Fundamentals of Beam Physics

Book Description

This book presents beam physics using a unified approach, emphasizing basic concepts and analysis methods. While many existing resources in beams and accelerators are specialized to aid the professional practitioner, this text anticipates the needs of physics students. The central concepts underpinning the physics of accelerators, charged particle, and photon beams are built up from familiar, intertwining components, such as electromagnetism, relativity, and Hamiltonian dynamics. These components are woven into an illustrative set of examples that allow investigation of a variety of physical scenarios. With these tools, single particle dynamics in linear accelerators are discussed, with general methods that are naturally extended to circular accelerators. Beyond single particle dynamics, the proliferation of commonly used beam descriptions are surveyed and compared. These methods provide a powerful connection between the classical charged particle beams, and beams based on coherent waves - laser beams. Aspects of experimental techniques are introduced. Numerous exercises, and examples drawn from devices such as synchrotrons and free-electron lasers, are included to illustrate relevant physical principles.

Fundamental Aspects of Heterogeneous Catalysis Studied by Particle Beams (NATO Science Series: B:)

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Fundamental Aspects of Heterogeneous Catalysis Studied by Particle Beams (NATO Science Series: B:)

Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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Fundamental Physics with Pulsed Neutron Beams

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Fundamental Physics with Pulsed Neutron Beams

Manufacturer: World Scientific Publishing Company
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9810246676

Fundamentals of Laser Interactions II: Proceedings of the Fourth Meeting on Laser Phenomena Held at the Bundessportheim in Obergurgl, Austria 26 Febr (Lecture Notes in Physics)

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Fundamentals of Laser Interactions II: Proceedings of the Fourth Meeting on Laser Phenomena Held at the Bundessportheim in Obergurgl, Austria 26 Febr (Lecture Notes in Physics)

Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387514309

Fundamentals of Nonlinear Optics of Atomic Gases (Wiley Series in Pure and Applied Optics)

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Fundamentals of Nonlinear Optics of Atomic Gases (Wiley Series in Pure and Applied Optics)
Nikola&ibreve; B. Delone , and Vladimir P. Krainov
Manufacturer: Wiley
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Book Description

This book is the first book devoted to nonlinear optics that treats the subject simply and consistently, with concise yet thorough descriptions of all interrelated phenomena, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Using a simple model of a time-independent interaction of monochromatic light with an atomic gas, it describes the elementary nonlinear processes that emerge for an isolated atom, the optical characteristics of the medium averaged over a large number of atoms and depending on the intensity of light, and the basic nonlinear optics phenomena observed in the propagation of an intense light wave through the medium. The analytical-theoretical description of nonlinear optics phenomena serves as the focal point for the subjects covered, which the authors have singled out as the main phenomena that qualititively distinguish nonlinear optics from the common linear optics of weak light fluxes. Includes a list of notations and a list of references designed to make it easy for readers to pursue specific areas of research.

Ion Bombardment Modification of Surfaces: Fundamentals and Applications (Beam Modification of Materials, 1)

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Ion Bombardment Modification of Surfaces: Fundamentals and Applications (Beam Modification of Materials, 1)
Orlando Auciello
Manufacturer: Elsevier Science Ltd
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Binding: Hardcover

Large Ion Beams: Fundamentals of Generation and Propagation

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Large Ion Beams: Fundamentals of Generation and Propagation
A. Theodore Forrester
Manufacturer: Wiley-Interscience
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Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

A compilation and analysis of discussions of phenomena important to ion beams and high perveance ion beams. Discusses physics essential to research on ion beam generation and propagation and provides some requisite background to understanding the criteria for designing electrodes. Ion sources are categorized in terms of their configurations, and the relationships between various types of sources is developed. Covers collisionless space charge phenomena, collisionless plasmas, collisional effects and the taxonomy of high poissance beams. Chapters also treat the field of intense negative ion beams.

Materials Fundamentals of Molecular Beam Epitaxy

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Materials Fundamentals of Molecular Beam Epitaxy
Jeffrey Y. Tsao
Manufacturer: Academic Press
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ASIN: 0127016252

Book Description

The technology of crystal growth has advanced enormously during the past two decades. Among, these advances, the development and refinement of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) has been among the msot important. Crystals grown by MBE are more precisely controlled than those grown by any other method, and today they form the basis for the most advanced device structures in solid-state physics, electronics, and optoelectronics. As an example, Figure 0.1 shows a vertical-cavity surface emitting laser structure grown by MBE.

