Joe

"I have blown a hole in time with a firecracker. Let others step through. Into what bigger and bigger firecrackers? Better weapons lead to better and better weapons, until the earth is a grenade with the fuse burning."

Reading this after Babel-17 feels like seeing Delany go Super Saiyan. So much stranger, denser, and freer. Extremely moving.

Feels reductive to say since we're dealing with a genuinely off the map and overwhelming piece of writing here, but: this guy was writing gay cyberpunk body horror shit in 1961! Absolutely insane.

In the "Atrophied Preface" that serves as an epilogue, Burroughs (stepping outside of presenting himself as his alter ego, William Lee) claims not to be an entertainer. This showcases that he's a fucking liar because he just spent this book doing vaudeville routines! Genuinely hysterical, horrifying, and obscene, a delirious hard boiled sci-fi haze.

Read the novelette. Really cool stuff!

Absolutely demented gothic sf of the highest order. Layers twist upon twist only for the floor to drop out at the last second. An ending that assures you, through gritted teeth, "don't worry, it was all a trick," while gesturing towards an even greater horror than the totally harrowing narrative you just experienced. Shudder to think what Tumblr would have done with Claudio had this come out in the 2010s.

Amazing that this was PKD's first big success. I get it, "what if the Axis won?" is a hook anyone can understand, but the novel resists being consumed as catnip for guys who know too much about WWII in every way it can. Hell, by volume, this thing is mostly about the I Ching! Sure, you get tidbits about how things are being governed and there are elements of international intrigue, but ultimately this is a novel about the effects of fascism on the mind of the average person. This is a book where even people who hate the Nazis express their hopes for their favorite "lesser evil" candidate to take control of the Third Reich. Who knows, maybe they might kill slightly less people! It's not exactly subtle. The ending is a horrifying, reality shattering moment that spells it all out: they might not have won the physical war, but they won the war in our heads. Just look outside.