A review by derhindemith
Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick

2.0

I have to admit that I was kind of disappointed in this. Yes, it's good, but as far as dick goes, it's not great. It's nice to see a proto-version of pretty much all of the themes he would develop over the course of his career in a fledgling state here, but that's exactly the problem: he hasn't worked with them long enough for those themes to really shine through.
First and foremost, however, the references to the Watts' riots really took me out of it. Yes, I know what the Watts riots were, but probably only because I'm black and grew up in los angeles (some 10 years after the Watts riots happened.) Can you imagine a sci-fi novel that references the rodney king riots? It's an absurd notion. Yes, it references them as being in the past, but it (unfortunately) has not proved an event of significant importance to be relevant to most readers today.
Secondly,

Spoiler

as regards the themes that would be developed throughout his career, there is a reference to the early christian church, when Thomas Peak appears in a vision and says that it's 4 B.C. He never actually explains the significance of this (it becomes apparent after you've read VALIS, but here, it's just mentioned and then dropped). It's tantamount to introducing a character that seems to be important and then doing nothing with them.

And finally, when coming to the climax, he opts for an action-packed ending, leaving all of the questions about the nature of the universal consciousness, the hobart phase, the main character saving everyone up in the air, completely without resolution. Not cool.
As an early Dick novel, it's nice, but I'd rather re-read Ubik.