Ubik

Joe Chip works as a technician for Glen Runciter, testing possible anti-psis’ abilities. He is a disheveled man who never has any money, as he tends to spend it all on pharmaceutical machines. After meeting Pat, he is thrust into the mission on Luna. After the explosion, he assumes his role as the new director of Runciter Associates. Though many of the characters earlier in the novel doubted Joe Chip’s ability to lead, he proves himself to be a trustworthy and valuable leader for the group of inertials. By the end of the novel, he realizes that he is in half-life battling with Jory. Given Joe’s propensity for drug use, some scholars believe that the book may be one elaborate hallucination, broken only momentarily by the use of the anti-hallucinogen Ubik.

Recruited first by G. G. Ashwood, Pat is a telepath who arrives at Joe Chip’s apartment for testing. Her ability is unlike anything Runciter’s people have ever seen. She can cause matter—and people—to revert to an earlier state of being. She is a beautiful, young, brash woman who has an affair with Joe. She is present on the mission to Luna and for the events afterward. It is revealed that she is an agent for Hollis’ group of telepaths. She believes her powers are killing the inertials and she winds being killed by Jory. 

Jory is the main antagonist of the novel. He is a young, scrawny man, stored at the moratorium in half-life along with Ella Runciter. Unlike Ella, however, Jory is very powerful and possesses the ability to take over other half-lifers’ frequencies and manipulate their perceptions. He endeavors to consume the remaining consciousness of any half-lifers stored near him. At the end of the novel, readers learn that Jory is responsible for the death and decay of Runciter’s inertials while in half-life. His parents pay a lot of money to ensure that this continues. The only thing that can prevent Jory from doing this is the spray known as Ubik. He is viewed as a Satan figure and the opposite of Ubik’s representation of God.