scrooge3 's review for:

Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick

5.0

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This is quintessential Philip K. Dick. The nature of reality is explored in a wonderfully paranoid way, as the protagonist begins to doubt his sanity. Or are his memories being manipulated by his mysterious neighbor? The book starts innocently enough, in a quiet suburb where people have ordinary lives. Gradually, things get weirder and weirder. The reader has more of a sense of what's really going on, as the point of view occasionally shifts to other characters, but it's all encoded in terse, cryptic descriptions and dialog. The ending comes fast and furious, with explanations and motivations that make sense, but with less grounding than there could have been. It's as if Dick reached his word count limit and just decided to wrap up everything. Nevertheless, this is a book that will keep readers off balance and thinking about how their lives can be manipulated by external forces, an idea that is more relevant today than ever.