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Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

List Price: $12.00
Your Price: $9.00
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Extraordinary, Dick at his best!
Review: This is Dick at his best. The hallucinatory worlds ,the reality that may or may not be true, drugs, schizophrenia, what is normal - all these are dealt with in true Dick humor. Again he shows what happens when a person's reality as a construct is "owned" by others who have power, and therefore label that person as sick and in need of fixing. One of his more well writen and accesible works.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I'll be buying more Phillip Dick novels...
Review: This is my first Phillip K. Dick novel, and in my opinion "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" deserves high praise. For starters, it wins the fight against one of the most difficult opponents that a sci-fi novel could face: Cliché. Simply put, this story is based on an overused plot-the man who loses his identity and struggles to regain a sense of self. Cliche is a tough monster to beat, and most sci-fi novels are devoured by it boots and all. Going into this novel (which I read on a recommendation from a friend) I had low expectations, because I for one am sick to death of this particular premise. However, Phillip Dick somehow managed to actually win the battle against this tired fiction formula, and won me over in the process. He actually found, somehow, a unique way of telling the story. A very unique way.

It deserves kudos for this alone. Not the snack, but the regard and esteem.

Apart from being pleasantly surprised at Dick's ability to pull this story off, there is a lot more that deserves commendation, too... there's a like-him-hate-him anti hero, a wonderfully fleshed-out policeman (two, actually), and a manically bizarre "mini-heroine" that pops up to simultaneously help, hurt and hinder the protagonist, Jason Taverner.

Another aspect of the book that I enjoyed was Dick's writing style. The story is written upon a fine line between poetry and prose that often lulled me into a false sense of security. He managed on several occasions to make me say "wow" due to some particularly inspiring turn of phrase, or through some witty and poignant philosophical observation... in fact, some of his descriptions, in their poetic simplicity, created such vivid images in my mind that I am inclined to compare them to Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451, which contains one of my favorite pieces of descriptive text of all time.

All-in-all, "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" is an easy read with very realistic characters, a healthy dose of political and philosophical impact (which is what sci-fi is all about after all), a delightful plot-twist at the ending (I loved the ending), and an overall quality and completeness that many novels lack. The ending (did I mention that I loved the ending) was ripe with potentialities as well, an amalgam of hidden possibilities and quantum probabilities. Basically, the premise of the book (that a man is sucked into some alternate reality where he does not exist) is caused by something that does not fully cease to occur until somewhere in the epilogue (That will make more sense after you read the book. Pay attention at the end, and wonder just what is real and what isn't. It's fun).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Alternitive worlds
Review: This is perhaps the most acesable example of Dick's obsesion with exploring the nature of reality and as such may well be a good place to begin a lifetime of reading obscure Science fiction.

In this novel Dick explores meny of the themes that haunt his fiction (the nature of reality, identity, mental ilness and the death of the counter culture) in a form wich alows the reader in rather than excluding them as with other works such as 'The Three stigmata...'

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very engrossing and imaginative story
Review: This is the first novel I read of Dick's, and I must say I enjoyed it very much. I was very engrossed in it all the way to the end. I did, however, have mixed feelings about the way the novel ended -it felt like Dick resolved the plot a little too quickly, but the ending was good nonetheless. I would recommend this book to any sci-fi fan.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: That last Part
Review: This was an awsome book. In the usual Philip K Dick manner he explores the question of what is real. But i would highly recomend tearing out the fourth part, the Epiloge, and burning it. It may nearly wreck the book for you. It seems as if Dick wanted could not stand the world his book created and had to unmake it. If you can not stand to tear it out at least wait a few days between reading the rest of the book and the last part.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Read III
Review: This was my first PK Dick book, and i read it mostly because of the mention in waking life and the ruvry title. I think the last sentence in blue on the back cover (something about the "deepest bedrock of the soul) captures the vibe of this book... please do ignore all the b.s. about "neo fascist state" and "informants" and all the other "dystopia" fluff that gets shamelessly flung at Dick, at least when considering to read this book... which, deserves, at least, a description containing soulful and elegiac.

The ending is the only reason i knocked off a star, which, after all that had come before, was a bit disappointing. Not that it was particularly "bad", but afterwards i found my self wishing for something absurd/surreal and entropic... instead, it went' from orgasm to post ejaculatory depression, to cleaning off your bits...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Read III
Review: This was my first PK Dick book, and i read it mostly because of the mention in waking life and the ruvry title. I think the last sentence in blue on the back cover (something about the "deepest bedrock of the soul) captures the vibe of this book... please do ignore all the b.s. about "neo fascist state" and "informants" and all the other "dystopia" fluff that gets shamelessly flung at Dick, at least when considering to read this book... which, deserves, at least, a description containing soulful and elegiac.

The ending is the only reason i knocked off a star, which, after all that had come before, was a bit disappointing. Not that it was particularly "bad", but afterwards i found my self wishing for something absurd/surreal and entropic... instead, it went' from orgasm to post ejaculatory depression, to cleaning off your bits...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My first PKD novel - certainly not the last
Review: This was my first PKD novel and I was truly astounded. I have always had a bad and narrow-minded view on sci-fi because of the impression that Star Trek and Star Wars gave me.
This is different.
I have never read a novel so technical or gripping, descriptive or true. I related with Jason Taverner and felt disappointed for him in his false existence. One of the very few novels I read in a day and a fantastic introduction to a brilliant author. Personally, I think this is PKD's crowning achievement. This is most probably because this is the first of his novels I read. I continue to read PKD novels and have changed my view on sc-fi altogether. If you buy this, enjoy. If you enjoy it, read A Scanner Darkly.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "Science-fiction with a broken heart, &amp; a tear in its eye."
Review: Written straight from Philip K. Dick's broken and wandering heart, this is one of the genre's best, and saddest, books. Instead of clanking heavy-metal robotics, quantum theory, or brave new worlds, Dick offers up our future peopled by fragile humans, all looking for love. It is impossible to read this book, and not feel Phil's heart breaking as he wrote every beautiful word


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