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Thread: The Sci-Fi Discussion Thread

  1. #51
    Not a praying man Melville's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting lovejuice (view post)
    so i think i'll read i, robot. since i really love the movie
    ?

    What force on Earth could compel you to love such a thing?
    I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?

    lists and reviews

  2. #52
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Melville (view post)
    ?

    What force on Earth could compel you to love such a thing?
    He and I have been defending this film quite a bit lately. I like it because it perfectly captures the tone of classic, golden era science fiction. The film possesses a pulpy-adventure story wrapped around a bit of societal exploration. It is also a well made film technically speaking. I rented it with little expectation, and walked away enjoying it quite a bit.

    Sure, I'd rather see the Ellison script filmed, who wouldn't, but Proyas' film is quite good and is unjustifiably vilified.

  3. #53
    Not a praying man Melville's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Daniel Davis (view post)
    He and I have been defending this film quite a bit lately. I like it because it perfectly captures the tone of classic, golden era science fiction. The film possesses a pulpy-adventure story wrapped around a bit of societal exploration. It is also a well made film technically speaking. I rented it with little expectation, and walked away enjoying it quite a bit.
    Hm.. I saw it in the theater with little expectation, and I still managed to walk away disappointed. I guess things like robot-Jesus do have that over-the-top pulpy spirit of playing wildly with big archetypal ideas. But, yeesh, did I ever find the movie (and Will Smith's shtick) irritating. And I just couldn't tolerate the giant computer saying that its logic was undeniable when it was explicitly contradicting itself.
    I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?

    lists and reviews

  4. #54
    The Pan Qrazy's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Melville (view post)
    Hm.. I saw it in the theater with little expectation, and I still managed to walk away disappointed. I guess things like robot-Jesus do have that over-the-top pulpy spirit of playing wildly with big archetypal ideas. But, yeesh, did I ever find the movie (and Will Smith's shtick) irritating. And I just couldn't tolerate the giant computer saying that its logic was undeniable when it was explicitly contradicting itself.
    Computers are only as logical as the psychotic madmen that program them.

    Turns out it was the guy at the beginning's fault all along!

  5. #55
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

    I am not the biggest fan of military science fiction. I've read some Niven, some Drake, Starship Troopers, and some of the old Battletech books published by FASA. I am just not interested in flanking, platoons, chain of command, tactics, military strategy, detailed descriptions of body armor and high tech weaponry, or reading about large scale space wars. Often times, I find that these qualities are written in lieu of strong characterizations and authentic human drama. What I do care about is when an author examines the personal and societal impact of space-age warfare, and Joe Haldeman does exactly this in The Forever War, a book written in direct response to his time served in the Vietnam War.

    The Forever War follows the military service, in a time of forced participation, of William Mandella; his time at war, his time in hyperspace travel, his time at home, and his time living in the shit are all explored. It is through this fascinating character's eyes that we experience the absolute absurdity of futuristic warfare. The lengths that the humans go through to fight an enigmatic enemy are astoundingly stupid. Okay, maybe not stupid - their strategy and tactics are sound, and the military runs like a well oiled cyborg - but incredibly frustrating. That they would spend so much time (light year's worth) and money chasing an alien race around the universe just to stop it from possibly attacking the Earth is a mind boggling proposition, and in light of how much time and money we spend on Earth, today, stopping supposed threats, it is also frighteningly plausible. The “war on terror” is only slightly less inane than the war on the aliens detailed here.

    At the core of this well-written narrative lies an interesting idea: the problem of time displacement and the relative effects of light speed travel. This idea is what makes the book such a fascinating science fiction story. If this idea were to be removed, the real impact of the narrative would be all but lost. We all know that when the veterans of the Vietnam war returned home, they returned to a county that had undergone drastic societal changes, changes that occurred in less than a decade, and they had problems adjusting to it all. What would happen if the tours of duty lasted longer, much longer, like say hundreds or thousands of years? What kind of Earth would these soldiers return to? The Forever War asks this very question, and the answers it poses are, not surprisingly, grim.

