Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

I seem to be having all sorts of black hole issues lately, so if this is really already posted, well, we liked it so much, we made it twice!

I am planning to start this tomorrow, and am rather excited as I've been wanting to read it forever!

Just finished Kornbluth's "Not This August." My copy was a paperback from 1955 that I got for a buck. It literally fell apart in my hands as I read it. But boy did it smell good. Nothing like that old book sulfuric acid smell to take you back.

Anyway, I started VALIS and got about 50 pages in. Weird stuff...if this what Dick had going on in his head, it was not a pleasant place to be.

Lol, NOT a pleasant place to be!

That's... Not what I expected, but I'm unexpectedly drawn to it. About halfway through, I should be able to finish it this weekend 🙂

Just started. So Horselover Fat and the “I“ of the story are the same person?

It will all become clear as you move through the book.......sort of.

Finished! But I can't dive into The Divine Invasion right away, I need to read a more plot-driven, concrete story, maybe a little space opera first. You can tell that Dick is trying to make sense of his earlier breakdown, maybe looking for catharsis between multiple personalities, metaphysics, and religion (of a sort). Interesting philosophically and far off the path I usually tread.

What a trip! The ending is quite abrupt. A lot of time is spent on establishing the main character in the first 3/5 of the book, then everything is teared down and resolved quite quickly in my opinion. I will read the next book to see where it can go from now.

great!! i was planning on reading the VALIS trilogy in a couple days after i finish "A Maze of Death",..

this group is always so on par with my current reading material its great.

I love Maze of Death! hope you enjoyed that one.

40% in. Ok so the narrator is Dick himself. I was not expecting the sudden reference to A Scanner Darkly, the only other PKD I’ve read. I don’t remember Horselover Fat in it though.

I still have yet to get to this and it is nearly the end of the month, alas. but I still plan on it!

Well, for better or worse I finished.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

doesn't sound like it was a great experience for you!

It’s only my second PKD. I thought it was a long conversation with graduate students while high, or one of those Ancient Aliens shows. It didn’t have the emotional impact of A Scanner Darkly.

I am finding it very thought provoking.....I keep stopping to think about it though!

LOL Maggie!


Lena wrote: "It’s only my second PKD. I thought it was a long conversation with graduate students while high, or one of those Ancient Aliens shows. It didn’t have the emotional impact of A Scanner Darkly. "

I'm glad you at least had the Scanner experience first. this trilogy, although among the most famous and highly regarded of his books, is also pretty divisive and many consider the three books increasingly impenetrable.

OK, I just started. I'm behind, I know, but life has been pretty unforgiving lately. Also, for some reason, this book intimidates me. I feel like my head is going to explode while I read it.

Lena wrote: "It’s only my second PKD."

Sorry to hear that, both because PKD is a favorite of mine so I'm sorry you haven't had the pleasure of reading more of his books, and also sorry because I feel like this is a tough one to read early on, like a graduate level PKD course.

Lena wrote: "Just started. So Horselover Fat and the “I“ of the story are the same person?"

I'm not far enough along to speculate about the answer to this question, but it did remind me that in the first chapter the narrator speaks in the first, second and third person. In the second chapter the narrator discusses his relationship with Fat as though Fat was a different person, even though he established early in the first chapter that he, the narrator (or the author), WAS Horselover Fat.

And what kind of name is Horselover Fat anyway?

I'm a little over halfway through. it is certainly different than what I expected! very dense with ideas plus all of the meta on top to just make it even more dense. I love all of those ideas and all of the religions and all of the questions on fate and faith and God and the future. and yet I don't really feel the automatic excitement that I've felt with many other books by Dick. it's fascinating and often very clever and always thought-provoking... but I don't love it. I don't hate it either though.

I feel like "Horselover Fat" is an anagram for something. have I read that somewhere? I dunno.

Horselover Fat is an Anglicization Of Greek “Philhippos” and German “Didk”.

thanks Will!

I finished-and thought it was fantastic! It was overly thought provoking at first, not in a bad way, but in a distracting way!

Once the action got moving a little more I was mesmerized. Going on the favorites shelf!

Will wrote: "Horselover Fat is an Anglicization Of Greek “Philhippos” and German “Didk”."

thank you Will

mark wrote: "I'm a little over halfway through. it is certainly different than what I expected! very dense with ideas plus all of the meta on top to just make it even more dense. I love all of those ideas and a..."

Ditto. It is taking me a while to read it because I have to assemble my tinfoil hat in order to stop the aliens from baking my brain with microwaves.

I’ve found these sort of books are best in audiobook, just let the crazy flow through you!