* Provides comprehensive treatment of the basic materials and surface science principles that apply to molecular beam epitaxy
* Thorough enough to benefit molecular beam epitaxy researchers
* Broad enough to benefit materials, surface, and device researchers
* Referenes articles at the forefront of modern research as well as those of historical interest

Molecular Beam Epitaxy: Fundamentals and Current Status (Springer Series in Materials Science, 7)

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Molecular Beam Epitaxy: Fundamentals and Current Status (Springer Series in Materials Science, 7)
Marian A. Herman , and Helmut Sitter
Manufacturer: Springer-Verlag
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387190759

Book Description

Molecular Beam Epitaxy describes a technique in wide-spread use for the production of high-quality semiconductor devices. It discusses the most important aspects of the MBE apparatus, the physics and chemistry of the crystallization of various materials and device structures, and the characterization methods that relate the structural parameters of the grown (or growing) film or structure to the technologically relevant procedure. In this second edition two new fields have been added: crystallization of as-grown low-dimensional heterostructures, mainly quantum wires and quantum dots, and in-growth control of the MBE crystallization process of strained-layer structures. Out-of-date material has been removed.

Particle Beam Microanalysis: Fundamentals, Methods and Applications

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Particle Beam Microanalysis: Fundamentals, Methods and Applications
Ekkehard Fuchs , H. Oppolzer , and H. Rehme
Manufacturer: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH
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Binding: Hardcover

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dick novel sayer

Interesting but not earth-shaking collection of 1960's sci-fi

Much-deserved canonization

Remarkable

The Definitive PKD

Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik
Philip K. Dick
Manufacturer: Library of America
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Binding: Hardcover

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Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick

Jack Kerouac: Road Novels 1957-1960: On the Road / The Dharma Bums / The Subterraneans / Tristessa / Lonesome Traveler / Journal Selections (Library of America)

John Steinbeck: Travels with Charley and Later Novels 1947-1962: The Wayward Bus / Burning Bright / Sweet Thursday / The Winter of Our Discontent (Library of America)

Saul Bellow: Novels 1956-1964: Seize the Day, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog (Library of America)

Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays and Writings on Theater (Library of America)

ASIN: 1598530097
Release Date: 2007-05-10

Book Description

Known in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction, Philip K. Dick (1928-82) is now seen as a uniquely visionary figure, a writer who, in editor Jonathan Lethem's words, "wielded a sardonic yet heartbroken acuity about the plight of being alive in the twentieth century, one that makes him a lonely hero to the readers who cherish him." Posing the questions "What is human?" and "What is real?" in a multitude of fascinating ways, Dick produced works-fantastic and weird yet developed with precise logic, marked by wild humor and soaring flights of religious speculation-that are startlingly prescient imaginative responses to 21st-century quandaries.

This Library of America volume brings together four of Dick's most original novels. The Man in the High Castle (1962), which won the Hugo Award, describes an alternate world in which Japan and Germany have won World War II and America is divided into separate occupation zones. The dizzying The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) posits a future in which competing hallucinogens proffer different brands of virtual reality. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), about a bounty hunter in search of escaped androids in a postapocalyptic future, was the basis for the movie Blade Runner. Ubik (1969), with its future world of psychic espionage agents and cryogenically frozen patients inhabiting an illusory "half-life," pursues Dick's theme of simulated realities and false perceptions to ever more disturbing conclusions. As with most of Dick's novels, no plot summary can suggest the mesmerizing and constantly surprising texture of these astonishing books.

Customer Reviews:

dick novel sayer.......2007-09-30

The book is worth owning for the quality of the binding work. Fine paper, pages are well set, the binding is cloth and durable. The novels are also interesting, a combination of time capsule and science fiction.

Interesting but not earth-shaking collection of 1960's sci-fi.......2007-09-25

This is a collection of 4 of Philip K. Dick's sci-fi novels of the 1960's including Hugo award winner "The Man in the High Castle". The other three books are "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", and "Ubik" (see my review).

The Library of America has done the reading public a great service in printing collections of great American authors. This is the 173rd in the collection. I have read almost all of them. This one seems a little out of place, not because of the genre (I love science fiction and look forward to more LOA sci-fi), but because Dick is a second tier sci-fi author.

