Amnesia Moon

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.

Rating:
Summary: Good ideas, but VERY loose ends...sigh.
Review: It is a shame really. I picked up this book for a single dollar at a discount bookstore, and although I thought that the read was quick, interesting, and sucked you into the lives of the characters, I really would *not* recommend this book to anyone. The book, hardcover, is a stunted 247 pages. What it needed was an ENDING. I was in the last 50 pages wondering, like I usually do, "Okay...here's where it all comes together...where he/she/it/they do such-and-such to cure the ills of the world, or at least to escape." But no such escape is possible, for the ending not only left EVERY character hanging on by some macabre silken string from a tapestry poorly woven, but also never really concluded. It was like Lethem fell asleep, and never bothered to write the last chapter. Well, I fell asleep, too. Sorry, Jonathan, but no more reading your work for me until you wake up.

Rating:
Summary: What did you expect?
Review: It seems like most people out there are reading back from Motherless Brooklyn. IE: Going from a great lush semi-realistic tale to an earlier very lush dreamlike tale. Doesn't seem like people started from the beginning...I loved Amnesia Moon and have read it 3 times over the last few years (Gun I did like more, I reread it about once every year). There is an esence in Lethem's writing that does not escape you from book to book. It's hard to explain. A comfort level between writer style to reader. And his writing style is beyond top notch. These one stars perplex me... I felt the climax in this tale was better than Gun With Occasional Music. Any climax with a talking Banzai tree and grandfather clock that leaves you on the edge of your seat is a book to be reckoned with. If you are looking for a book to hit you over the head with all of the answers to all of it's secrets, then you might be better off looking for Dainelle Steele's or Stephen King's newest.

Rating:
Summary: Lethem's most grotesque, most exciting novel
Review: Jonathan Lethem proves once again his unbelievable prowess for characterization, metaphysical and sociological genius, and metaphorical creativity. But above all of these characteristics Lethem fans have come to expect in his best writing, Amnesia Moon has a terrifyingly powerful drive behind it. Chaos, the protagonist, denies the postapocalyptic society he lives in, inspired by a need to discover truth about the past. The truth is obscured in a hallucination-filled world full of god-like omnipotent leaders and the little universes they control. Each community lies closer to the destination, but each is increasingly difficult to escape. Lethem writes these bureaucratic and fantastic islands of civilization like a changeling born of Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges. While retaining the emotional hypersensitivity and humanity of his other novels, Lethem gives Amnesia Moon a thoroughly active, pounding, and ultragrotesque background for a thought-provoking and impish novel.

Rating:
Summary: disappointment after "Motherless Brooklyn"
Review: Lethem had me in stitches with "Motherless Brooklyn." After reading this, I found I had two more Lethem on the basement bookshelves. Chose to read "Amnesia Moon" next. Quite a disappointment! While I do get into sci-fi, this was a major let- down. The characters were not interesting to me, the situation was not novel, and I found myself drifting off to the other book I was reading (tending to put off this one). I'm going to give him one more chance "As She Climbed Across the Table" hoping that he redeems himself. I want to like him. Maybe then I can buy "Gun with Occasional Music." I am a novice at sci-fi (Neil Gaiman is my hero) so maybe I am not a trustworthy reviewer.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: Lethem's book is an odyssey of discovery in an America gone wierd. Chaos is on a quest for the truth, but truth exists only in the subjective reality he creates. (Or have I said too much already?) This book is engrossing and disturbing.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, inventive, and unforgettable sci-fi
Review: Looking back, Lethem has demonstrated repeatedly his ability to turn genre rules upside down; in this book he does so repeatedly. Little is what it seems, and the denouement is satisfying and rich.

A terrific introduction to his work.

Utterly inventive and a soulful examination of the conflict between the inner and the outer landscapes.

Rating:
Summary: Forgettable
Review: Normally, picking up a Jonathan Lethem book is like coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. Santa has spread out all these wonderful metaphors from his bag of words, glistening and new and ready for play. His twisted similes hang from the tree like candy canes. There is a buzz of childhood excitement in the air. By contrast, "Amnesia Moon" is a stocking full of coal. This book is dull. The post-apocalyptic journey of Everett "Chaos" Moon recalls Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" as if it were a mind-numbing car trip on the I-80 straight across Iowa and Nebraska. There is no sense of adventure, in words or in deeds. Instead, a succession of weird dream-people pop up like billboards out of a drug-induced fog. If they had some sci-fi Significance, it was lost on me. If they were autobiographical, the characters must have been conceived during withdrawal. Lethem should delete this apple from his ouevre before it rots the whole basket. If it had been the first novel I had read by him, there never would have been a second. That would have been very tragic indeed.

Rating:
Summary: WOW Weird book
Review: Super weird, totally cool, loved it muchasly. Go buy it and be happy in the little world of Jonathan Lethem's wacked-out mind.

Rating:
Summary: absolute chaos
Review: This book is fabulous. I no longer watch television because of it. Read it and find out why...