Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Sadly, most -- if not all -- of the politics remains in the background: while there has been a Second Civil War, and there's a police state in place since, hardly any of the oppression is felt. It makes for satire without a sharp bite. It's as if it's all just a prop to Dick, to support his story about Jason Taverner, a genetically enhanced TV-personality and pop singer who wakes up as a nobody, unknown to anybody, without a trace even in archives or government databases.

That central plot is what drives the story. PKD provides an episodic progression, presenting Taverner a succession of new characters. Things are quite disjointed, and characters are easily discarded after their scenes are over. As a result practically everybody in the novel feels as a prop too, and real tension never materializes. It's as Warwick Stubbs wrote on Goodreads: "Dick walks his protaganist into a problem, and then walks him right back out."

Taverner doesn't really experience an identity crisis and there never is any angst -- it is no Metamorphosis. As a character study of downfall, or even of smug celebrity entitlement, it falls short.

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