Paul Sánchez Keighley's Reviews > Dr. Bloodmoney

The first word that comes to mind is “dreamy”.

For a post-apocalyptic novel, the tone of this book is strangely uplifting and buoyant, bordering on feelgood, though slaked with an undercurrent of disquiet and unease. It feels like floating inside someone’s (the author’s) head; the foundations and rules of this world are as flimsy and equivocal as dreams.

The world is sad, strange and beautiful, but the human element is full of candor. I refrain from calling it whimsical because that would imply Dick was having some level of fun, and despite how absolutely silly everything is (from the insecure homunculus to the rat playing the nose-flute), I feel like the author is at all times deadly serious.

It’s not perfect, but it delivers way more than a paranoid drug-fueled vision of a post-nuclear future has any right to claim.