I know that there are Dick fanatics. But Dick's novels are dated, the characterizations are weak, the dialogue is stilted, and the plots often make no sense - and that's just what his admirers say.

Like all LOA offerings this is an excellent, low-priced hardback book that is well worth the money. Dick is still read-worthy mostly because several of his books have been made into movies - the best known of which are "Total Recall" with soft-core porn star and serial-groping Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger and "Blade Runner" with Harrison Ford. These movies are pretty good and "Blade Runner" was a great movie that has been influential. The problem is these movies are nothing like the books. The plots and characters have been changed by the screenplay authors, and I'm not talking a little bit but major changes in plot and character. So it really isn't fair to credit Dick with these movies that are loosely based, at best, on his works.

To really get the most out of these books and understand Dick's place in literature you need to understand a few things about the author. First of all Dick was nuts. Certifiably. In and out of asylum kind of nuts. His whole life. He was also into every drug you can imagine. His personal life was a shambles. His books never really sold well - as a matter of fact he was on welfare or bummed off of friends most of his life. No one knows whether anything Dick said was true or not. Many of his claims are clearly false. Some are not. He apparently was monitored by the FBI at some time, but then so were most malcontents of that period. But the prime suspect in a break-in of Dick's house was - Dick himself - as Dick himself admitted.

Dick liked to go to sci-fi conventions and use drugs. The 1968 Bay area sci-fi convention was known as "Drugcon" (Drug Convention) due to the prevalence of various mind-altering chemicals. This is important because one of Dick's novels main problems is that Dick's novels and stories often don't make sense.

And so we come to the four novels in this book. The first, "The Man in the High Castle" won the Hugo award of 1962. (The Hugo and the Nebula award are the highest honors in Science Fiction writing for you non Sci-Fi lovers) This novel is an alternate history if the US lost the Second World War. Interesting concept but the book's characters were particularly weak with none of them being particularly sympathetic. And the ending was a typical Dick ending where he made it possible that the whole book prior to that point may have been an illusion. The middle part was slow, but hey, it won a Hugo so give it a read.

The second book, "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" is a confused work that doesn't make sense as characters die and re-appear from various time-lines. Dick's favorite theme was "Is reality real", but this book has all kinds of plot inconsistencies. And any book that Yoko Lennon wanted to make a movie of is clearly suspect.

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" is the third book and the source of "Blade Runner". The movie screenplay is more interesting than the book. Dick's female characters almost always tended to by tricky, sex-starved, and one-dimensional. The movie does a much better job with the female characters.

The last book, "Ubik", is by far the best of the lot, though it won no prizes. The constant making fun of capitalist, American culture is one of my favorite things in this book. See my review for further details.

Overall, these are interesting books with the faults noted above. I think Heinlein, Card, Asimov, and other Sci-Fi writers are better though.

Much-deserved canonization.......2007-09-19

One needn't have been a sci-fi aficionado to have recognized Phil Dick's importance in American letters. His work had a prescience that relied only partly on the imaginative constructs that are staples of the genre. Dick's looks into the future were always grounded in a profound understanding of the eternal present of the human psyche -- man's desires and capabilities and the tensions created by the failure of the latter to achieve the ambitions of the former.
The four works in this collection reflect that sensitivity. They also explore, in successively more comprehensive ways, the relation between man and God, how each is a reflection of the other. In a real sense, they are works of remarkable piety.
As its inclusion in the Library of America suggests, these novels are well worth the time of the reading public.

Remarkable.......2007-07-26

I read alot, mostly sci-fi. I have never read anything like these stories by PKD. He must have been really deep into these stories as he was writing them. Very enjoyable.

