"The Black Iron Prison is a concept of an all-pervasive system of social control postulated in the Tractates Cryptica Scriptura, a summary of an unpublished Gnostic exegesis included in VALIS. “ Once, in a cheap science fiction novel, Fat had come across a perfect description of the Black Iron Prison, but set in the far future. So if you superimposed the past (ancient Rome) over the present (California in the twentieth century) and superimposed the far future world of The Android Cried Me a River over that, you got the Empire, as the supra- or trans-temporal constant. Everyone who had ever lived was literally surrounded by the iron walls of the prison; they were all inside it and none of them knew it. ”" - Graham Sergeant

"In the TV series Lost, the beginning scene in the season 4 episode entitled "Eggtown" depicts John Locke delivering this book to Benjamin Linus while he is being held prisoner by the survivors in the barracks. Benjamin tells Locke that he has already read the book, to which Locke replies, "... read it again, you might catch something you missed the first time around." Two episodes later the prisoner is seen reading the book and there is a brief close-up where the cover of the book fills the screen." - Graham Sergeant

hard to choose but I think ubik might be my favourite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - James Tindall

I consider myself a fan but tbh I find him hard going and problematic... his ideas trouble me for a long time afterwards. The slow entropy as the world falls apart at the end of Ubik was horrible like one of those dreams where you're walking through treacle, but the imagery will stay with me forever. - Graham Sergeant