What is the finest Philip K. Dick Novel?

xxp No way. I mean first of all the premise of the book (an undercover narc who ends up narcing on himself) is completely great. Features something like a dozen amazing alternately hilarious, head-shaking and sadly probably all too true conversations between the roommates. Probably his tightest plotting (not saying much admittedly) and some of his most consistent writing. And it's personal in a way that his other books aren't while not descending into total self-indulgence. And finally it has what is one of the most memorable endings of maybe any book I've read (sci-fi or not). And then just in case you weren't snuffling enough already, he caps it off with a note that is some of his best writing and which brings to mind way too many friends whose lives were similarly damaged.

. But I'm really hoping that people can hype up some of these other 40-odd novels that are probably actually really awesome.

― Mad God 40/40 (Z S), Sunday, 13 May 2012 02:45 (1 hour ago)

I've read most of these and the ones that really stick with me are:

The Simulacra
Clans Of The Alphane Moon
We Can Build You
Flow My Tears
A Scanner Darkly
Radio Free Albemuth

I really love his deeply paranoid mid-60's classic sci-fi stuff (the first three I listed).

My enjoyment of Alphane Moon greatly increased when I realized exactly how all the Clans were organized.

Time Out of Joint I remember really well for some reason. Maybe because they ripped off the premise for the Truman Show. Either way it's great. World Jones Made not so much. Maze of Death and Solar Lottery both have the same sort of premise IIRC, but jesus it's been forever. I remember really liking the latter and not being so sold on the former although if I recall from the POX thread MOD had a few defenders. The only one of the non-sci-fi books I really like is the "Pike" bio, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, which is even better if you read the history of how it came about.

My version of Clans comes with a great Malzberg essay. I'm going to re-read it now!

Also, whoever redesigned the covers for all those PKD trades that came out in the mid-90s needs to have their hands broken and never been allowed near a copy of Photoshop again.

http://philipkdick.com/images-smallcovers/cov-ubik-v-200.jpg

you mean these covers? i think they're great!

Clans of The Alphane Moon is great!
I like all the ones I've read to varying degrees--I haven't read anything I've hated. Particularly, The Cosmic Puppets (this is kind of a goofy book but it hooked me HARD when i read it and i finished in an afternoon; di suggest you do the same) and A Scanner Darkly, Time Out of Joint and Radio Free Albemouth. Valis is great and I should re-read it.

i think the 90s pkd covers are great and much better than these--
http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-High-Castle-ebook/dp/B005MZN2B2/ref=sr_1_24?ie=UTF8&qid=1336886962&sr=8-24

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, 1974

Probably the first one I'll pull out when I get on with a few PKD re-reads this summmer

Don't know about finest, but its his fastest novel.

Don't feel qualified to vote in this since I've only read High Castle, Game Players, Scanner, & Androids. Castle & Scanner are both fantastic though, love the ending of Castle when the floor drops out from under the characters. Yeah I seriously need to catch up here. Ubik is on my shelves but chances of reading it in the next three days are slim.

Scanner is my favourite, for much the same reasons as Alex in SF offers, but Three Stigmata runs it pretty close, the most terrifying of all his books (despite the sci-fi trappings, Dick often strikes me as being more as a horror novelist, albeit one w/ a good sense of humour or, at least, an appreciation for human and cosmic absurdities.)

So many great short stories too, esp 'Faith of our Fathers' and 'Electric Ant'

Also Roog (ignore the title on that page, it is called Roog), one of his first and an amazing take on getting into the head of another creature.

I think it's either We Can Build You or Flow My Tears, although I have a bizarre love for Now Wait For Last Year (which normally goes unregarded).

i have the same mid-90s edition of Ubik that was posted above, but i really like the cover for the 2011 edition of VALIS, put out by Mariner:

http://i47.tinypic.com/m6876.gif

reminds me a bit of some of Carlos Cruz-Diez's stuff:

http://i46.tinypic.com/23vzsia.jpg

90s PKD covers have crossed the hump into the "so bad its good" category a la "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" gifs from geocities websites in 1995

I think it's either We Can Build You or Flow My Tears, although I have a bizarre love for Now Wait For Last Year (which normally goes unregarded).