The Definitive PKD.......2007-06-08

In the 1960s, when he wrote these four novels, Philip K. Dick was not known, as he is today, as an acclaimed "literary" science-fiction writer and visionary who inspired many films. Since his death in 1982, his reputation has steadily soared, a little bit too late, and now this former genre journeyman toiling in obscurity has become the first sf author to be enshrined in a handsome omnibus volume in the esteemed Library of America series. Of course, I had to buy it even though I already owned multiple copies of all these novels. It is a genuine pleasure to read any of the LOA volumes, so lovingly produced they are. And this one especially so, compiled as it was by an author heavily influenced by Dick, Jonathan Lethem. You will never see a biographical chronology so interesting to read in its own right: we even learn that Timothy Leary called Dick during John and Yoko's bed-in and he put the famous pair on the phone to tell PKD that they wanted to film one of the four novels contained here, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Incidentally, Lethem's taste is impeccable. Though Dick wrote no fewer than 21 novels in the 1960s (plus a couple of dozen more before and after), these are without a doubt the four best: The Three Stigmata, The Man in the High Castle, Ubik, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? One could easily compile another such volume with four more extremely strong novels of this period: Clans of the Alphane Moon, Dr. Bloodmoney, Now Wait for Last Year, and Martian Time-Slip. However, the ones collected here are the ones I would pick, if I could have only four. They are all absolute classics and support many rereadings. I remember when in the 1970s, I encountered Three Stigmata for the first time and could not totally make sense of it, but I was intrigued. It was hallucinogenic, it was trippy, it was theological. A few years later I found myself seeking it out again, rereading with a passion, finally really "getting it," and then compulsively seeking out everything I could find by PKD. It took me years but I eventually tracked down every last out-of-print forgotten paperback. Since then all his works have been reprinted and made easily available. But my original "discovery" experience is why this LOA volume means so much to me now. The Man in the High Castle is perhaps the best alternate history ever written, a speculation on what life would have been like if the Germans and Japanese had won World War II. Ubik is a brilliant ontological quest into the very structure of reality. Do Androids Dream, the novel on which the film Blade Runner is based, is among other things a meditation on what it means to be human. These four novels have become like cornerstones in my own life's journey. For them to have been given this respectful and definitive publication is something that brings me a lot of pleasure, and would also, I think, have pleased Philip K. Dick.

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Ubiquitous?
One of the best from the author of "Blade Runner"
Testing Reality
The best I've read from my favourite author
One of his very best

Ubik
Philip K. Dick
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679736646
Release Date: 1991-12-03

Amazon.com

Nobody but Philip K. Dick could so successfully combine SF comedy with the unease of reality gone wrong, shifting underfoot like quicksand. Besides grisly ideas like funeral parlors where you swap gossip for the advice of the frozen dead, Ubik (1969) offers such deadpan farce as a moneyless character's attack on the robot apartment door that demands a five-cent toll:

"I'll sue you," the door said as the first screw fell out.
Joe Chip said, "I've never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it."

Chip works for Glen Runciter's anti-psi security agency, which hires out its talents to block telepathic snooping and paranormal dirty tricks. When its special team tackles a big job on the Moon, something goes terribly wrong. Runciter is killed, it seems--but messages from him now appear on toilet walls, traffic tickets, or product labels. Meanwhile, fragments of reality are timeslipping into past versions: Joe Chip's beloved stereo system reverts to a hand-cranked 78 player with bamboo needles. Why does Runciter's face appear on U.S. coins? Why the repeated ads for a hard-to-find universal panacea called Ubik ("safe when taken as directed")?

The true, chilling state of affairs slowly becomes clear, though the villain isn't who Joe Chip thinks. And this is Dick country, where final truths are never quite final and--with the help of Ubik--the reality/illusion balance can still be tilted the other way. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

Book Description

Philip K. Dick's searing metaphysical comedy of death and salvation is a tour de force of panoramic menace and unfettered slapstick, in which the departed give business advice, shop for their next incarnation, and run the continual risk of dying yet again.

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Customer Reviews:

Ubiquitous?.......2007-09-19

The first comparison that came to mind when I started reading "Ubik" was Don DeLilo's "White Noise (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)." Not due to any special thematic comparison, but because of the advertisements for great new products named Ubik at the beginning of each paragraph in the story; this reminded me of the constant low-level onslaught of information that came at you while reading "White Noise."

As far as the story itself - what can one say without spoiling it? The main character is Joe Chip, a tester for the Runciter Group, which is a group of "Anti-psis" - basically, they null out psionic power to help protect people's privacy. I was by stages amused and appalled by the vision of 1992 painted in this novel - apparently we were supposed to have made our way to Mars and the Moon by now, with colonies on each, and we're supposed to be dressing even more outlandishly than we do now. However, it seems odd to me, as I have been reading through the omnibus in which this story resides (Counterfeit Unrealities (contains Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep [aka Blade Runner], The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch)) to note the things that are kept in the 50s and 60s. Women are either young and in the service industry or they are matrons and stay at home. If they are other than that, then they are shown as . . . strange, even dangerous, such as Pat Conroy in this story. It is this that makes her such an appropriate foil for Joe Chip, as he stumbles through his attempts to keep the group together after a major fiasco occurs when the Glen Runciter - the owner of the company - takes a group of his most highly skilled workers to the Lunar colony for a job and is there attacked.

