Cover of the Week: UBIK by Philip K. Dick
Bantam Books (1977) Cover by Gene Szafran
If you only know about the science fiction author through the famous “Blade Runner” film (adapted from Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”) you owe it to yourself to buy Ubik and take a deep dive into this brilliant/eccentric writer. It was originally published in hardback in 1969 by Doubleday.
Ubik is my favorite book by PKD. I began reading him in the late sixties and started collecting all of his books I could find. I joined the new “Philip K. Dick” society and enjoyed their primitive, but wonderful newsletters. Each novel was a new adventure in ideas and strange reversals of standard sci-fi tropes. But it was Ubik that stopped me in my tracks. It was the first novel by any author and as soon as I finished it, I started reading it again from the beginning.
I won’t go into detail on why this is his masterpiece but suffice to say that the story will take you on a journey that you can’t predict and if you are like me, it will leave you stunned. The main idea is that in the future psychics will be used for corporate espionage and the main plot of the book centers on the actions of one of the “pre-cogs” (as PKD calls them) Joe Chip and his visit to talk with his late wife who is in cryogenic sleep, but can be communicated with at special centers for a brief period.
I own many paperback copies of Ubik, but this Bantam edition is my favorite. Although the artist isn’t credited in this edition, the ISFDB indicates Gene Szafran created it. He began creating science fiction paperback covers in 1970 and created dozens and dozens of striking images for books by Asimov, Heinlein, and Bradbury (to name a few). Ubik was one of his last covers and it captures the spirit of the novel brilliantly. The central image of the spray can is a recurring leitmotif in the story, however the naked woman in the center of the can is not. I can see why it would appeal to potential book buyers, but the central female character is worlds away from a sex symbol. And I’m not sure the novel is “soul-shocking” as the subtext claims, but it is shocking.
I urge you to consider this novel in any edition, but if you want to buy this bantam edition it will set you back about $15 online. I’m selling this copy, which is a bit beat up, but with a solid binding and clean text, for $7.50 on my Etsy bookshop.