The Secret Ascension: Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas

Dystopian SF novel (and homage to PKD) in which Richard Nixon is in his fourth-term and the US has become a right-wing police state. PKD comes back to earth as an angel of sorts (clad in a "resurrection body" like the one worn by Jesus on Easter) to help a few disparate free thinker/weirdos release the universe from the grasp of "King Richard" (who, it turns out, is possessed by a demon). Although the ending was fairly hokey, the details of the novel are terrifyingly prescient, in that it describes the mindset and the modus operandi of the Bush administration to a T.

This book is defenately worth reading but I do feel the need to write a slightly more critical review. Having read a lot of Dick's work this by comparison is disturbingly sane. I understand Michael Bishop was not trying to emulate, Dick, but, in that case, I would have liked to have seen something a little more original, something that explored and pushed the boundries of the way we see the world. Dick had a way of writing things that would toy with the reader and provoke them, of building up to something with logical and intelligent insite and then going right off the deep end. I miss that.

Here the author set out to write his own Philip K. Dick novel. The characters resemble Philip Dick characters (my favorite is the guy with the obsession for Frank Miller DAREDEVIL comics): the protagonists are alienated misfits, the antagonists are mostly government authorities and wealthy people. The setting involves an oppressive regime in a slightly alternate world that nonetheless strongly resembles the contemporary United States. Paranoia genuinely bubbles out of the plot, and of course weird, metaphysical stuff happens toward the end of the story.Philip Dick and his novels are subjects of discussion among the characters. PKD himself appears in the story ("Horsy Stout"), as he does in his own novels RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH and VALIS; although here he's more in the background.Most of the novel retains the eerie, bleak, surreal edge that you can find in many PKD novels. I didn't like the ending quite as much as the first 90% of the story; but I can say that many of the PKD novels tend to disintegrate toward the end as well (e.g., DO ANDROIDS DREAM and PALMER ELDRITCH). But the ending to this one is harder to take seriously. And the whole thing's a bit too long (340 pages), considering that most of the PKD novels run to about 200 pages and never exceed 300 (not his science fiction).On the whole, it's an entertaining psuedo-Dick novel. I haven't read anything else by Michael Bishop, but he certainly has done competent work with this story, I think.

Excellent pastiche on P.K. Dick and some of his characters. Though undeniably liberal and anti conservative in political overtones, it can be forgiven because the story is cute.

This is not only a tribute to Philip K. Dick - my favorite author - but also written in his exact style. It's uncanny.