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A review by bleary
Hystopia by David Means
3.0
Hmmm.
It's an intricate, carefully-written novel, with a lot going on in the subtext and a quite experimental structure. It's disorienting and clearly designed to be disorienting. The ambition is to be admired.
But I just didn't enjoy it. It echoes too closely some other, better works, especially [b:The Man in the High Castle|216363|The Man in the High Castle|Philip K. Dick|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1448756803s/216363.jpg|2398287]. Not only does it have the alternative reality thing going on, but there's that same hallucinatory, uncanny feel to that reality. It also reminded me a lot of Cronenberg's movie eXistenZ, where the main characters were often baffled by their own actions and unsure whether they were in reality or a dream.
Cronenberg could do a really great adaptation of this book. I can see it becoming a terrific movie some day. It's not a terrific book. It's a book with quite lofty ambitions, but I'm not sure it realises how muddled and derivative it is in places.
It's an intricate, carefully-written novel, with a lot going on in the subtext and a quite experimental structure. It's disorienting and clearly designed to be disorienting. The ambition is to be admired.
But I just didn't enjoy it. It echoes too closely some other, better works, especially [b:The Man in the High Castle|216363|The Man in the High Castle|Philip K. Dick|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1448756803s/216363.jpg|2398287]. Not only does it have the alternative reality thing going on, but there's that same hallucinatory, uncanny feel to that reality. It also reminded me a lot of Cronenberg's movie eXistenZ, where the main characters were often baffled by their own actions and unsure whether they were in reality or a dream.
Cronenberg could do a really great adaptation of this book. I can see it becoming a terrific movie some day. It's not a terrific book. It's a book with quite lofty ambitions, but I'm not sure it realises how muddled and derivative it is in places.