― I must be old, I recognise nobody in ITV2 idents (aldo), Sunday, 13 May 2012 10:35 (5 hours ago)

oh yeah I forgot to list that one, it is excellent and iirc from that same 64-66 period that I mentioned above.

Really good :
1958 Time Out of Joint 1959
1961 The Man in the High Castle 1962
1962 Martian Time-Slip 1964
1963 Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb 1965
1964 The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch 1965
1966 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1968
1966 Ubik 1969
1973 A Scanner Darkly 1977
1978 VALIS 1981
1980 The Divine Invasion 1981

Good :
1953 The Cosmic Puppets 1957
1955 Eye in the Sky 1957
1962 We Can Build You 1972
1963 The Game-Players of Titan 1963
1963 The Simulacra 1964
1963 Now Wait for Last Year 1966
1964 Clans of the Alphane Moon 1964
1964 The Penultimate Truth 1964
1965 Counter-Clock World 1967
1968 Galactic Pot-Healer 1969
1968 A Maze of Death 1970
1969 Our Friends from Frolix 8 1970
1970 Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said 1974
1981 The Transmigration of Timothy Archer 1982

Pretty good :
1954 Solar Lottery 1955
1954 Mary and the Giant 1987
1954 The World Jones Made 1956
1956 The Broken Bubble 1988
1957 Puttering About in a Small Land 1985
1958 In Milton Lumky Territory 1985
1959 Confessions of a Crap Artist 1975
1960 The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike 1984
1960 Humpty Dumpty in Oakland 1986
1964 The Zap Gun 1967
1964 The Unteleported Man 1966 as Lies, Inc. (1984)
1965 The Ganymede Takeover 1967 with Ray Nelson

Actually not very good :
1953 Vulcan's Hammer 1960
1953 Dr. Futurity 1960
1955 The Man Who Japed 1956
1963 The Crack in Space 1966

Really don’t remember, should re-read :
1964 Deus Irae 1976 with Roger Zelazny
1976 Radio Free Albemuth 1985

Haven’t read, apparently not great though :
1950 Gather Yourselves Together 1994
1952 Voices from the Street 2007

Ubik, just over Man in the High Castle. I've only really read a few, the only one I didn't care for was A Scanner Darkly.

I am halfway through VALIS and I'm not getting it. The narrator seems just as insane as the Fat persona. Being familiar with a wide variety of religious topics does not make the logic less mad.

I am halfway through VALIS and I'm not getting it. The narrator seems just as insane as the Fat persona. Being familiar with a wide variety of religious topics does not make the logic less mad.

Seems like youre getting it to me!

"Roog" might be my favorite thing he ever wrote. I tend to like PKD as a short story writer more than as a novelist actually...

Galactic Pot Healer, Clans of the Alphane Moon and Transmigration of Timothy Archer will need more votes.

OTOH it's hard to fuck with Three Stigmata/Flow My Tears/High Castle. Should be a ballot-style poll!

Three Stigmata/Flow My Tears/High Castle are great, but I find everything else by PKD uneven or insane (in a sad way). voting Flow My Tears.

voted VALIS over Transmigration; the latter is super moving, a god-shaped hole, a keen understanding of loss & longing for redemption in the face of doubt

but VALIS is so batshit exciting; I just want it all to be real

read Galactic Pot Healer on my honeymoon btw, that book defines "lol drugs" to me though; still would vote it over High Castle which was the only one of his books (& I've read just about all of them) that I disliked, mostly because of the ending.

He never could end a book well, could he?

I think the ending of Timothy Archer is pretty good; well, at least it works for the subject's open-endedness

I need to read High Castle again; it was my first PKD and was exactly not what I was expecting--having heard it was the original alternate-history novel--but in retrospect I have a lot of respect for the Zen vibe, the meta fascinations, the use of I Ching as not only a plot device but also as a plotting agent...I remember reading that PKD wanted the book to be similar in tone to a lot of post-Hiroshima Japanese novels.

