It’s been a long time since I’ve read it. I think of it as a book about perception and being weighed down by our baggage. Our lives may feel as though Hitler and Tojo won, and our outlook may reflect this ahistorical monstrosity and we may guide our lives by things as stupid as astrology or IChing, but that is not the reality of the world we actually do live in. The good guys won. Live your life like the good guys won.
I, likewise, thought the basic premise sounded terrific; but, quite simply, found the novel boring. (There came to mind my ex, who is a sweet woman, but conversationally bears “the kiss of death” – she could recount a personally-experienced narrative of the zombie apocalypse, and make it boring.) The characters’ preoccupation with the iChing was, for me, wearisome; and I didn’t get as far as the stuff with the spirit behind the iChing having written the contra-reality book.
I’ve ordered Androids from Amazon. From the general tenor of this thread, I don’t feel hugely hopeful; but will try to give it “a fair go”.
The Second Stone’s post above; and Baal Houtham’s thoughts on “reality leakage” – in the book’s “universe”, did the Axis not in fact win, and the characters’ seeming experiences are unreal? – have me feeling that maybe I’m just a simple soul, who likes his alternative history simply to be plain alternative history, “and no messing”? I suspect that for alt. hist., I’m liable to be happier with the likes of Harry Turtledove (on his good days).
If the OP would like to read a nice, very short, PKDick story, here’s a link to “King of the Elves.”
It leans more toward pure fantasy than most of Dick, but it has some characteristic touches: ordinary people facing amazing events, a bit of confusion about what’s real, cliche avoidance, and entirely decent writing.
What? I’m just saying you’re trying to write all fancy with semicolons and words like “hitherto” and “enthuse” and it just comes out either wrong or jarring.
Flow My Tears is a fantastic book with one of the most frustratingly annoying endings. Read it, but be ready to just chuck it across the room and yell when you get to the end.
Actually, that’s true of a lot of Dick’s novels, but this one annoyed me more than most.
I had the impression that this was a discussion forum about mutual interests; not a class for people to try to improve their written-language skills. I quite often find posts on SDMB, whose written English grates on me – I’d thought, up to now, that the civil and polite thing to do in such circumstances, was to put up with it and say nothing – or if the particular poster’s language use is unendurable to the reader, just to skip over their posts. Your anger and hostility strike me as inappropriate for this particular scene – and if these three-and-a-bit lines are too “fancy” for your taste: that’s your problem.
Well, what did he mean by it? Dick was always playing around with perception of reality.
As for Turtledove, thirty years ago I met him at a dinner party before he was famous. His wife and I were in a graduate seminar on the Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens. He was writing under a pen name at the time and introduced himself as an unknown science fiction author I wouldn’t have heard of who wrote under a pen name. Turns out I had read one of his short stories. Nice fellow.
Well, I met him once 30 years ago, and he is a very mild mannered and modest fellow. At least he was then. He was not famous, having only published under a pseudonym, and was rather surprised that I had read something of his. I think it was in Dragon magazine and featured an awful pun “one bad tern deserves another” at the end, if my memory serves me correctly. It was pretty good up till the end. If that is the correct story. The pun ruined the mood of the story. And I like bad puns.
The nice thing about Dick is that he wrote so much, there’s probably something you would like. I agree that a short story collection might be better. Other novels of his that I’ve read and liked that haven’t been mentioned so far include Solar Lottery, The Game Players of Titan, Clans of the Alphane Moon, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and The Zap Gun. I’ve also read the other novels mentioned so far and the only one I don’t really like is The Man in the High Castle.
GovernmentMan, I’ve given you a warning for being a jerk starting this squabble with an obnoxious off-topic comment, and for following it up with two more.
vontsira, you shouldn’t call someone an obnoxious prick, even when provoked. Your proper move would have been to report GM’s post for mod attention, or to take it to the Pit. I’m going to let it slide, based on provocation, but pls. remember that for the future.
Heh. Nice one. But seriously, it does raise a point, why DOES Hollywood love Dick? There are plenty of other SF writers who write fast-moving and smooth adventure stories that don’t get nearly as much attention from Hollywood as Dick does.
My guess is that his regular theme of “Is this real-real or drug real” has a fundamental appeal to Hollywood, which LURVES that whole “Is this real” vibe. Also, Dick’s work, however badly written, DOES tend to make for a nice pitch: “Man gets company to alter his mind so he thinks he is a super secret agent on Mars as a sort of futuristic vacation, but is he REALLY a super secret on Mars whose “vacation” was actually him being activated from being a sleeper agent on Earth? Combines slam-bank action adventure with stuff about reality and identity the critics will eat up!”
The real question, to my mind, is how Dick ever found a PUBLISHER. God, his books were awful.
[/quote]
none of whom I found sympathetic or could strongly identify with
[/quote]
I haven’t read the rest of this thread, but the above-quoted bit from the OP leads me to think Philip K. Dick is not the right author for them. Not that I think they’ll never find a character they will like or identify with, but rather, that characters aren’t really what there is to enjoy in Dick’s novels.
His short stories show that he could tie up all the loose ends, at least in the short story format. Possibly the novel format presented problems for him in this regard, but to be honest I had the impression he just wasn’t concerned to tie up all the loose ends.
No, it’s not really. They’re thematically related, somewhat, and even that is only insofar as they relate together parts of the biography of Dick himself.