History Literature / Ubik

** Dick's wife Tess is the closest we have as WordOfGod to confirm it: "Ubik is a metaphor for [[spoiler:God]]. Ubik is all-powerful and all-knowing, and Ubik is everywhere".

* OurGodsAreDifferent: There are strong hints that Ubik itself is [[spoiler:God]]. The last jingle makes it even more obvious.

* TechnoBabble: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied.]] Asking what Ubik is yields an incredibly long, complicated answer full of all sorts of technical jargon, which Joe interrupts because, if the person giving the answer uses the phrase "negative ions" [[note]]All ions are negative, so referring to specific ions as negative is redundant[[/note]], they probably don't know what they're talking about.[[note]]Ions can actually have positive or negative charges. Ions with an overall negative electric charge are anions, while ions with an overall positive electric charge are cations.[[/note]]

* ValuesDissonance: InUniverse. Joe Chip is rather uncomfortable to realize that the average US citizens of 1939 has more in common with the Nazis than with them. He even remarks that he's never heard the N-word used before. Of course, he comes from ''1992'', the real-life year of the Rodney King riots. Dick's post-racial future is probably even more optimistic than the easy lunar travel.

But if you really must know, it's a seminal science fiction novel by Creator/PhilipKDick, picked by Time Magazine as one of their Top 100 books of the last century. In the future, the proliferation of psychic talents has led, through the process of natural selection, to anti-psychics who can nullify psychic powers. Glen Runciter runs the foremost "prudence organization" in the world, sending his operatives out to protect his clients' secrets, while occasionally consulting his wife and partner in the firm, who just so happens to be a HumanPopsicle frozen at the moment of her death in "cold-pac". This allows him to occasionally consult with her before her half-life ends, whereupon she will begin reincarnating (hey, it was the mid-60s; the ''Bardo Thodol'' was all the rage back then).

* ArcWords: "Ubik".

* BigGood: [[spoiler:Ella Runciter.]]
* BodyHorror
* BrokenMasquerade
* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler: Jory.]]

* EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory [[invoked]]
* GainaxEnding: Has to be read to be appreciated fully.
* HorrorHunger: [[spoiler: Jory]].

* MindScrew: Layers of it.

* RedHerringTwist: [[spoiler:Pat's power]].

* SchrodingersButterfly

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness
* TwistEnding: About five of them in the last few chapters.

* {{Zeerust}}
----

The novel was adapted into a PC and PlayStation game by Cryo in 1998.

* OurGodsAreGreater: There are strong hints that Ubik itself is [[spoiler:God]]. The last jingle makes it even more obvious.

* TenLittleMurderVictims: [[spoiler:Pat Conley]] is strongly suspected of orchestrating the one-by-one death of Runciter's men - all whole ten of them.

* {{Yandere}}: [[spoiler:Pat Conley]], to the point she is willing to [[TimeyWimeyBall bend the time-space continuum]] to marry her mark.

* ChekovsGunman: [[spoiler: Jory.]]

But if you really must know, it's a seminal science fiction novel by Creator/PhilipKDick, picked by Time Magazine as one of their Top 100 books of the last century. In the future, the proliferation of psychic talents has led, through the process of natural selection, to anti-psychics who can nullify psychic powers. Glen Runciter runs the foremost "prudence organization" in the world, sending his operatives out to protect his clients' secrets, while occasionally consulting his wife and partner in the firm, who just so happens to be a HumanPopsicle frozen at the moment of her death in "cold-pac", allowing the occasional mind-link before her half-life ends and she begins reincarnating (hey, it was the mid-60s; the ''Bardo Thodol'' was all the rage back then).

Meet Joe Chip, our protagonist, a technician working for Runciter who's so perpetually broke he has to argue with his (coin-operated) appliances to get them to work. When one of Runciter's talent scouts comes to him with a MysteriousWaif named Pat Conley, who has what may be the most powerful anti-psychic talent the world has ever seen, Chip hardly has time to process this before Runciter whisks the two of them and a handful of others away to the moon for a lucrative operation against his rival, Ray Hollis, head of a psychic spy firm. But the operation quickly sours when an explosion grievously wounds Runciter. The team heads back to Earth, desperate to save their boss by putting him into cold-pac.

