MarzAat

And the PKD still continues.

Raw Feed (1990): Clans of the Alphane Moon, Philip K. Dick, 1964.

This was an enjoyable Dick read.

It’s bizarre story of a vicious marriage was enjoyable, skewed, and, at times, horrific. This broken relationship, desperate writer, scheming plot (perhaps too much), insane character novel is typical Dick.

True, Dick doesn’t do enough with the very interesting idea of a moon of insane people, intrigues too much with Bunny Hentmann and the CIA in the middle part of the novel, but the slime mold, the obsessive ideas of murder and sadism, and a working society of madmen make a delightful read.

“We Can Remember You For Wholesale:  An Afterword to Dick’s Clans of the Alphane Moon“, Barry N. Malzberg — This is the first Malzberg criticism I’ve read. Though he was Dick’s friend (so I gather), I disagree with some, but not all, of his contentions.

I disagree with Malzberg’s statement that the novel makes no sense. Nor do I agree that Dick’s stories aren’t serious explorations of painful, disturbing emotions and relationships or that his novels are somehow intended to “self-destruct”. Dick was never a terribly popular writer with the majority of sf readers. Dick did not emotionally cater to his readers.

However, I do agree that Dick leaves the logical implications of many of his ideas (particularly the proselytizing CIA simulacra) unexplored and that the core of this story is the relationship of the Rittersdorfs in all its perverse and morbid manifestations.

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