Ubik, God of Artifacts
Sculpture, Graffiti, Tattoos: Philip K. Dick’s Spray Can in the Physical World
- Things I Can Safely Say About Ubik
After so long, there are a few things I feel I can safely say about Ubik. I don’t mean that Ubik makes me feel unsafe, only that Ubik has shown a tendency to flow beyond its seeming boundaries— and, therefore, that general statements about Ubik are difficult to make with confidence.
Let’s begin at the beginning: Ubik is a spray product with the power to reverse entropy. This is a big deal. Ubik doesn’t reverse entropy everywhere all at once (how absurd it is that I’m already needing to make this specification!); its action is limited and local. Yet its power is still quite awesome. You merely have to spray some Ubik over an object, or a person, in which entropic decay has set in. The decline is reversed. The object migrates backward, against the tide of time’s degradation, and is replenished.
Ubik’s name is short for “ubiquity”. Ubik might be described as “God in a spray can”.
Ubik was introduced into our universe by the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, in his 1968 novel Ubik.
