Fun & surreal look at the fictional life of an author very much like Philip K. Dick--will make you glad to be a writer or reader.

Quote: Dank’s delusion of being just another author’s creature was the kind of folly not susceptible to refutation (what would have counted as evidence against it?), but like most of his delusions it subsided of its own accord, after a month and two hundred pages of frenzied exegesis. The readiness with which he relinquished such delusions makes me think that Dank never really fully embraced them in the first place—even if he thought he did, even if he never understood the difference between owning a conviction and taking one for a joyride." ( )

The Cardboard Universe, Christopher Miller, is a book in search of an audience. Not really sf, this is a comedic faux-encyclopedia on the works of Phoebus K. Dank, an alternate-universe version of Philip K. Dick. Although I sense the author's knowledge and love of PKD's work, this is not an homage. There is minimal trivia to interest fans, and actually, with the insistence that the "Dank" character is such a terrible hack, the book comes off as slightly insulting to Dick. (Not intentional I believe but there it is.) The comedic plot, while it works, is not enough to carry the length of the novel. So it's like the peanut butter got dipped in the chocolate, but they were both that diet stuff with the questionable sugar substitutes that people keep making law-suits and web pages about, and the aftertaste wasn't really worth it anyways.

I will say that Miller absolutely nailed some of the faux-book titles and plot lines listed in the encyclopedia. I kept thinking "That's not funny, that sounds exactly like a PKD plot" and then laughing at myself. It did seem he was channeling at times and this was no doubt the impetus for the book.

An innovative and impressive effort, it just went on a little too long. ( )