Lol...nice title there Satis...


mm, i'm with you on what you said about the ending..it's interesting to know that this more or less "open end" is different in his re-working of the Valis idea later on, when he's older. As you might expect even a rather depressing one. (not gonna say much more out of possible eventual spoilerness) And the shizophrenia hehe, yeah...that specific aspect of Dick doesn't come through in most of his other work tho, it's mostly paranoïa and delusions there.

Did you mean by the time issue the "the empire never ended, we still live in 70 AD" thing? if so, i personally think he was being metaphoric there..drawing parallels between ancient Rome and the US/USSR. the same huge repressive empires and such. Blah. Could be that he goes deeper in on it in some other way; but i haven't read it in a while and am too lazy too browse it hehe

In any case, glad you liked it. At least i don't have to think i "lured" you into purchasing a book you didn't like hehe...not that i care, but still.


I know you got enough to read, but this is for miss Shiny then; I'm pretty damn late with this, but still:


Pincher Martin/Lord of the Flies (both William Goulding), Animal Farm (Orwell), Look Homeward, Angel (Thomas Wolfe, kinda a sissie book, but got a soft spot for it ), The Pit and the Pendulum (Poe, a short story), A clockwork orange (Anthony Burgess), The Man in the High Castle /The Gameplayers of Titan/ The Penultimate Truth /A Scanner Darkly (all Philip Dick)


Mm...hope it's enough. I guess that there are a few in there you'll aready have read (Clockwork, Animal farm), but i thought i'd name them anyways. The three PKD novels i named are (imho) his better dystopian ones, apart from A scanner darkly, which isn't really dystopian but a damn good book anyways.

other quick, broad suggestions; other stories by Poe, and Russian novels.


Blaaaaaah. I hope anyone has any use of this list lol.


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Ox, I must say I am very impressed with you. If you should ever wish to visit gun carring Texas, I would welcome you into our home. Think about it over break. I think you are someone who we could have many of deep conversations with. Plus, if you think I am kidding, you would not be the first I have offered and taken me up on the offer.

And while Satis says do not worry about comming up with books, please do for my sake whenever you get the chance. I believe you learn about others through what they like to read. And I must admit I am curious about you.

Oh, and by your list, I actually have read most of the works you mentioned, but I do see one or two I have not read...

Sorry about concurrent posts, but I must admit I did not finish reading them all when I posted my last one... blame it on I am almost through a bottle of yummy wine....

Thanks, you seem to have similar tastes in books as me and Satis.

HUgs.... damn wine make you feel good Washes away a bad day.

Heh, why thank you! prolly a bit too much praise for the ol' Belgian country boy that i am tho.

Great to know that i'll have a place to go if and when i end up in the lone star state, like when i suddenly feel like buying a gun or something.

Tnx again for the kind words, and if it's worth anything, i feel the same way about you two.

P.S. damn, being kind is hard man, took me a while to write that off to bed now, nite.

EDIT: haha, cool! (about book things) and drink one for me while i crawl in my bed lol, nite!

*****************spoiler warning****************
***************Shiny, don't read this!**********











anyway...no, the empire never ending wasn't the time thing I'm talking about. More on that in a second.

Naw, the time problems I'm talking about is that, basically, Valis says that time is a contruct... that these super being things created time (and space, and the universe) as a kind of maze to keep themselves occupied. Thing is, if time doesn't exist, that kinda screws up the 'outside' of the iron prison. I mean, you have to have time, otherwise how could the beings get bored? And then they had to have time to build the prison, and time to put themselves into it. Living without time is basically impossible as we know it, because time forms the basis for everything. Without time and causality what would there be? Though I don't deny it's possible (it may well be), anything living outside of time would be completely alien to us. We couldn't even begin to understand how something like that could possibly exist or think or live. That's not really addressed in the book, of course.

As far as the 'empire never ended' thing, I'm not too sure what they were trying to say with that. It may have been that the empire represents ignorance to the true state of the universe (that it's all fake and only a prison). By the Roman empire hunting down and killing Christians for awhile, it became an empire that enforced the ignorance and didn't allow the truth to be told.