The rest of the story shakes down while the surviving characters notice a strange combination of entropy and growth - recession and coming into being. The world seems to be regressing to an older era, but at the same time, they keep getting messages from "beyond" instructing them on what to do. Then the question arises - who is really dead? Who is really alive? What is reality? Who is creating it?

Not for a light evening's read, that's for sure! But well worth the slodge if you have the time. Most intriguing and something to keep the ol' cerebellum stretched. Give it a try.

One of the best from the author of "Blade Runner".......2007-09-12

Ubik is one the better books written by Sci-Fi author Philip K. Dick. Dick mostly wrote in the 1960's and most of his books have the same theme - what is reality? Dick developed a following as much for his lifestyle as for his books. To appreciate and judge Ubik you really need to understand the author more than the author of a typical sci-fi space opera. So here goes.

First of all Dick was nuts. Certifiably. In and out of asylum kind of nuts. His whole life. He was also into every drug you can imagine. His personal life was a shambles. His books never really sold well - as a matter of fact he was on welfare or bummed off of friends most of his life. No one knows whether anything Dick said was true or not. Many of his claims are clearly false. Some are not. He apparently was monitored by the FBI at some time, but then so were most malcontents of that period. But the prime suspect in a break-in of Dick's house was - Dick himself - as Dick himself admitted.

Dick liked to go to sci-fi conventions and use drugs. The 1968 Bay area sci-fi convention was known as "Drugcon" (Drug Convention) due to the prevalence of various mind-altering chemicals. This is important because one of Dick's novels main problems is that Dick's novels and stories often don't make sense.

Dick's main theme of "Are you sure exactly what reality is?" is used in multiple books. Dick won the Hugo award for an early book "The Man in the High Castle" in 1963. Ubik was written in 1969 and is much better, in my opinion, although it won no awards.

Dick's novels suffered from a sameness once the originality of alternate and unknown realities wore off. His greatest failing was his characterization. Most of his characters are one-dimensional and unlikeable. Ubik, however, has the best characterization and several characters are fleshed out rather well. Another Dick characteristic was to look at relations between men and women as purely mechanical sex and almost no romance. He also didn't do extensive re-writes or revisions, leaving finished works that were self-contradictory and senseless in some aspects. Many people judge Dick on the movies made from his writings - particularly "Blade Runner" with Harrison Ford and "Total Recall" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. These scripts were written by others, cleaned up, changed and forced to make sense, so they are really not Dick's work at all.

In Ubik, as in his other writings, much of the plot doesn't make sense or contradicts earlier occurrences. In part, Dick was trying to make reality fuzzy, but mostly Dick himself didn't know or care whether each plot occurrence made sense and agreed with what was already written. Some claim this is what makes them good, but I personally think these people are on mind-altering chemicals themselves.

At any rate, Ubik is compulsively readable. In most of Dick's other books there are stretches that are simply boring. But Ubik has a relentless pace and a mind-twisting ending that makes pretty good sense - at least I think it does - kind of - well maybe not - but I still liked it.

The plot of the book should probably not be known before you read the book, so if you haven't read it skip this next part. Briefly, in a future where the dead are frozen in a kind of half-life, a tragedy between a good and evil group of characters immerses them in this same mind-bending half-life.

I enjoyed this book in spite of its weaknesses. You can either buy it singly or as part of the new Library of America anthology containing Hugo award-winning "The Man in the High Castle", "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (the source of "Blade Runner") and Ubik. Either way, it is an interesting and influential book.

Testing Reality.......2007-09-07

As usual, Dick tests the boundaries between reality, and . . . something else. One reason I was really interested in this book is a research paper I was working on. The data came from my psychological interviews, using the ZMET method. In this type of consumer behavior study, we find that what people say and what they actually do are often very different. People even make up elaborate descriptions and explanations to justify their imaginary behaviors. Ubik really fits this context well, because here Dick references a consumer product called Ubik, that is everywhere. Everyone wants Ubik, but no one seems actually to obtain it.

