I found Ubik somewhat intriguing. I’m about 60 pages unto Valis, and so far it’s mostly bad philosophy and theology, thankfully saved by occasional flashes of humor, and the almost-interesting fracturing of the main character into at least two people. Does it get any better?
I don't reccomend Valis for anyone but the most diehard Dick fans. Its an attempt to fictionalize an experience Dick had and spent the rest of his life trying to understand. It has some great moments, but it doesn't hold together terribly well as a story. I much prefer more focused stories like Scanner Darkly, Flow My Tears, or even Divine Invasion.
Supposedly Dick's experience conceived three published novels--Valis, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, and Divine invasion. There is a fourth, unpublished novel--Radio Free Albemuth that came from it as well. Valis seem to be the most personal since it someone named Philip Dick (or Horselover Fat) having the exact same experience then trying to make sense of it. Divine Invasion has more of the feel of a traditional Dick novel with someone forced to live in a hovel on an alien planet. Timothy Archer is borderline non-SciFi, with only a tiny influence of SciFi, IIRC. And Radio Free Albemuth felt a bit like a cross between Scanner Darkly and Valis--i.e. the Valis story in a dystopian future surveilance state.
It's watchable, but my experience is soured by the terrible experience of contributing to the KickStarter and then not being able to get my reward for years due to living in the UK rather than the US (licensing issues).
I consider Ubik to be Dick's best work... so if you found it only "somewhat intriguing", I doubt you'll be any more pleased with anything else he wrote.
That said, if you are interested in reading more by him, of his books I can recommend:
It's funny, I'm a big PKD fan and I didn't care for Ubik. I enjoyed the first half or so of VALIS immensely but my favorite of his is A Scanner Darkly.
I think, in 2022, people will understand Scanner better than they used to or maybe it is on the verge of being outdated?