    Because of time displacement, hyperspace travel effects the relative time of those on board the space cruisers differently than it does those on space stations or planets - time becomes subjective. For instance, a quick jump through a series of stargates might only take the soldiers a few months, where as decades, or longer, might pass elsewhere. However, this also poses an interesting problem concerning the war itself. Because the fighting takes place across the furthest reaches of the universe, the humans and the aliens are constantly jumping back and forth between different stargates and different subjective times. Sometimes, the humans appear to come from the aliens' future, while other times the humans appear to come from the aliens' past, and vice-versa. This reeks havoc on the relative effectiveness of different military tactics and technologies.

    The biggest impact associated with time displacement is seen through Mandella's point of view. Through all the jarring changes he endures, it is surprising that the dude doesn't off himself. He goes from being a Private, a grunt, leaving a world familiar to him, a world he calls home, to being a Major, and a total social outcast. While he is away, jumping from one stargate to the next, mankind undergoes cataclysmic changes, changes that impact morality, society, sexual practices, and individual freedom on an extraordinary level, at least relative to his frame of reference. When he returns to Earth under the empty-promises of civilian life, he barely recognizes the place, and once back in space, hundreds of years later, he barely recognizes humanity at all. Mandella is caught in a kind of personal stasis field, in which all he can do is hope to understand a fraction of what he experiences while everything around him changes at a mind numbing speed.

    Unfortunately, the book does suffer from some anachronistic problems. The war in space begins in 2007 (Haldeman did this so he could include characters that actually served in Vietnam), and so it is best to look at this as an alternate universe. However, in no way, shape, or form do these anachronisms take anything away from what Haldeman has to say. Even taken as a simple allegory for the present political climate, The Forever War is insightful and powerful, but as an extrapolation of what might come in the distant future, it becomes a humongous, glowing and flashing warning sign. It is a cautionary tale of great magnitude, and like all memorable and well written science fiction, Haldeman asks us to learn from the past, examine the present, and make the necessary changes for the future, lest we end up sending our finest men and woman light years into outer space chasing boogie men for only God knows what.

  6. #56
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
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    Got two Philip K. Dick novels for Christmas - "Humpty Dumpty in Oakland" and "The Crack in Space".
    "All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"

    "Rick...it's a flamethrower."

  7. #57
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting megladon8 (view post)
    Got two Philip K. Dick novels for Christmas - "Humpty Dumpty in Oakland" and "The Crack in Space".
    Cool. I've never read any of his mainstream fiction (Humpty...), and it is nice to see that it is finally getting published, even though I hear it is mostly rubbish.

    I just finished Dick's Clans of the Alphane Moon, and will have a review written in a few days. Totally absurd, entertaining, and enjoyable.

    I just started, Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny. So far, it is okay. The prose is a bit too flowery, but I hear that it really opens up to something great starting with chapter 2.

  8. #58
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    I ended up giving up on Lord of Light. I read about 100 pages and it never caught my attention. It just seemed to be going nowhere. That's two clunkers in a row now, this, and Nova by Delany. Hopefully, The Lathe of Heaven will be a better read.

  9. #59
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
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    Have you read any of Steven Erikson's books in the "Malazen Book of the Fallen" series? My boss has recommended them to me many times.
    "All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"

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  10. #60
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) - Philip K. Dick

    Recall, if you will, the late 1970s, a time when Ronald Reagan was the Governor of California. Reagan, in an effort to cut taxes, ends be damned, systematically began closing the state's mental hospitals, thus expelling the patients - the mentally ill and handicapped, the troubled, and the dangerous - onto the streets of California's cities. Now, imagine if these sick people - some psychotic, some simply on a never ending trip to La-La Land - moved to some distant island, and began to live with one another in a sort of clan-driven, makeshift society governed by a congress of men and woman with broken psyches. If this is an idea that sounds interesting to you, you may want to turn to Philip K. Dick's novel, Clans of the Alphane Moon.

    While it was written in 1964 (Dick's most prolific novel-writing year), it perfectly extrapolates upon the fictitious scenario presented above, and then, in accordance with Dick's style, it piles on the absurd, the tragic, and the humorous, and ends with an explosion of twisted ideas, wild action, and a subtle examination of humanity's mental facilities. Mental health issues have always been an important subject in the realm of science fiction, and to Dick these notions were the benefactors of an attention almost undivided. Dick spent a large portion of his career examining, dissecting, and pouring over characters and situations governed by questionable and deteriorating mental health. His stories often question the authenticity of human emotion, of human thought, and of human behavior, usually amidst a backdrop of some wild and delusional cosmic happening.

