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Clans of the Alphane Moon

Clans of the Alphane Moon

List Price: $13.00
Your Price: $10.40
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Neuroses, humor, and hope
Review: This is one of Dick's funniest novels, in spite of the fact that the plot centers on a lethal marital relationship-Chuck and Mary Rittersdorf are actually trying to kill each other. He is depressed and resigned in the midst of their breakup; she is bitchy and vindictive, planning to take him for all he is worth and more. Their showdown culminates out on the distant moon Alpha III M2, a former hospital world inhabited entirely by the clinically insane. The former patients have adapted well to having been left alone by psychiatrists, living in relative peace with each other by grouping into different "clans" according to their psychosis. Their social functions are defined by their type of abnormality. For example, the Pares (paranoids) live in Adolfville and constitute the statesman class. But there is nothing inherently crazier about their society than the one we find on Earth. It should be noted that the sanest and most empathetic character in the book is Lord Running Clam, a telepathic Ganymedean slime mold, who saves Chuck from suicide and lines him up with a more compatible woman. This is classic PKD with all his usual neuroses but also a good dose of humor and hope.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Classic Philip K. Dick
Review: This is really a silly book, but I love it anyway. Not for any greatness of writing, but for its inspired silliness in plot. Imagine a world (the alphane moon) where once there existed a hospital for the insane. Imagine that the moon was abandoned by all but the inmates, who manage to create their own society. I love it!! Many times in my life, I have wondered which clan I was currently a member of!! The wife of the protagonist is typical Philip K. Dick domineering, evil wife. One wonders about his personal relationships. At any rate, this is worth a quick read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Classic Philip K. Dick
Review: This is really a silly book, but I love it anyway. Not for any greatness of writing, but for its inspired silliness in plot. Imagine a world (the alphane moon) where once there existed a hospital for the insane. Imagine that the moon was abandoned by all but the inmates, who manage to create their own society. I love it!! Many times in my life, I have wondered which clan I was currently a member of!! The wife of the protagonist is typical Philip K. Dick domineering, evil wife. One wonders about his personal relationships. At any rate, this is worth a quick read.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: a terrifying voyage into madness
Review: When I started reading this book,it wasn't so clear where Dick wanted to arrive.But going on,I discovered to be in a road with no exit,and I started to explore the dark corridors of human mind.More a book on human behaviour than a science-fiction novel.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: SF NOVELS OPUS TWELVE
Review: Years before computers could create virtual realities by dozens, Philip K. Dick, by the sole power of his words, was describing books after books virtual mental universes that were a lot more frightful than those our beloved techno-directors try vainly to shape nowadays. Among the four novels he published in 1964, MARTIAN TIME-SLIP and CLANS OF THE ALPHANE MOON were treating this Dickian theme by essence.

After an interstellar war that ended 15 years ago, the world has forgotten this alphane moon and its inhabitants. Alpha III was considered as a giant hospital for mentally ill people by the Earth; now maniaco-depressives, schizophrenics and obsessive have founded cities and try to leave peacefully. But Alphans and Earth want to retake possession of this forgotten moon for obscure political reasons.

If you liked EYE IN THE SKY, a novel published 7 years before by PKD, you will appreciate CLANS OF THE ALPHANE MOON and its numerous points of views. The same events are described and analyzed by the different characters and one is lead to understand very soon that there is no objectiveness in Reality and that the actions of so-called sane people often obey to rather perverse motivations. Anyway, if you're a Philip K. Dick fan, you already know by now that there is no such thing as Reality !

A book to discover if you are lucky enough to find it.


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