Lies, Inc. Audiobook

" The narrative sort of breaks down in the middle. "

" I hate to say I really didn't like this book, but it's the honest truth. The book was written in two pieces, with the second piece being shoved into the middle two-thirds of the original and providing half the text of the book as a whole. The later addition is incredibly hard to follow, if only because it's boring to read and I found myself reading a whole paragraph just to get through it and not internalizing any of it. But also, it starts discussing things in Dick's sort of made-up drug terminology - paraworlds and the like, in a way that is never clearly defined and fairly unintelligible. The timeline is also such that it's very hard to tell what is happening in what order and what if anything is real or not for several of the characters. What is interesting, is that although there is a reference to someone being dosed with LSD, for the most part, what may or may not be hallucinations are not necessarily linked to drugs. Except with his other novel dealing with hallucinations and confusion, A Scanner Darkly, you understand why the characters are experiencing weird visions and occurrences, even if you don't understand the particulars of the visions. Here, there is no understanding of why the visions exist or why they are what they are - or who is behind it and why exactly. The existence of a garrison state meant to create supersoldiers, which seems to be the actual reality on Whale's Mouth (but I don't know, is it?) has nothing to do with this small group of people living in an enclosed space experiencing different realities...who are these few, why are they there, why should we care? It's all so irrelevant to the emotional plot of the book I just couldn't wait for it to end and for the "real" story to continue. The original story, taken without the addition is written in a much clearer style and is easier to take in and much more enjoyable to read. You actually care about the characters here. Except, that things are still shifted in timeline and it's unclear to me exactly what happened in what order - what were the causal relationships between the scenes...I wish I understood. "

" PKD should have left well enough alone and not attempted to expand the "Unteleported Man", a fine novella, into a full-scale novel. But of course, Dick was pretty much stark raving mad by the time he finished this project. The expanded book is worthwhile if one is willing to gloss over chapters 8-15, which is one half of the end product. I'm not sure there is a lot to be gained by poring over the middle 100 pages of outright psychotic thought. "

" The version I read has the original story (title The Unteleported Man), along with 100 pages inserted that PKD wrote after he went insane. Very disconcerting seeing the two combined that way, made me wonder what it must've been like for people who knew PKD throughout his life. "

" good, but I definitely prefer the original novella this was based on, Unteleported Man "

" Disappointing. The afterword, which I wish had been the foreword, explained that this was Dick's expansion of an earlier novel, The Unteleported Man. The original novel, a mere 100 pages, was the part I liked. The added-on section (another 100 pages), which Dick inserted into the middle of the book, started exactly where I started to lose interest in the book. His obsession with LSD, hallucinations, and subjective experience--usually interesting in books like A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, UBIK, etc.--didn't work here. I can see why the original publisher of The Unteleported Man wasn't interested in republishing it with Dick's added material. He was creative, and prolific, but he did write a few duds. Lies, Inc., as an expansion, is one of those duds. "

" Police state. Narcotics. Entire chapters that make no sense. This could have been fairly interesting, but it came from related two books, was cobbled together, and no one bothered to add all the missing cobbles. Read electtric sheep or a scanner darkly instead. "

" This is one of Dick's trippier novels, particularly about halfway through when an LSD dart comes into play. Wild ride if you're willing to take the trip. "

" The best part of this book is the very well done and vivid LSD scene, very well done. "

" This book started out awesome and then it just lost me. I really thought it was going to be better. "

" got lost and eventually bored "

" really twisted. definitely hard reading for me, but definitely a Phil Dick novel. the LSD section is especially mind-bending (nyuk, nyuk). "

" Chilly sci-fi. Really ambigous literature; reminiscent of Heart of Darkness, but much more disorienting. Is the protaganist psychotic? Great read. "

" I would like to have met Philip K. Dick, just to get a feel for how fucking insane he really was. And maybe to have tripped with him. "

" I would have enjoyed this book more if I could have used the middle section to kindle a fire by which to warm my lost and confused self upon reading it. "

" This book was written in two parts and it reads like it. "

" Another strange book by Philip K. Dick. I liked it, but got confused in parts. "

" This book is a trip. "

" Interesting enough for a 'listening in the car' book, but not as good as some of his other ones. "

" The disjointed method of writing shows. There is more unnecessary confusion than the standard PDK novel, and that is saying something.Of course, there are some very interesting ideas. If you are a PDK fan, read it, but then again, you would anyway. Hold on to your eyes. "

" Confusing and just not very good. "

" The writing was decent enough. It was too confused on what it was trying to achieve. The plot was confusing and more than once I had no idea what was going on. "

" I can't believe I'm going to say this about one of my favorite sci-fi authors: This is one of the most BORING novels he has ever written. Avoid at all costs. "

" Middling PKD, can't really blame him though because he died before he could successfully link the middle half of the book with the beginning and the end. Lots of loose ends -- the whole rat/Abba, time travel, and identity-switching things remained unresolved/unexplored. "

" really twisted. definitely hard reading for me, but definitely a Phil Dick novel. the LSD section is especially mind-bending (nyuk, nyuk). "

" Police state. Narcotics. Entire chapters that make no sense. This could have been fairly interesting, but it came from related two books, was cobbled together, and no one bothered to add all the missing cobbles. Read electtric sheep or a scanner darkly instead. "

" Chilly sci-fi. Really ambigous literature; reminiscent of Heart of Darkness, but much more disorienting. Is the protaganist psychotic? Great read. "

" I'm not sure I know exactly what happened in this book. Reading it is like taking a Timothy Leary-sized dose of psychedelics. A total mind-melter! "

" God awful. What a waste of time. "

" This book, published posthumously and made up of material from three different attempts to write this novel (as I understand it), it totally amazing. "