    With Clans of the Alphane Moon, Dick eschews allegory and metaphor, and approaches the subject with a literal mind. His psychotic and troubled characters are not disguised or hidden behind a clever and mysterious veil; Dick presents everything out in the open. Five major psychosis are represented within these pages. The Heebs suffer from hebephrenia, the Pares suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, the Deps from clinical depression, the Manses are manics, and the Skitzes suffer from good old fashioned schizophrenia. Each of these groups lives in a separate commune, and they rarely have interaction with one another. However, each group has a chosen emissary, who, when a crises presents itself, convene together in a semi-orderly fashion to solve the mutual problem. This itself poses an interesting question about their so-called “mental disorders;” if they can live together in a semi-functioning society, are they really so disturbed?

    In typical Phildickian fashion, the above description only covers the small tip of a very large ice berg. As dickheads will attest, good old Phil loved to pile on the ideas, plots, sub-plots, and characters, sometimes to the detriment of his narratives. While the hodgepodge of stuff doesn't necessarily hinder this particular story, it does feel as if Dick was coasting just a bit. There are simply a ton of ideas presented in Clans, more ideas than some authors attempt to tackle in as many books, but none of them feel fully explored. The “main” story arc follows the failing marriage of Chuck and Marry Rittersdorf. Chuck is a CIA operative who programs and writes scripts for the government's simulacra. He is also encouraged, by a sentient slime mold named Lord Running Clam and a girl who can reverse time for up to five minutes, to become a screenwriter for Bunny Hentman, an uber-famous television personality. Marry Rittersdorf is a marriage counselor and psychiatrist who is sent to the Alphane moon to gather information for a future military strike.

    So we've got issues dealing with divorce, the media, androids, aliens, and covert military operations, all set against a backdrop teeming with questionable realities and extreme mental health issues; all in less than 250 pages! I didn't even mention the crazy sci-fi, laser-and-tank-infused action, or the theological twist Dick throws in as well. Phew, it's no wonder that a few of these ideas and characters are less than fully fleshed out. While it delivers on its premise more than Solar Lottery or Maze of Death, things don't quite come together as good as they do in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch or Martian Time Slip. It's a shame, too, because this really is a fun read, and it would have been simply amazing had Dick spent a little more time with the characters and the central concepts. The writing is solid, the ideas are fascinating, the narrative is peppered with humor and action, and it is incredibly entertaining. Clans of the Alphane Moon is a solid B-level Philip K. Dick book, and, like I've said before, B-level Dick is better than the best from a lot of other genre authors.

  11. #61
    nightmare investigator monolith94's Avatar
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    Yeah, that's the key to "Clans" - entertaining. I've read other books by Dick since "Clans", but I'm not sure if any of them have reached that popcorn-level of sheer fun. Lord Running Clam is definitely one of my favorite characters.
    "Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
    -Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society

  12. #62
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    Quote Quoting monolith94 (view post)
    Yeah, that's the key to "Clans" - entertaining. I've read other books by Dick since "Clans", but I'm not sure if any of them have reached that popcorn-level of sheer fun. Lord Running Clam is definitely one of my favorite characters.
    Vulcan's Hammer is also a total hoot - pure pulp, and pure entertainment.

    Lord Running Clam does indeed rule.

  13. #63
    nightmare investigator monolith94's Avatar
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    I'll have to check that one out then.
    "Modern weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the ability to do away with the Earth."
    -Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society

  14. #64
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting monolith94 (view post)
    I'll have to check that one out then.
    It's part 2001, part Dr. Strangelove, and part Terminator. It reminds me a lot of the Stainless Steel Rat books by Harrison. A rip-roaring, sci-fi action adventure.

  15. #65
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    I finished Le Guin's, The Lathe of Heaven, and I loved it. The first thing written by her that I truly liked, let alone loved. It is fantastic. Full review coming soon!

    I then started Harry Harrison's Deathworld trilogy. It is awesome. It is basically a pallet swap with the Stainless Steel Rat books, but this is pretty much exactly what I wanted. Even the main characters have similar names:

    Jim diGriz - Stainless Steel Rat
    Jason dinAlt - Deathworld

    Deathworld I is basically about a planet on which something is causing the fauna, animals, and climate to rapidly evolve for one purpose: to totally, painfully, and quickly destroy mankind.