However, as the team licks their wounds and wonders what to do next, strange shifts in reality start to happen. Objects and places regress to chronologically-earlier versions of themselves. Mysterious commercials from Runciter appear on the television. Anyone who wanders away from the group is found withered and dessicated. If Joe Chip and his dwindling group of compatriots want to get to the bottom of a world unraveling around them, first they must discover the secret behind a mysterious product called 'Ubik' that keeps appearing everywhere in time and space.

And believe it or not, from there on out things just keep getting weirder....

But if you really must know, it's a science fiction novel by Creator/PhilipKDick.

A team of anti-psychics fall into an ambush on the moon and their boss dies in an explosion set up by his competitor. The team has to return to earth to save the boss by putting him into a state called half-life, a method of letting dead people communicate with the real world before their "soul" disappears. But something is not quite right, and the team notice that reality is changing around them. And what is the mysterious product Ubik advertised everywhere?

The protagonist is Joe Chip, a Norm who assesses psionic and anti-psionic abilities. He works for Runciter Associates along with Pat Conley, a woman who has a mysterious ability to undo things by tampering with the past.

Things will just keep getting weirder.

The novel is adapted into a PC and PlayStation game by Cryo in 1998.

** "''I'm Glen Runciter, I'm your boss and I'm the one fighting to save all your lives''".

* MegaCorp: The Prudence Societies, such as Runciter Associates.
** Also, the Beloved Brethren Moratorium, Stanton Mick's businesses, Ray Hollis' Psis...

* ValuesDissonance: InUniverse. The protagonist is rather uncomfortable to realize that the average US citizens of 1939 has more in common with the Nazis than with them.

* TechnoBabble: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied.]] Asking what Ubik is yields an incredibly long, complicated answer full of all sorts of technical jargon, which Joe interrupts because, if the person giving the answer uses the phrase "negative ions" [[hottip:*:All ions are negative, so referring to specific ions as negative is redundant]], they probably don't know what they're talking about.[[note]]Ions can actually have positive or negative charges. Ions with an overall negative electric charge are anions, while ions with an overall positive electric charge are cations.[[/note]]

* TechnoBabble: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied.]] Asking what Ubik is yields an incredibly long, complicated answer full of all sorts of technical jargon, which Joe interrupts because, if the person giving the answer uses the phrase "negative ions" [[hottip:*:All ions are negative, so referring to specific ions as negative is redundant]], they probably don't know what they're talking about.[[note]]What about cations? Ions can be positive or negative.[[/note]]

* TechnoBabble: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied.]] Asking what Ubik is yields an incredibly long, complicated answer full of all sorts of technical jargon, which Joe interrupts because, if the person giving the answer uses the phrase "negative ions" [[hottip:*:All ions are negative, so referring to specific ions as negative is redundant]], they probably don't know what they're talking about.[[hottip:*:The charge of an ion depends on its net electric charge. Some ions, such as H+ or Ca2+, have positive charges.]]

* TechnoBabble: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied.]] Asking what Ubik is yields an incredibly long, complicated answer full of all sorts of technical jargon, which Joe interrupts because, if the person giving the answer uses the phrase "negative ions" [[hottip:*:All ions are negative, so referring to specific ions as negative is redundant]], they probably don't know what they're talking about.[[hottip:†:The charge of an ion depends on its net electric charge. Some ions, such as H+ or Ca2+, have positive charges.]]

* TechnoBabble: [[ParodiedTrope Parodied.]] Asking what Ubik is yields an incredibly long, complicated answer full of all sorts of technical jargon, which Joe interrupts because, if the person giving the answer uses the phrase "negative ions" [[hottip:*:All ions are negative, so referring to specific ions as negative is redundant]], they probably don't know what they're talking about.

* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler: ''Someone'' probably is. Have fun figuring out precisely who.]]