The three stigmata of palmer eldricht

I re read this book after a long gap. I think I last read it back in 2006 or 2007.
This book is a typical PKD creation. It has the usual premise. A depressed and depressive employee, fatherly employer. Employee likes a girl, does something non-ethical at work, gets fired, sinks into depression and invariably into a world where he loses perception of where he is and what if anything he could have done or could do.
The best part is how masterfully PKD weaves a Web of reality vs unreality. The boundary between a drug induced dream like simulation and a real world is so blurred that the reader won't know what is real anymore.

I rate this a 7. It's not as good as Ubik or Do androids dream of electric sheep? But it's definitely one of PKD'S better works.

The Double

This is the first time I have read a Dostoevsky novel in its entirety. When I was barely a middle schooler I attempted to read the Idiot and gave up soon enough when I could glean neither amusement nor philosophy. All I remember of the first few pages of the Idiot is that the main character is a prince and that the binding of the book being nearly identical to 1001 questions answered about astronomy caused confusion time and again.

The double was a quick listen. I turned up the speed on overdrive to 2x and was able to finish it rather quickly.

The novel itself was ok, the constant juxtaposition of the protagonist and the doppelganger are done ok-ish. As with any classic there are anachronistic points of view that would be horrible if expressed in this day and age.
However no one does mental illness better than philip k dick and no one does injustice better than Kafka. Still most certainly not a waste of time and I do plan to read more Dostoevsky!

My rating: 6.0

Ubik

This just has to be one of PKD'S best works. I'm told it was in the time magazine's 100 best novels since the beginning of Time list. I would have agreed with placing Ubik on this list, even if I question the judgement of the selectors given they picked Lolita.

Most of the story is told from the point of Joe Chip's view.
There is an event fairly early in the book, after which the protagonist questions their own existence in a very rational way.
Ubik - what it is, what it does is mysterious all the way to the end. PKD cleverly evokes a theological parallel in the readers mind.

And the ending?  Absolutely PKD!
Just when you are ready to believe everything has been explained well and neatly wrapped up - you find it isnt. The last paragraph leaves everything dangling and forces you to reconsider all that happened, and all the alternatives

Brave New World

This is a well written work, surprisingly so. The author shows us an elaborate futuristic society that doesn't work. It seems to take a stab at capitalism and  mass production and socislism at the same time.
The scene is set in future Britain where everything including the population is mass produced. People are divided into classes based on their genetic makeup and that governs the rest of their lives. Soma are sleep substitute tablets that keep people efficiently playing their role in turning economic engines of society.

It's not unlike much other criticismof capitalism but this is likely to have been one of the earlier ones.

My rating is a 6, but that's mostly because it's a bit slow at times

Do Butlers Burgle Banks?

Yes they can, and in this PGW book, they are capable of much more. Had we had more butlers like Horace Appleby, many a young toddler would aspire to a buttling vocation.
This is one of the first non-drones and non-bertie wooster books that I've read.

Filled with the typical pgw colorful array of characters, one of the main blokes is a bertie wooster like young chappie. There's a butler, horace appleby, who, when he's not burgling banks, is a jeeves like character. There are both a yard man and a country copper.  Claude potter, the scotland yard man I may have read about in other books. The climax in this one is not unlike other pgw works, everyone converges at the scene of the deception a resolution that works for everyone except for the likes of claude potter. Definitely worth reading, this. This gets a 7 on my scale

The Man in the High Castle

A PKD book. Its an excellent read, like most PKD books. The pessimism doesnt run as deep here as in the other books. Its an alternate history novel, with Germany and Japan winning WWII, and Italy turning traitor, the breakup of the USA, continent scale genocide in Africa, and German ambitions of expansion in space.
The Japanese life is very nicely depicted, especially the use of the I Ching, which becomes a core part of the culture of native americans living in the Japanese controlled Pacific States of A. Much like the current US influence over Japan.
The ending left many questions, but like most PKD novels and some short stories, the story lies in the meat, rather than in the ending.

Great read, dont miss it.

What are the chances?

Another popular reading probability book. Why do I keep reading these when I know all this stuff?
Its worth a skip. While examples are well-used etc, you're better off reading Coincidences, Chaos and all that Math Jazz, which itself isnt the best.
The treatment on climate change is quite outdated too, though it was only written in the current decade.

My personal favorite Mathematics books were from Mir publishers. There was this Yakob Perelman or some such person who wrote "Mathematics can be fun". Do read it if you can find it.

Lies Inc

The story, begins with the protagonist realizing that he's the victim of subliminal dreams implantation carried out by the police-state. In the dreams, he's a rat, competing with other rats for pieces of days old cheeseburger, or pieces of string.
Now who else could have written this, but PKD.
Despite the melancholy beginning, the plot is quite impressive. Set a few decades in the future, it tells the story of an heir of interstellar ferries, trying to compete with the newly harnessed teleportation industry. A three-way deadlock between the police(Lies, Inc), the UN and the teleportation company(THL for Trails of Hoffman Ltd., i think) forms the background.
Rachmael Von Applebaum, the heir, is convinced there's something fishy about the whole teleportation setup. the  offered scientific explanation for one-way(outward bound) teleportation does not convince him. and perhaps driven by inability to compete with the much cheaper and faster teleportation and his impending bankruptcy, he decides to visit the fomalhaut system to verify the facts for himself.

PKD meanders the story through several twists and turns, making it hard for Rachmael(and us readers) to distinguish between reality and hallucinations.
Its definitely a good read, and I suggest you do read it. the first half was published earlier as "The unteleported  man". Its not tough to imagine that that would have made an excellent book too.

Tomb Raider comics

Games are way better, although the comic does have more visual appeal. I'd been looking for these comics for a while, and when I finally did find them, they were a wee bit disappointing. And by that - I mean they werent much greater than the X-Men, Justice League and other DC and Marvel  junk.
The reason my expectations were high to begin with is that I'd had this image of Lara Croft as a real hero, an ordinary person but with extraordinarily quick thinking and reflexes, coupled with a devil-may-care attitude while not actually truly rash.

Amongst the Tomb Raider games, my favorites to this day remain The Last Revelation and the Tomb Raider Chronicles, in that order. The newer ones sport nicer graphics, they indeed have become somewhat diluted now.

Bahamian Blue Seas

National Geographic August issue, another exciting issue. I believe Nat Geo magazines are the second most perfect thing to let kids read(after Tintin, of course). It helps them understand the scale of human civilization. Thats exactly what happened to me when I was knee-high.
This issue talks about Bahamian blue holes, of whose existance I was incognizant. The tri-country railroad in the caucasus that will link Far East Europe to the rest of the European Union, Rhinos of Kaziranga were run-of-the-mill Nat Geo articles. That is not a negative connotation, mind you.
As usual articles are crisp and to the point, yet succeed in providing a snippet of lives in these dioramas.
Also featured are Egyptian whales, one of the stronger pieces of evidence that undermine intelligent design as a means of explaining whale evolution.
Reminds me to read the Selfish Gene soon, I bought it about 3 years ago, still havent read it!