    The human inhabitants of this world only worry about one thing: survival. From the age of 5, they are medically enhanced with a special kind of gun that shoots rocket propelled explosives. The gun is attached to the forearm, and by simply willing it, the gun is unholstered to the hand. There are no trigger guards in place, and so the gun reaches the waiting hand already firing.

    It's pretty dang awesome. Harrison's unique brand of low brow, space-opera, action/adventure, is something I really dig. These books are short, all three come in at around 400 pages, total, and they read like kick-ass action movies.

    I am still totally shocked that no one has ever made movies based on the Stainless Steel Rat books. They would be absolutely perfect for the medium.

  16. #66
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. Le Guin

    I've never been a huge fan of Ursula K. Le Guin. Now, granted, I've only read a handful of short stories (all dealing with her fictional race of asexual beings), and I have started but failed to crack a few of her novels. I really want to like her, and with all the praise she gets, I think I should like her. I don't think authors are this highly regarded, both with critics and with readers, for no good reason. I recently told a friend of mine that I was going to read a Le Guin book, and he said, disparagingly, “enjoy the infodump.” I thought this was a pretty good description of Le Guin's style. I often feel as if she is preaching to me from atop some ivory, gender-issue-tinted tower, and that as a straight, white male I just wasn't meant to get the cut of her jib. I sometimes feel as if she should be writing sociology textbooks for alien cultures rather than narrative based fiction (well, I guess she kind of does do that...).

    And so it was with some trepidation that I recently purchased The Lathe of Heaven. It is a short book, and so I figured that even if I didn't enjoy it, it would be over soon enough - that's me, an optimist to the end. Holy crap was I ever wrong. This book blew my freaking mind. It is incomprehensibly good, and even though there are moments in which Le Guin piles on the exposition and the INFORMATION, often dealing with dream-psychology, the narrative is tightly focused and features a few central characters that shine with nuanced emotions and motives. I couldn't read this fast enough; I wanted to devour the plot presented on each and every page as quickly, but as carefully, as possible. Like a well written poem, each phrase and passage of this short novel is precisely written, and each word is chosen for its most effective usage.

    Le Guin's book pulses with a pounding rhythm, it is a tensely paced novel full of plot and ideas; it glances at notions that other books would base their entire premise around. It focuses on two central characters, George Orr (an allusion to George Orwell, perhaps?) and Dr. Haber. Orr has a peculiar problem, namely, his “effective dreaming.” He is able to create reality and shift the space time continuum by dreaming. Orr does not want this power, and wants to escape the responsibility of changing things that impact everything and everyone around him. After being caught using other peoples' pharmacy cards to get drugs (drugs to stop him from dreaming), he is sentenced to “voluntary” therapy, and finds himself under the watchful gaze of Dr. Haber. Dr. Haber is a kind and boisterous man, blinded by misplaced ambition, and soon discovers that Orr's problem is very real and incredibly powerful. Through a series of sessions assisted by the Augmenter, a device Haber invents to guide Orr into prolonged effective dreaming, the two men find themselves entangled in a battle of wits involving a rapidly evolving universe, an alien invasion, an interstellar war, and Armageddon.

    The most lavish praise I can thrust upon this tome is that it reminds of a Philip K. Dick story. Now, these kinds of comparisons are often dangerous, because some might argue that by not celebrating Le Guin's own unique voice that I am, in fact, disparaging her writing. But this is not true. As most of you know, I am a huge dickhead; I've read more, and liked more, by good old Phil than any other author. The Lathe of Heaven could easily be placed, side by side, with Dick's best, namely Martian Time Slip, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Flow My Tears, The Police Man Said. It reminds of Dick, but this is not to say that I enjoyed it because Le Guin was somehow channeling my favorite author. I know that the two authors were quite close, and Le Guin helped Phil a great deal later in his life, and I wouldn't be surprised if she wrote this with her friend and colleague in mind. It reminded me of Dick's work simply because I enjoyed it almost as much.

