I had never actually read a book by Philip K, Dick before, despite having seen what must be around twenty movies based on his works. I forget how this particular one — it’s not one of his more famous books — ended up on my reading list, but there it was, and I was in the mood for a shortish science fiction novel.
It was pretty good. There’s a common problem with a lot of speculative fiction, which is that it’s a lot easier to come up with an interesting premise than an interesting plot. So it is here; the premise is pretty cool, and the first half of the book as we slowly uncover it is interesting. Then it turns into a more generic adventure story, and that’s where my interest started to wane.
My attempt to keep these posts spoiler-free is a problem with books like these, since the whole point of the book is discovering the premise, so I feel like I can’t discuss it at all. So I don’t know how much more there is to say. The premise was cool (although totally implausible), the writing was fine, and the characterization was as good as it had to be. Apparently this is pretty early Dick, before he really hit his stride, and I will try to check out something from his classic period.
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