I grew up in the USSR and then Russia, so I was exposed to Stanislaw Lem's books and I loved them.
Much later, I tried reading Ubik and I just couldn't get into it. What's the point of the story? It feels like it's written under the influence of heavy drugs. Yeah, it's absurdist but somehow far less fun than the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Another thing that really grated on my nerves, is that women are barely more than cardboard cutouts in his stories.
He wrote Transmigration of Timothy Archer because Ursula LeGuin took him to task about this
If you have any links or book recommendations to share on that history, I for one would love to know them.
I find the history of the interactions of SF authors strangely compelling -- e.g. the book "Hell's Cartographers" is a personal favourite, and it's just a set of autobiographical essays from NY 40s-70s SF authors talking about their time in the scene.
https://blog.loa.org/2010/12/what-philip-k-dick-learned-abou...
>women are barely more than cardboard cutouts in his stories
Same as Lem. Reading Return from the Stars was physically panful.
> It feels like it's written under the influence of heavy drugs.
That is broadly true with respect to PKD. Wait until you see VALIS...