    My Le Guin shell has now been broken, and I feel as though I am prepared to embrace more of her work. It is hard for me to put into words just how much I loved The Lathe of Heaven. Every page was a joy to read, and every new reveal, plot point, and character decision was composed with a master's eye for detail. It's as if Le Guin left all the boring parts out, and decided, smartly, to only focuses on the stuff that really mattered to the characters and the narrative. I appreciate this aspect about well written older science fiction. Short, concise, to the point, and not belabored with overwrought exposition. This book reads like a dream, it effortlessly flows from one point to the next, and contains a world built upon in its own logic, a logic that totally works within the printed page. I can easily imagine these characters living on, in some parallel universe, and I only wish I was able to visit their world now, to see how it has changed.

  17. #67
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
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    I'd never even heard of that book, D. The one book I've read by Le Guin is called "The Word for the World is Forest", and it had some interesting ideas but was a little preachy.

    You review has me interested, though. I like when you say that every word in every sentence is meticulously chosen - I like writing like that. There's a time and a place for "flowery language", but I usually prefer more precise prose.
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  18. #68
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting megladon8 (view post)
    I'd never even heard of that book, D. The one book I've read by Le Guin is called "The Word for the World is Forest", and it had some interesting ideas but was a little preachy.

    You review has me interested, though. I like when you say that every word in every sentence is meticulously chosen - I like writing like that. There's a time and a place for "flowery language", but I usually prefer more precise prose.

    Trust me, as an adamant Le Guin detractor, I can safely say that this book is the shit. It blew my freaking mind.

    I also think you will really enjoy her writing here. It is wonderful.

  19. #69
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    Deathworld I - Harry Harrison

    A short and concise novel deserves a short and concise review, so here it goes. Deathworld, the first book of the, wait for it, Deathworld trilogy, written by Harry Harrison, is basically a pallet swap with The Stainless Steel Rat books. And this is exactly what I wanted from it. Harrison's unique voice does wonders to create these kinds of low brow, pulpy, space-opera, high flying, action adventure yarns. And that's exactly Deathworld is. Like the film The Road Warrior, Deathworld is a reduction of genre conventions. It contains only the barest of essential elements needed to tell its story. It is relentlessly paced, populated with characters there only to serve the plot, and delivers an almost non-stop series of cliffhangers, thrills, spills, and chills.

    The main character's name is Jason dinAlt, not to be confused with “Slippery” Jim diGriz, a.k.a. The Stainless Steel Rat. Mr. dinAlt is a gambler, a rogue, a handsome, smooth-talking devil, a ladies man, a hero, a fighter, a lover, and he possesses psionic abilities. Basically, he's freaking awesome. He's Han Solo meets James Bond meets Jason Bourne meets a telekinetic James Randi. I'd be surprised is George Lucas didn't base the Han Solo character after some of Harrison's own creations. The book tells of his adventures of the planet Pyrrus, one of the most dangerous planets in the universe (there are three most dangerous planets, hence the Deathworld trilogy).

    It seems as though Pyrrus exists and has evolved, and continues to rapidly evolve, for one purpose only: to obliterate mankind as painfully as possible. The weather on Pyrrus is devastating; one minute it will be pouring rain, the next minute your soggy clothes will be steaming and drying in the blazing heat. Volcanoes erupt without notice, earthquakes tear the land apart, the fauna is ladened with skin searing acid and poison, and the wild life is twice as deadly. On top of all of this, there seems to be some kind of psionic radiation urging and pushing everything on the planet to wipe out anything that gets in its way. Also living on this planet are a group of colonists who live for one thing alone: survival. From the ages of five they are trained to fight. They have special guns surgically attached to their arms, and they are made into killing machines. Why are they there? Well, the planet is simply overflowing with highly desirable heavy metals. It is a treasure trove of trade and potential wealth. Sounds like the perfect place for Jason dinAlt, a place where he can totally test his skills.

    Harry Harrison knows how to write these kinds of stories, and he writes them well. While the prose is only serviceable, we're not talking poetry here, nor will find any flowery descriptions, it is simply perfect for the job at hand. Like the characters with which he populates his worlds, Harrison moves fast, thinks on his feet, and just lets it rip. Yes, there are far too many coincidences, and like some space-aged MacGyver, Jason also seems to have exactly what he needs. Yes, the situations are outlandish, and pretty silly. And yes, I enjoyed it immensely. For my money, popcorn sci-fi doesn't get any better than a great Harrison potboiler. Deathworld is intense, suspenseful, full of action and heroic deeds, and is a total blast from start to finish.

