Quick Book Reviews Blog

Time is something many of us take for granted as being unalterable, a thing that always moves forward and sweeps us along its path. We are so obsessed with gaining any kind of power over it that it has taken a central role in fiction, and upon review, many such works have succeeded in creating a dent of doubt in a reality that was set in stone. Countless works have explored the potential real-world implications of time shifting in one way or another, and Ubik by Philip K. Dick is most certainly one of the more revered ones out there.

At this point most of you have no doubt heard of the classic movie Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford, about a bounty hunter named Rick Deckard who is tasked with the “retirement” (AKA destruction, killing, murder, whichever suits your fancy) of numerous androids, robots made to be as human as possible in every way, allowing them to blend in with them. However, the novel on which the movie is based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick seems to get considerably less attention, which is somewhat understandable when taking into account its philosophical approach to the storyline, rather than something in line with the movie.

The question as to what makes us who we are is one that has puzzled the brightest minds in human history for countless generations, and will certainly continue to do so for the longest foreseeable future. The only way to find a conclusive answer to the subject is to explore it from every perspective possible, and in his classic science-fiction novel A Scanner Darkly , Philip K. Dick does just that, amongst other things of course.

Though we know beyond all doubt that the Allies were victorious during the Second World War , I believe there are only a few of us who can honestly admit to never having imagined what it would be like had the Axis won. Well, Philip K. Dick surely asked himself the same question, or at least that’s his novel, The Man in the High Castle , leads me to believe. As you can guess, the book takes place in a reality alternate from ours, one where Nazi Germany and Japan have won World War II and have come to occupy the United States.