There's some other stuff that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. Like what slept for 2000 years? Valis? And by reading a book in an ancient library Valis was reawakened? For Valis to exist, it would have to exist both outside the prison and inside...so, if a portion of it is outside, where time doesn't exist, how could the portion inside sleep? To the outside portion, there is no time, so everything inside just happens in no order and with no time... so 2000 years means nothing at all. By the book, it seems to say that Valis is kind of a virus which infects people via 'knowledge' (reading a book or other ways) and only then can it influence the world. meh...anyway...I see some major issues with the premise. However, it's still a good book, and if nothing else it kinda stimulates the brain cells.

In what category would those PKD novels be in? I just went to the local library, noticed some Pratchett and Weis & Hickman books, but haven`t really seen PKD. Maybe i was looking wrong, hadn`t been there for years and computers were all busy.

So for now i took the 4 first books of Weis & Hickman their "Death Gate Cycle" with me, think i`ll be busy for some time now (well at least a few days )

About the pratchett books: i noticed there were a lot of discworld books, is it best to read them in order (first book, then second, then ...) or can you just read them randomly??

Oh and english literature choice was quite limited, so i think i`ll have to read everything in dutch.

Ok, why can't someone tell me what the deal is with Satsi and Shiny?!

Btw, "Clockwork Orange" is really, really weird. At least it is if it's the one I'm thinking of.... is that the one where he uses russian every now and again in it? Maybe it's another book....


And yes, John Marsden owns, he's pretty much the only author I've read who writes in first person.

How do you think we know .. we read it here on the forum, somewhere, in some topic. Now you go search for it

Satsi .. was that a typo or on purpose

*prepares to reduce inqui to nothingness*

Over here, PKD rated as science fiction. At least, that's the section he was in every store we went to.

Yea Inqui, find out for yourself. I'm not saying squat.

He doesn't really use Russian, but adaptions and derivations of Russian words (and gypsy too but blah). They form part of the vocabulary for the youth-lingo in the future. So you got the right book in mind i think.


J; Dick is listed as SF yeah. I wouldn't read him in Dutch tho, takes away alot of the value imo. And PKD usually doesn't use too hard a words. The problem is finding an english copy in Flanders libraries then tho; you might have to have them transferred over from another library (like i had to before i just bought the damn things lol). (but it's free) You don't need to read discworld books in chronological order, but if you can it'd be best to. I read it in chronological order so far and it reads very smoothly...now let's hear from someone who hasn't.



SPOILER VALIS




Good point on the time things Satis...especially on the difference in time inside and outside the prison. I don't know how much PKD you've read so far, but if you were to read some other works sometime, some of his ideas might become clearer. (but not necessarily true-er and saner obviously ) The second part of the VALIS-trilogy, "the divine invasion", for example. It's not really well written (imo), but it goes in further on the theological/philosphical items. Also, "radio free albemuth", the reworking of "Valis" right before his death, clears up some intentions of his (not in the least the "empire" idea...get ready for Nixon hehe). It's faster-paced, delightfully paranoid (:) ) and has less dead weight of ideas and speculations on board. And has an interesting end.

Blah.

Damn, I am going to have to finish the book I am reading, because all of the Shiny do not read this shit is getting.... well... I don't like to be told what to do. Drives me nuts... makes me crazy... makes me feel the need to dominate others... or go shoot something...

I can vouch for that.

Ox, I didn't realize Valis was part of a trilogy, perhaps some of my irritation with it will evaporate when I finish it off. What are the second and third book, then? I still haven't started reading any of the other books (except for one poem from Rimbaud) so I'm open to whatever. If nothing is forthcoming, I think I'll read the electric sheep one next.

I hate you all.

Hehehe @ Inqui


Yeah, Valis is the first part of a trilogy...

1)Valis
2)The Divine Invasion
3)The Transmigration of Timothy Archer


I don't know if it will take away your irritations, mebbe it'll just give you more lol. Like i said, i'm not as fond about the latter two books as i am on valis, which doesn't mean i think they're bad books ofcourse. Divine Invasion has a lot of religious/philisophical thoughts, but less incoherent than in Valis. Man->God and God->Man idea again. Transmigration is to an extent remarkeably normal, well, when you put it next to the other two books.


And if you don't feel like reading those, Electric Sheep will be more than good enough a read.


*cancels plane tickets for Texas cos of crazed gun-slinging Shinies, and standardly crazed Satises*

she's not too insane, just mildly unbalanced. I just keep her intoxicated.. calms her down.