Next PKD novel to read?

[remymartinextra]

Hello,

I have read A Scanner Darkly, Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and Do Androids Dream. I'm about a third of the way through The Man in the High Castle.

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is by far my favorite so far, followed by Ubik. I love how he takes you to a place where you are unsure if the characters are experiencing reality, afterlife, a drug-induced state, dreams, or psychosis. I did not enjoy Do Androids Dream as much because of the lack of this element. I like Man in the High Castle so far, but it also lacks the confusion I found in Ubik and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

Can anyone recommend a book for me to read next?

Thank you for the help.

 

[D_Davis]

H
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is by far my favorite so far, followed by Ubik.

These are two of my favorites, with Palmer being my absolute favorite.

I also highly recommend Martian Time Slip, VALIS, and Divine Invasion.

 

[J-Sun]

I was going to say Martian Time-Slip, myself.

 

[woodsman]

VALIS or Galactic Pot Healer


Having said that; Flow My Tears The Policeman Said is one of his best in my opinion.

 

[TheTomG]

"Martian Time Slip," "Flow My Tears The Policeman Said" and "Now Wait For Last Year" have the reality bending element as prime themes. "Galactic Pot Healer" is brilliant too but doesn't have that element, but does have more humor. All four are great books though, and are more akin to "Ubik" and "Three Stigmata" than do "Androids" and "High Castle" are.

 

[Quokka]

Certainly not one of his best but I still like Time Out of Joint, nice central idea and PK Dick's usual exploration of perception and reality just not strong throughout, still with a book that short it's a fun read.

Dr Bloodmoney is also good for a change of pace, PK Dick does post-apocalypse worth it for an interesting afterword by the author as well.

 

[Extollager]

Certainly not one of his best but I still like Time Out of Joint, nice central idea and PK Dick's usual exploration of perception and reality just not strong throughout, still with a book that short it's a fun read.

I mean to reread it, but I think of this as one of my favorites (out of about ten that I have read). Personally, I couldn't finish Galactic Pot-Healer!

 

[J-Sun]

I mean to reread it, but I think of this as one of my favorites (out of about ten that I have read). Personally, I couldn't finish Galactic Pot-Healer!

Glad to know I'm not alone. I finished it but I definitely didn't like it like woodsman or TheTomG do. (Didn't really care for Dr. Bloodmoney either but more than GPH and I see how it could appeal. I think those and The Zap Gun (unless I'm forgetting something) are the only PKDs I've read so far that I don't like.)

 

[Extollager]

Glad to know I'm not alone. I finished it [Galactic Pot-Healer] but I definitely didn't like it like woodsman or TheTomG do. (Didn't really care for Dr. Bloodmoney either but more than GPH and I see how it could appeal. I think those and The Zap Gun (unless I'm forgetting something) are the only PKDs I've read so far that I don't like.)

Galactic Pot-Healer might work as a graphic novel, something like PKD meets Winsor McCay.

As words on a page GPH didn't work for me, like something dashed off to fill a contract. I'm only about ten books into PKD's output, but I tend to like most the ones that have an element of realism and connection with the earth we know: e.g. Martian Time-Slip, Time Out of Joint, The Cosmic Puppeteers, A Scanner Darkly, The Man in the High Castle. The !!**!WAYYYY-OUT Philip K. DICK!**!! doesn't appeal to me as much, and GPH is a perfect example.

By the way, Time Out of Joint reminded me -- and I'm not even sure I remember why -- of one of my absolute favorite books, a Keeper when most of the other keepers have been let go after all: G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. I've asked about this before, but I wonder if anyone knows any evidence that Dick had read it. I would think it might have delighted him, maybe made him weep tears of joy. These two authors were definitely different and yet surely there was an imaginative kinship too.

I used to teach The Man Who Was Thursday and I liked to complement it with a short film, Anima Mundi... anybody know that one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_Mundi_%28film%29

The "connection" -- if there was one -- was most obviously between the madcap zoo chase at the end of GKC's novel, and the photography of the short film. But maybe a separate thread on The Man Who Was Thursday would be a good idea since I'm getting away from the PKD relevance.

 

[J-Sun]

Galactic Pot-Healer might work as a graphic novel

I can't find it now but I know Dick wrote a children's SF novel set in the GPH universe and I swear it seems like one or the other of them was turned into a "graphic novel", but maybe I'm mixing it up with something else.

By the way, Time Out of Joint reminded me -- and I'm not even sure I remember why -- of one of my absolute favorite books, a Keeper when most of the other keepers have been let go after all: G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. I've asked about this before, but I wonder if anyone knows any evidence that Dick had read it. I would think it might have delighted him, maybe made him weep tears of joy. These two authors were definitely different and yet surely there was an imaginative kinship too.

