Dr. Adder

I highly recommend this book to any fan of Philip K. Dick. (At times Jeter's fiercely ironic style made me wonder if I was in fact reading a "lost" Phil Dick novel!) Jeter's perverse, dark vision of the L.A.of the future envelops your senses with a mixture of revulsion and fascination as the story unfolds. Other reviewers here have already summarized the plot and setting, so let me just add that the book is disturbing and brilliant, and if you can stomach the sexual perversions and gore, you will come away astonished that somehow "Dr. Adder" (written pre-1972, anticipating cyberpunk by at least 12 years) has escaped your attention until now. The afterword by Dick is noteworthy too. One of the characters in the novel is based on Dick, although Phil mis-identifies that character in his afterword, in my opinion.

Dr. Adder is one of those books that gets better the longer you read it. The story starts off thrusting the reader into the disturbing streets of a future L.A. where the title character is a specialist in transforming prostitutes into mankinds most twisted desires. Tempting to put down (as I did, regrettably, the first time I started to read it), the story begins to take on a live of its own. The story focuses not on Dr. Adder, but instead on E. Allen Limmit and his discovery of life outside the corporate home he spent much of his life. As his life becomes inevitably intermixed with Adder and Adder's arch-nemesis, he learns he is a pawn in a much larger story, one he was, literally, born to be. Writen 12 years before it was published, the book is brilliant, one of those incredible first novels that shows the author knows more about writing than some long-established authors. The ending had me laughing for minutes, and though I had once told a friend that I would never read it again (while still in the disturbing subject matter of the first fifty pages) I look forward to additional readings of this classic in the years to come.

_Dr. Adder_ by K.W. Jeter is about a dark and violent Los Angeles of the future in which terrorists can be heroes to a disaffected youth. One of society's idols, Dr. Adder, can, for price, plunge into a client's subconscious and dig up his or her deepest sexual desires, then provide the necessary surgical modifications to fulfill those desires. Hoping to wreak vengeance upon Dr. Adder and break his stranglehold upon society, his equally dark foe stages a violent end for Dr. Adder which is ultimately fought in a cyberspace-like melding of minds and television networks. Action-filled and a quick read, this book is recommended for fans of a sort of dark, pre-cyberpunk in the style of Philip K. Dick.

weeeeeird, man. prostitutes deform themselves to corner speciality markets, as in vagina dentata, which brings them to the dr., drug-addled psychopath. the first of jeter's la trilogy (the glass hammer and death arms follow), definitely a must for phil dick fans (he wrote the intro)