The best I've read from my favourite author.......2007-08-22

Excellent! If you like reality bending stories you will thoroughly enjoy Ubik. My copy did not have a plot spoiling description on the back, but I agree with the other reviewers and suggest that you just dive in.
My second favorite PKD book may be Maze of Death, both books I have read multiple times, and have given away copies of. Would really like to see someone like Spielberg tackle this one as a film.

One of his very best.......2007-08-18

I'd read several of Philip K. Dick's novels, and many of his short stories, before picking up UBIK. Even so, nothing could have prepared me for the wild roller-coaster ride of this story.

I don't think I've ever been quite as gripped by a book as I was by this one. I was accustomed to Dick's writing style and his inimitable strangeness, but I think he surpassed himself in this one. I read feverishly and after I was done, I sat there, stunned. I thought about nothing else for days.

Fortunately the Bantam Books edition I read said nothing about the plot or even the premise, which was a wise decision. If you pick this one up, I recommend not reading the blurb. Current editions have massive spoilers. Accordingly I'm avoiding describing the story in any way here.

Now that Dick has become massively popular, it's become more fashionable to critique his sometimes clumsy writing style. His writing does have its flaws but few authors can equal him for sheer readability. Some of his earlier 60s novels, such as MARTIAN TIME-SLIP, THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, and THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH, were not as hastily written and the prose is more polished. UBIK was written in the late 60s about the same time as DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? and these novels are hastily written. Still, as with H.P. Lovecraft (whose prose is far worse than Dick's), it's the quality of his vision that makes him great, and Dick was a natural storyteller, even though he lacks the polish of Jack Vance or Robert Silverberg.

UBIK is based on ideas first developed in a PKD short story, "What the Dead Men Say." To some extent UBIK is an expansion of that story but it goes way beyond. This is the ultimate metaphysical SF novel.

Counterfeit Unrealities (contains Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep [aka Blade Runner], The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch)

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What is reality; Who is truly human?
The best PKD novel collection

Counterfeit Unrealities (contains Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep [aka Blade Runner], The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch)
Philip K Dick
Manufacturer: Science Fiction Book Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0739426141

Customer Reviews:

What is reality; Who is truly human? .......2007-09-24

In this omnibus, some of the Philip K. Dick stories that explore the borders of reality are brought together:
In "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch," Dick works through the nature of reality and illusion. Set in a dystopian future, Earth is going through a "fire" age and humans cannot survive more than a few seconds outside during daylight; this has forced humanity to spend daylight hours in a warren of buildings and tunnels. Additionally, a draft is set up to send humans out to the colonies on Mars and various asteroids - whether they want to or not. These colonies are living at subsistence level and the colonists there invariably end up hooked on a drug called Can-D, that allows them to live in an illusory world populated by Perky Pat and her boyfriend Walt, thereby escaping their miserable existence. They use miniature items to create these worlds; these "mins" are provided by the same company that supplies the illegal Can-D, which is run by Leo Bulero.
When the famous explorer Palmer Eldritch returns from his trip to Proxa, he brings with him some lichen, with which he creates a product called Chew-Z - a legal alternative to Can-D. This is a more potent drug that allows people to create their own universes, without needing the mins. However, what most do not know is that all these universes are controlled by Eldritch. Is Palmer still human, or did something else come back in his place?
Playing onto our worst nightmares - namely those in which we continually think we've awakened, only to find we're still inside the nightmare - this story keeps you guessing as to what is real and what is hallucination. It is difficult to explain too much of the plot without giving away key elements that will spoil the story, which is why I've stuck mainly to what is given in the editorial review or on the book cover. However, I found the story to be very much in the lines of a typical Philip K. Dick story - twisted and convoluted. Well worth the read, however.

