j0i8i7i10i30k1j0i8i7i30k1.nSUULVYWjAU#imgrc=_

Andy Partridge agrees: http://chalkhills.org/reelbyreal/a_Powers.html

Just read the first two stories (the second almost a novelette, developmentally as well as length-wise) in Kelly Link's Get In Trouble: immediately tasty bits but positively 0 spoon-feeding the reader. Respect!

Anybody else getting mostly links instead of images? Seems to be a general ILX thing these days.

Links work, but still.

ooh thx for the heads up on new Link, will get

An intriguing translation wishlist

http://thebedlamfiles.com/commentary/foreign-novels-in-translation-my-twelve-most-wanted/

huh curious about the Hungarian, never heard of him before

Been reading BLACK WATER, an anthology by Alberto Manguel from 30 years ago: 1000 pages of Fantastic short stories, obv, inspired by Calvino's similar anthology, and with enormous amounts of good stuff in.

Ooh I've never even heard of that

It's great. There's a second volume, WHITE FIRE, which I have ordered.
http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1258848406l/1329251.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Y%2BtLPON3L._AC_UL320_SR204,320_.jpg

ah, found it. that was bugging me that i couldn't think of what book it was and meanwhile duh the painting is called man on earth in that auction listing. which is close enough.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51dmYBvfhbL._SX296_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

UBIK was a total blast, so I'm looking for further PDK recommendations. What sez anyone?

Things I loved:

- I was expecting something colder, like Pynchon or Twilight Zone, but was surprised/pleased by how moving and affecting Dick's writing is - the rapid-ageing set pieces and genuinely sad and nerve-wracking.
- The characters are kinda stock and silly but I enjoyed being in their company and rooted for them. (I'm not sure I "rooted" for, say, Oedipa Maas.) There is a LOT of plot but the characters don't act like clockwork pieces who solely for PDK to move the story forward - they have their own motivations and idiosyncrasies
- Was gradually won over by PDK's kooky overwriting, dad jokes, weird under-explaining, and silly poetry. I tried to imagine a more plotcentric version of Ubik, with terse Dashiell Hammett sentences and more straightforward plot momentum - and realised I wouldn't want to read that book.
- An ambiguous twist ending that actually works, thematically and structurally! Good job there PDK
- You know that "all-knowing" character in science fiction, like Ben in Lost, or Anthony Hopkins in Westworld, who could save everyone a lot of hassle and explain the whole mystery in the first episode, but doesn't because there's several seasons/episodes/chapters left to fill? I like that there *isn't* one of those characters in Ubik - everyone's as confused as each other.

Anyway, I probably don't need to PDKsplain to a sci-thread - but really enjoyed this.

Or PKD, even.

PDK, What Does It Mean?

Phillip Dick K.

Philip Dick mmKay