I should put TOOJ on the to-get list. I've probably read enough PKD for awhile (except the couple I still have to finish) but I have heard good things about that one. And I've never read Chesterton, so can't help there, but have wanted to ever since Asimov called Dozois (though based on physical comparisons rather than literary) "Chestertonian". Seriously, he sounds interesting.

 

[TheTomG]

'Nick and the Glimmung' was the children's book he wrote. It's an interesting read due to being for kids supposedly, but guess what, all the regular PKD themes are in there like things masquerading as other things, fakes, good versus evil, etc.

Now for me GPH was very humorous. A lot of PKD has a lot of humor, but GPH to me was all about that. I don't view it as up there with his best, but I also don't view it as one of the dry ones I don't like very much. It is entertainment rather than art, while I think of many other PKDs as art (which are also entertaining)

The wub in 'Nick and the Glimmung' is awesome, different from the wub in the short story. Man I am going to have to go re-read that book now that I've spoken about it!

 

[D_Davis]

I love Galactic Pot-Healer. It's probably in my top 10.

 

[Extollager]

And I've never read Chesterton, so can't help there, but have wanted to ever since Asimov called Dozois (though based on physical comparisons rather than literary) "Chestertonian". Seriously, he sounds interesting.

Chesterton wrote a small library of books and a lot of it is very perishable, I have no doubt. The Man Who Was Thursday isn't, a masterpiece from quite early in his career. (I believe it was published the same year as Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, which which it has very slight affinities.)

By the way, I was saying the other day at a different thread that Ray Bradbury's story "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone" (in The October Country) has affinities with another GKC novel, Manalive.

Those two novels and The Ball and the Cross are probably Chesterton's his best novels.* I need to reread The Napoleon of Notting Hill.

But Thursday is the best and absolutely the one to start with. It's probably available to read online for free from Project Gutenberg or Project Gutenberg of Australia.

On the other hand you could go for Collectible and treat yourself to an edition I don't have -- the Ballantine Adult Fantasy issue -- notoriously the hardest-to-get one in the series. I assume that's a Gallardo cover there:

At least this bookseller, for example, refers to this edition's rarity.

http://www.dougcomicworld.com/INVENTORY-BallantineAdultFantasySite.html

*There are at least two more: The Flying Inn, about an attempt to keep England's beery tradition alive after it is taken over be teetotalers and Muslims or something like that, and The Return of Don Quixote.

 

[J-Sun]

Sorry for briefly going a little off-topic, folks.

But Thursday is the best and absolutely the one to start with. It's probably available to read online for free from Project Gutenberg or Project Gutenberg of Australia.

Yep - Gutenberg has it, and as the most downloaded one. I hate to read books online but, if I don't come across a paperback before I get to it, I'll read it that way. Looking at the titles available reminds me that "Father Brown" is one of his most famous characters (if I understand correctly). Have you read those and, if so, what did you think?

 

[Extollager]

Hmm -- I will try again to post the Ballantine Adult Fantasy cover of The Man Who Was Thursday, since it seems to have disappeared from #13 above. I'm not seeing it, anyway.

Did that work?

I've read some of the Father Brown stories, but that was a long time ago. I think I enjoyed them, but they weren't, for me, anything like as enthralling as The Man Who Was Thursday.

The novel's subtitle, by the way, is "A Nightmare." I have often thought that it actually could be filmed, but it would need to be filmed by someone like, say, the David Lynch of The Elephant Man, who evokes an eerie, oppressive London milieu not terribly far from that of Chesterton's novel.

 

[J-Sun]

The picture works for me.

I did read the first chapter last night from Gutenberg and, while I don't know what I'll think in the end, the first definitely has me willing to read more from whatever source to find out. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Diggler]

http://www.dougcomicworld.com/INVENTORY-BallantineAdultFantasySite.html

I love the hardcore collectors. They have no clue about the internet and building pages

As for what PKD novel to read. Get all the books of his you haven't read, close your eyes, and pick one at random! If you're a PKD nut, you'll love it

 

[j d worthington]

I have a copy of the Ballantine edition and yes, it is (according to all the booksellers and collectors I've talked to) the most difficult in that series to acquire. And yes, Gallardo was the artist.

Incidentally, you may be interested to know that this was also chosen as one of the Horror: 100 Best Books list....

 

[Extollager]

I have a copy of the Ballantine edition and yes, it is (according to all the booksellers and collectors I've talked to) the most difficult in that series to acquire. And yes, Gallardo was the artist.

Incidentally, you may be interested to know that this [Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday] was also chosen as one of the Horror: 100 Best Books list....

Interesting! Whose choice?