Ubik

When I started to read this I kind of made the mistake fo reading the foreword and in the process of doing so I spoiled the ending, so readers beware!

I found myself to be pleasantly surprised by how easy the book was to read, the story flowed in many ways, what I would call hardcore science fiction novels do not. I've tried to read Peter F. Hamilton (What is it with the initial in the middle, we have Arthur C. Clarke too) and found him far too dry.

There are people with empathic and psychic abilities in the future who could if they wanted, and probably do, read your mind and steal all you're most private details. To counteract this there are people with the ability to neutralise those talents. It is these people who work for the Runciter Corporation that are ultimately lured into to a trap that is designed to take them out of the equation, leaving the all involved questioning their state of mortality.

Unlike the Anne McCaffrey novels that show the psychics and other gifted people in the soft and somewhat fuzzy light it was nice to read a story that was more from a male perspective that wasn't interested in the romance that all too often makes its way in to the fantasy part of sci-fi. Everything here is tangible and follows a totally believable path, doors that require tipping is one idea I thought was rather genius, and being written in the age of drug experimentation from Philip K. Dick's mind there is a veritable banquet of pharmacopia throughout the book. Ubik to a word.