#72 in Classics
Ubik
- 224
- Pages
- about 4 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Ubik” is a short novel that keeps pulling the ground from under its characters and its reader, as reality shifts again and again. That disorientation, closer to psychological horror than to adventure, is the book’s real draw, and some readers single out an ending that makes the confusion worthwhile. It has aged remarkably little. Some find it takes more effort than its length suggests, readers new to science fiction above all.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Ubik is a 1969 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The story is set in a future 1992 where psychic powers are utilized in corporate espionage, while cryonic technology allows recently deceased people to be maintained in a lengthy state of hibernation. It follows Joe Chip, a technician at a psychic agency who begins to experience strange alterations in reality that can be temporarily reversed by a mysterious store-bought substance called Ubik. This work expands upon characters and concepts previously introduced in the vignette "What the Dead Men Say".
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.1 across 806 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 84% of the weight and the score stays at 8.0 — the Classics average of 7.7 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.9 | 78 | 10% |
| Hardcover | 8.1 | 728 | 90% |
Frequently asked
How long is Ubik?
It has 224 pages — shorter than 91% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 8.0 and 8.1, closest to this book.