Anyways, I voted VALIS for reasons listed above (well-written, batshit exciting) though, Z S you might want to give The Penultimate Truth which struck me as being more coherent than the typical 60s paranoia speed-rush PKD novel...

He never could end a book well, could he?
--A++++++ would deal with again (Matt #2)

Uh again Scanner?

OK, Scanner, Timothy Archer, Valis all have good endings. Ubik, Time Out Of Joint and most of the others, not so good. Although I don't read the guy for concise plotting, deep characterisation or flowing prose so none of it is really a problem.

What's wrong with the High Castle ending?

Actually one of my bugbears is the seemingly consesus agreement in the non-genre press that he was a "terrible" writer, I guess because he's the SF writer literary types end up reading. Next to Asimov or whoever his prose looks like fucking Tolstoy.

High Castle ending just seems like a bit of a damp squib, like he couldn't think of how to end it properly. Ubik is the same.

i love the ending of ubik, totally shifts the reality gears once again, but yeah, nothing matches the ending of scanner for sheer heartbreaking sadness and terror

I love the HC ending, it's like "and it was all a dream!" except it's the characters in the dream, not the dreamer, who have the realisation.

xpost
if anything, it's the opening chapter of ubik that's a bit clunky - lots of fairly raw exposition + comedy germanic names oh-oh

I'm gonna vote for The Divine Invasion, I'm not sure it's his best, but there is some absolutely amazing stuff in that book, and I feel like it should get at least one vote.

The Divine Invasion also has a nice twist on the "it's all a dream" thing, i.e. thinking you're in a dream when you really aren't (maybe)

anyway, looking at the poll options, I can't believe I've read all but three of these

matt, your list and mine are nearly the same w/ the exception of bloodmoney

i can't remember which of these i've read and which i haven't anymore! must revisit.

idly re-reading Now Wait For Last Year over the last few days. it's kinda clunky and gross and the concept of time flowing backwards doesn't really make any sense but it is still oddly compelling. the black power stuff is something I don't think he ever really dug into elsewhere.

surprised at lack of support for Dr. Bloodmoney - I think that was one of his first novels where he really nailed the multiple-narrator thing. the half-absorbed telepathic twin is really the core of the book's appeal to me.

well not multiple narrator but multiple-POV. think this was one of his better literary tricks, makes him stand out a bit from his peers at the time, who were largely penning straightforward first-person or third-person omniscient linear plots.

isn't that Counter-Clock World? xxp

I don't really remember much about Now Wait For Last Year, but I'm pretty sure Counter-Clock World's the only one where he does the backwards time thing

ah right yeah sorry gettin my titles mixed up

I've read about a dozen, I think, the last one being about 20 years ago. I never got to some of the most canonically important (Eldritch, Scanner, Flow My Tears.) For whatever reason, I was always checking out the batshit insane ones like Bloodmoney and Alphane, both of which I still remember with love.

Really the only guy who produced as much amazing work in novel length was Silverberg and most of his best work was crammed in an eight year period which precipitated a burn-out.

What period of Silverberg is this btw? I don't know his stuff well.

all the disgorging food/aging backwards until your a fetus that gets absorbed by a nearby womb/pasting on whiskers borders on Cronenberg body-horror really

xp

I definitely prefer his short stories to his novels. Seems like his flaws as a writer are less of a big deal in the short story form and you still get all the great ideas! Of his actual novels, the ones I liked the most are Ubik and Martian Time-Slip. Voted Ubik.

shoot, mama! how'd i miss this poll.
divine invasion all the way for me.

i surprise myself with how little i want to read the exegesis /:

I'm surprised how well that backwards emoticon works!

14 PKD e-books for $2 each, including the Exegesis.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000677541

thanks for that. just bought the exegesis

oh shit

yeah, bought the exegesis. I wonder if my kindle can handle it.

just finished Flow my Tears last night. whoever said upthread that it was the fastest read was right. but man oh man, does it have a weak ending. i'm not sure if it's thread or another where PKD's ending style is discussed, but Flow my Tears seems to be a prime culprit..

the one that moved me the most was Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said