This book probably wasn’t as bad as some other 1/5 star rated ones that I have read, I still found zero enjoyment in it, so I couldn’t rate it any higher (another reasoning for the grade was that it surely didn’t measure up to Olga Tokarczuk’s “Flights”, which I read a couple of weeks ago, whose author won a Nobel Prize, yet the mentioned book was still only 2/5 stars for me). 

The story is extremely simple, the way that events take place is predictable and completely straight-forward, without particular creativity. What’s instantly noticeable though, is how badly it aged and how you can instantly feel that it was written in the 60s (currently reading a book by Yukio Mishima from the 60s as well, for which it’s not the case, so it must be the topic of an imagined future). You’ll find parallels to “Brave New World” or “Fahrenheit 451”, both of these not feeling dated at all. It even gave off a feeling of “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, which I didn’t particularly enjoy either. I felt like the characters were lacking in depth (which is understandable with the story spreading out on only 190 pages), there was no space at all for a bond to form itself together with the reader. The style didn’t speak to me either. It’s kept very simple and could even be compared to the way a movie script would be written. Nevertheless, you do find yourself reading back a couple of paragraphs from time to time because it’s easy to miss who is saying what within the dialogues.

Having picked this book up for a book club, this was my first intro into sci-fi and I’ve got to say, I wasn’t convinced. At all. This will rather make me stay away from any of Philip K. Dick’s other books. So I wouldn’t suggest it to anybody who isn’t fully into sci-fi 😛

★☆☆☆☆ (1/5)