Science Fiction

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[Unpopular Question] Why is Ubik so popular ? (jlai.lu)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/sciencefiction

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So there's a question I've been having for a while now: Why is Ubki, from Philip K Dick so popular ? I've read it, and was pretty disappointed. The scenario starts pretty well, but becomes very obvious amongst the rest of the book, there's little no to connection between the scenes, everything seems to have no relation, the final characters (Ella and Joe) are barely introduced, the resolution (Ubki's provenance) is barely explained, ...

Overall, I feel like I've read a really good scenario idea from a great author, but it feels like a missed opportunity; I’m left feeling unsatisfied.

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[–] partial_accumen 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I was taught this lesson by "anything written by Dan Brown".

As a regular reader of fiction, when The Da Vinci Code blew up in popularity I had all kinds of people around me telling me how amazing it was. I read it and was very disappointed. Its okay, but fairly formulaic and two-dimensional characters. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it doesn't stand out as exceptionally good like I'd been led to believe. Then I realized none of the people recommending it to me were regular readers. So to them, it likely was amazing. If they read more often of other authors they might have been equally if not more amazed by better books.

That didn't stop Da Vinci Code nor the follow up Angels and Demons from being commercial successful and very popular books.