  20. #70
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
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    D_Davis, I was wondering if you could give me some guidance on where to move onto next with Philip K. Dick?

    My first (and only) experience with him was "Galactic Pot-Healer".

    Any suggestions? Books I simply cannot miss by him?
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  21. #71
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting megladon8 (view post)
    D_Davis, I was wondering if you could give me some guidance on where to move onto next with Philip K. Dick?

    My first (and only) experience with him was "Galactic Pot-Healer".

    Any suggestions? Books I simply cannot miss by him?
    From another thread:

    1. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - this book encapsulates the best of PKD's sci-fi coupled with his most groundbreaking and gonzo theological ramblings. There are so many amazing ideas packed into this volume that it is impossible to digest them after only one read. This is a book that rewards careful re-reading. It also contains some of his best prose. PKD's prose was kind of hit or miss, but here it is spot on. The quote in the thread title is from this book.

    2. VALIS - simply because this is what PKD was all about. Much of the book is autobiographical in nature, and the rest of it is simply too creative to dismiss as anything but the brilliant work of a mad genius.

    From my review:

    VALIS is truly a fascinating novel, and may be one of the most “meta” novels ever written. The novel, written by Philip K. Dick, is about Philip K. Dick, only in the narrative his name is Horselover Fat (Philip means “caretaker of horses” in Hebrew, and Dick, in shortened German form, means “fat”). So, in the book we have PKD, the author, writing about his own life as a character, named Horselover Fat, in order to put some distance between himself and the events that transpire during the narrative. Fat, however, is losing touch with reality, or perhaps reality doesn’t really exist at all. Fat is in contact with God (VALIS, or ZEBRA), and suddenly learns a great deal about the universe. He also discovers that he is actually two people sharing the same body, although in two vastly different space-time continuums. Fat is living in California in 1974, and this other person, Thomas, a secret Christian trying to bring forth the downfall of the Roman Empire, is living in Rome circa 100 C.E. (A.D.).

    3. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer - Dick's only "mainstream" novel to be published in his lifetime. It closes the VALIS "trilogy" but eschews all of the "sci-fi-ness" associated with VALIS. It is a very heartfelt and sad book, and also the only book of his to feature a positive female POV character. It is said that Dick knew he was going to die after writing this, and in many ways the writing is on the wall. It is a very serious book. By this time in PKD's career, he was basically running on empty. He finished most of his later novels in one or two sittings, and claimed that he wasn't even the one writing them. PKD would check out, something else would take over, and 3 days later a novel would be finished. That is not to say the quality suffers though, far from it. Timothy Archer is a fascinating novel, and PKD's most straightforward examination of humanity and religion.


    and...


    4. Martian Time Slip
    5. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
    6. Time Out of Joint
    7. A Scanner Darkly
    8. Man in the High Castle
    9. The Divine Invasion
    10. UBIK

  22. #72
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
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    Wonderful, thank you. I saved that post.

    For "The Three Stigmata..." does this require other reading prior to attempting this read, will I be OK having only read one other book by PKD?
    "All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"

    "Rick...it's a flamethrower."

  23. #73
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting megladon8 (view post)
    Wonderful, thank you. I saved that post.

    For "The Three Stigmata..." does this require other reading prior to attempting this read, will I be OK having only read one other book by PKD?
    I would probably save the VALIS trilogy for reading until you have read some more.

    The Three Stigmata... is one you could read at any time. It is amazing.

  24. #74
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Daniel Davis (view post)
    I would probably save the VALIS trilogy for reading until you have read some more.

    The Three Stigmata... is one you could read at any time. It is amazing.

    Awesome, thank you. I appreciate it
    "All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"

    "Rick...it's a flamethrower."

  25. #75
    What is best in life? D_Davis's Avatar
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    So I should be wrapping up Philip Jose Farmer's To You Scattered Bodies Go tonight. It is pretty good. He takes historical figures like Alice Hargreaves (the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland) and Sir Richard Francis Burton (an English explorer, translator, scholar, writer and so on - he once disguised himself as a Muslim and made the journey to Mecca) and mixes them up with an alien, and a Neanderthal, and then sends them a a journey up a great river to discover the source of their resurrection. Pretty fascinating. It's speculative, historical fiction mixed with a journey of intense discover set against a backdrop of science fiction.

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