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The concept behind Ubik is as brilliant as any of Philip K. Dick's ideas.

Glen Runciter is dead, or maybe he's not. All the people who work for him in his anti-paranormal "Prudence Organization" are dead, or maybe they're not. But even if they're dead (having been attacked by the big Kahuna of paranormal activity), they're being kept in half-life at a Swiss cryogenic facility where they may now be under attack from a soul predator who sucks the vitality out of their half-life, devouring them to power his own half-life. Maybe. We find out the answer in the end. Or maybe not.

This uncertainty is, of course, on purpose. The author is Philip K. Dick, after all, and bending our minds was always one of his greatest talents.

The problem for me, though, is that Ubik's execution doesn't match the brilliance of the idea it's trying to express. It feels like a lesser episode of The Twilight Zone; one of those episodes that couldn't transcend the time of its making, so we're too aware of its post-Nuclear War, pre-Space Age placement. Ubik, like its Twilight Zone kin, is too dated, which isn't unique in the oeuvre of Dick. Even Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep suffers the same fate, making it one of the rare occasions when many readers find themselves admiring the movie (Blade Runner) more than its source.

I wanted to like this more, and I can imagine an updated film of Ubik (maybe directed by Christopher Nolan) knocking my flip-flops off, but the book was disappointing. What a bummer.