Amnesia Moon

Rating:
Summary: This author is a great find
Review: I just finished this book and very much enjoyed it. It was a fast read and I wish it would have kept going. Really interesting ideas though the end was a little fustrating for me, but it was in perfect sync with the rest of the book. I just ordered his other books and can't wait to read them.

Rating:
Summary: A huge disappointment!
Review: I loved Gun With Occasional Music, so I was really looking forward to reading Amnesia Moon. However, it's as if Lethem hired some other far inferior writer to write his second novel for him. Amnesia Moon is as dull and random as Gun was exciting and tightly-plotted. In fact, if I hadn't read Gun first, I wouldn't have even finished Amnesia Moon. Knowing that Lethem was capable of good writing kept me turning the pages, but unfortunately there was no payoff: the book never redeems itself. I will give Lethem another chance - Gun With Occasional Music is an excellent book - but one more dud, and I'll be off him for good.

Rating:
Summary: Exceedingly Weak
Review: I picked this up because I'd really enjoyed Lethem's Gun With Occasional Music, Motherless Brooklyn, and parts of The Wall of the Eye, The Wall of the Sky. Unfortunately, this sci-fi surrealist road-trip never leads anywhere interesting. Chaos, the amnesiac hero, is on a quest to discover the truth of what what happened the world (we are given hints of alien attack, nuclear/biological holocaust, etc.) and his own identity. However, memory, time and truth seem to be totally subjective in this landscape and are somehow dictated and controlled by his dreams. The overwhelming subjectivity results in a surprisingly dull roadtrip, as he struggles to find himself in a world which makes no sense. As with some of Lethem's other work (especially his short stories), there are a some interesting ideas, flashes of genius writing, and the sense that Lethem doesn't know how to finish what he's started. Unless you're really into dreamlike surrealism, skip this one, 'cause Lethem's capable of much better.

Rating:
Summary: boring
Review: I started reading Jonathan Lethem with _As She Climbed Across the Table_ which I thought was funny, sharp, tho small . I've sense read ALL Jonathan Lethem books in hopes to finding an equal or better book. I found nothing but acid trip/opiate dream garbage/drivel. All overly detailed and quite boring, lacking in story. Stupid stuff. The only book of Jonathan Lethems I'd recommend is _As She Climbed Across the Table.

Rating:
Summary: readable, not fulfilling
Review: I would have put this book down early into it if I had known how poorly it concluded. Forgive my need for closure, but I think its almost universally appreciated. The denouement wasn't the only aspect lacking; the writing was sub-par. Granted, the characters were interesting, and some of the ideas were original, but not everything original is worth putting to paper. Lethem lacked flow. This novel was selected for what looked to be promising escapism literature, a world that I could be sucked into to forget my own for a little while. However, it wasn't much of a world, and was difficult to hold onto. Other reviewers have praised the dream-like structure of it, claiming that its lack of flow was in keeping with the characters' fragmented dream-like state. Less than dream-like, it was more like a poor night's sleep. I rarely give poor reviews, but I just want others to be forwarned. If your time is valuable, then spend it looking for a different book.

Rating:
Summary: "On The Road" Through The American Horrorshow
Review: I've often seen Jonathan Lethem's novels described as 'funny' or 'humorous.' While those adjectives could describe Lethem's first novel (Gun, with Occasional Music), it does not fit the bill at all concerning his other novels. This is especially true of Girl in Landscape, but that's for another time.

Amnesia Moon is the story of a man named ... well, it's actually unsure what his name is. Suffice it to say that it is the story of a man. This man lived in unpleasant oblivion in Hatfork, Wyoming, surrounded by mutants. He is woken from his waking slumber by a lackey of the local tyrant, Kellogg. Kellogg reveals to the man that there was a disaster, but it was not what he thinks. This sets the man on a crash course with strange and frightening things that lie beyond the borders of Little America (Kellogg's fortress).

From there, the story takes many frightening turns, and almost none of them are humorous, unless you like sick humour. The societies that Lethem dreams up are mired in almost Burroughsian weirdness, crossed with a Huxleyian bleakness. And while Lethem's words may make you chuckle, as they did to me, the overall picture is quite disturbing.

Which is not to say that the book isn't worthwhile. Indeed, it's one of the best written in a great while. It is a fine example of Lethem's very active imagination, and summons up images of Philip K. Dick, Franz Kafka, and, scarifyingly, William S. Burroughs (one of the most underrated Science Fiction authors). In short, if you're looking for one of the strangest, but most engaging, reading experiences you're likely to have on God's Grey Earth, I highly suggest you pick up Amnesia Moon.

Rating:
Summary: Good Novel if You Know What You are in for...
Review: If you like tight, neat endings and plot driven stories DO NOT read this novel. You will not like it. If you don't mind ambiguity or like subjective messages than read it. This isn't sharp like Gun, w/ Occasional Music. Its murky and doesn't provdide easy answers -- if there are any answers to be found.
One problem is the use of the term 'post-apocalyptic' to describe it. The term is almost misleading as it conjures up visions of Mad Max. While there is some of that in the novel it is sure to disappoint fans of that genre. Instead it reminds me of the novel Logan's Run and Ursula K LaGuin's Lathe of Heaven. It has a very 70's sci-fi feel to it.
My only real problem is that the novel just ends as though Lethem tired of writing it one day and just decided to stop at a convient point.

Rating:
Summary: Good Novel if You Know What You are in for...
Review: If you like tight, neat endings and plot driven stories DO NOT read this novel. You will not like it. If you don't mind ambiguity or like subjective messages than read it. This isn't sharp like Gun, w/ Occasional Music. Its murky and doesn't provdide easy answers -- if there are any answers to be found.
One problem is the use of the term 'post-apocalyptic' to describe it. The term is almost misleading as it conjures up visions of Mad Max. While there is some of that in the novel it is sure to disappoint fans of that genre. Instead it reminds me of the novel Logan's Run and Ursula K LaGuin's Lathe of Heaven. It has a very 70's sci-fi feel to it.
My only real problem is that the novel just ends as though Lethem tired of writing it one day and just decided to stop at a convient point.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite Lethem novel
Review: In each of his novels Jonathan Lethem uses well-worn genres as tent poles on which to drape his highly original stories; in this one it's a collision between the road movie (especially the post-apocalyptic subgenre, viz. Mad Max or A Boy And His Dog) vs. the paranoiac SF of Philip K Dick. And as always, Lethem pulls it off beautifully. I'm a great fan of Dick, so I loved the way Lethem lovingly polishes all the PKD archetypes like lost memories and reality-bending authority figures, but Amnesia Moon rises beyond mere pastiche. To me, it's the most enjoyable of all of Lethem's novels.

Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal Book
Review: In the vein of Philip Dick, Roger Zelazny and even Alice in Wonderland, this book is a splendid work of science fiction that exceeds the genre. An excellent read.