摘要：This article develops an insight briefly offered by the American novelist Jonathan Lethem, into an affinity between Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman and the science fiction of Philip K. Dick, especially his novel Ubik. The article reads across the work of O’Brien and Dick in relation to the themes of sublime or divine substances; artificial life and cyborgs; and persecution and paranoia, a comparison that suggests a common root in the work of Franz Kafka. The article finally proposes that this comparative reading demonstrates the parallels that can be discerned between works in different genres, and the need for a flexible concept of science fiction in its relations with other kinds of the fantastic.