In "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," we find ourselves alternating between two intertwining plot lines. One involves Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who "retires" escaped androids. The latest model - the Nexus-6 - can only be differentiated from humans through use of a sophisticated psychological testing mechanism that measures empathy levels; empathy being the one thing that androids quite simply lack. The other plot line revolves around J. R. Isadore, a "chickenhead" (that is to say, a man who has mutated enough that he is starting to lose his cognitive abilities, but not so much that he cannot still manage to take care of himself and serve the public in some small way). He works for the Van Ness Pet Hospital, which serves people who own electric animals. However, his day gets off to an uneven start when first he discovers another tenant in his previously empty building, and then he is given a real cat - which subsequently dies on the way in to the hospital before he even realizes it is actually alive.
Similar in theme to "Stigmata," this book explores the differences between reality and fantasy by probing the differences between man and machine(sometimes that line is very blurred), electric animal and real animal, and so forth. Always in the background is the constant back and forth of Mercerism vs. Buster Friendly, who always gently (and sometimes not so gently) accuses Mercer as a fraud and fake.
I found the story enjoyable; dense and difficult at times, but the interchange and interplays are always deft and intriguing. This classic bit of surreal sci-fi is not to be missed.

When reading "Ubik," the first comparison that came to mind was Don DeLilo's White Noise (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)" Not due to any special thematic comparison, but because of the advertisements for great new products named Ubik at the beginning of each paragraph in the story; this reminded me of the constant low-level onslaught of information that came at you while reading "White Noise."
As far as the story itself - what can one say without spoiling it? The main character is Joe Chip, a tester for the Runciter Group, which is a group of "Anti-psis" - they null out psionic power to help protect people's privacy. I was by stages amused and appalled by the vision of 1992 painted in this novel - apparently we were supposed to have made our way to Mars and the Moon by now, with colonies on each, and we're supposed to be dressing even more outlandishly than we do now. However, it seems odd to me to note the things that are kept in the style of the 50s and 60s. Women are either young and in the service industry or they are matrons and stay at home. If they are other than that, then they are shown as . . . strange, even dangerous, such as Pat Conroy in this story. It is this that makes her such an appropriate foil for Joe Chip, as he stumbles through his attempts to keep the group together after a major fiasco occurs when the Glen Runciter - the owner of the company - takes a group of his most highly skilled workers to the Lunar colony for a job and is there attacked.
The rest of the story shakes down while the surviving characters notice a strange combination of entropy and growth - recession and coming into being. The world seems to be regressing to an older era, but at the same time, they keep getting messages from "beyond" instructing them on what to do. Then the question arises - who is really dead? Who is really alive? What is reality? Who is creating it?
Not for a light evening's read, that's for sure! But well worth the slodge if you have the time. Most intriguing and something to keep the ol' cerebellum stretched. Give it a try.

"A Scanner Darkly" was the most difficult of the stories for me, personally - I'm not quite certain why, but it just didn't hold my interest as much as the others in the omnibus. Telling the story (on the surface) of the deterioration of the undercover narcotics officer "Fred," living as Bob Arctor - due to substance abuse - into paranoia and split personalities when he is told to begin investigating himself intensely (undercover agents wear a "blur" suit and none of them know each other, nor are they aware of whom is who in the field). Additionally, the federal government is seeking the source of Substance D, a deadly and highly addictive drug that invariably leads to burn-out in the case of users. Darkly comical in the earlier parts of the story - and in general any time when Arctor and his friends and roommates are sitting around and shooting the breeze - it is also in its way terribly depressing.

Overall, however, I give a big thumbs up to this omnibus. If you're a fan of Philip K. Dick, obviously you don't want to miss it. If you enjoy fiction that challenges your perceptions of reality, you definitely don't want to miss it!

The best PKD novel collection.......2005-06-17

Counterfeit Unrealities, a hardcover omnibus published by the Science Fiction Book Club, contains four of Dick's best novels:

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Ubik
A Scanner Darkly

While it lacks an introduction, notes, or any other exclusive content, the convenience of a single volume makes this recommended for any reader looking for all four novels.

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Ubik

Manufacturer: Dell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000CZ41PS

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Leni Hoffmann, Ubik
Konrad Bitterli , and Hans-Ulrich Obrist
Manufacturer: Art Books Intl Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3893223371

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UBIK
Philip K. DICK
Manufacturer: Dell 9200
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000OP7V9Y

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UBIK
Philip K. Dick
Manufacturer: Doubleday & Company Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NX22L4

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Ubik
Philip K. Dick
Manufacturer: Doubleday & Company, Inc. c.1969
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N29CKY

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Ubik
Philip K. Dick
Manufacturer: Puzzle Editorial de Libros
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 8496525317

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Ubik

Manufacturer: Panther
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000DILGTS

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