Book Diary 2021

25.1.

This book makes little to no sense, but it is so utterly fascinating in its madness I love it. It's all about psychedelic drugs, alternate realities and whatever quasi-religious stuff Dick happened to have in mind. God bless that man's weird imagination.

15.1.

I don't care if this is some sort of classic or postmodern or whatever. I found it to be extremely pretentious, or as we say in Finland, "tekotaiteellinen".

15.1.

This novel is about the dictator of Dominican Republic, his assassination and the aftermath - doomed revolution and the brutal execution of the rebels. Damn this is so good.

14.1.

It seems short stories aren't my cup of tea, even if they're written by Ernest Hemingway. Aside from maybe three or four stories most of them felt like leftovers with no real deeper meaning or even ending. They kinda just began and then

13.1.

This is something of a great Japanese classic, but as a foreign reader I felt like I missed a lot of more culture sensitive stuff only Japanese readers could possibly get. This is why the story of WWII-era rich women just didn't light my fire,.

13.1.

Much better than some of the previous works of Dick. This time the story is about a planet of lunatics, a moon ruled by clans of madmen banished from Earth. The central character is a dude who's wife walks away and loses his mind. If the story was more about the clans than this dude, I would have loved this novel, but I guess Phil K had some personal issues with his wife by this time so he wanted to let off some steam with this one.

11.1.

What the heck was that? I'd call this the worst thing Dick ever wrote, but in all honestly it's not his fault this novel sucks ass. Originally this was only a decent short story, but after the author died somebody found his original shelved ending, so the short story was published as a novel with added in filler to tie in all the scraps of whatever Dick had left behind. Trust me, there is a reason nobody knows this mess.

11.1.

This book might just be the lowest point of Phil K's career. It seems he put here every little scifi idea he got from funny sounding gadgets to dystopian visions, but the plot is nothing but a HOT MESS.

Sadly, this is the only Phil K's work left in my local library since they purged their collections from all the good stuff. I mean they literally had everything from rare cult classics you can't find anywhere to actual mucho grande classics, but some idiot decided to throw them all out. Now it's all Nora Roberts and Harlequins.

10.1.

This novel was clearly written to cash in the success of Man in High Castle, since it's mostly the same, but the story is set on future Mars colony where time travel and stuff happens. Great ideas, but the narrative is weak. Dick must have had some bad time with his mental health and drug addiction around this time, since these stories feel very rushed and safe money-wise.

9.1.

Mankind makes first contact with an alien civilization, the nations of the world unite under the new rule of wiser race from outer space, peace and prosperity reigns and everything seems to be just fine... until the truth about the aliens finally comes out.

It's fine novel, but I wish it wasn't so dry and devoid of wild imagination of less scientific writers like Philip K.

9.1.

An autobiographical depiction of a life in the trenches of WWI Western front. Not that deep or anything, but very fascinating when it's not just your typical pacifist narrative, but more cynical real life stuff.

8.1.

A novel depicting an alternate reality where WWII winners Japan and Germany have split USA and people live under totalitarian regime.

No wonder this is Philip K's most popular novel, since it's so mainstream and lacks the insane creativity of his better works. In fact, there's very little actual plot to speak of, since it's mostly just depiction of everyday life under Nazi rule.

8.1.

I guess this is another one of those must-own classics, but I didn't like it that much. Other than the milieu (French Vietnam) there isn't that much particularly intriguing stuff here.

6.1.

Elegantly short novel including Japanese marital problems and heavy use of symbolism.

5.1.

The single best novel I have read from Steinbeck so far. The instant I began reading I knew I would like this.

5.1.

Very typical Philip K. novel with lots of surreal elements, skipping between alternate realities and paranoia. It's a bit better than Jones, but still far from his best works.

4.1.

And so begins my epic Philip K. Dick marathon of 2021. This was the man's debut novel and it really shows. There are quite many great ideas that don't really go anywhere, like a man who can see exactly 1 year ahead into the future and a totalitarian state of relativity, but anything resembling a story falls apart withing the first half. With more mature storytelling this could have been an awesome scifi epic.

4.1.

Absolute snorefest. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has a very bad habit of focusing more on huge themes instead of telling intriguing stories with deep or interesting characters, and that's basically what kills this novel in the first place. Add in 700+ pages and milieu that doesn't say anything to the modern audience, and you have a very boring read. The ironic humor is the only saving grace I can think of here.