A *very* hard read. - Rated 
I gave up after about 30 pages, the story was getting interesting but it's very very hard work. Almost every sentence is of the form: 'Jack said, quietly, not that he meant to - he really didn't - "Why?".' etc etc.
I'd recommend reading a few pages before buying.
A great book that could have been brilliant - Rated 
A book that, for me, just didn't reach it's potential! A great story that starts really well and then gets bogged down in a conspiracy story that doesn't really add much to the overall tale. I wanted to know much more about the plight of the tankers, the feelings of the con-apt dwellers and the guilt of the elite.
Like other books in this genre that haven't quite satisfied, this book skims over some of the things that I find so interesting - the nature of human survival against terrible conditions. The lead characters are possibly too numerous to really learn about their deeper feelings and so the book never quite gets to the core of the issues.
I did enjoy the book and it was a story that kept me interested but again it was a book that just didn't quite make it to the brilliance that Dick could have achieved.
Good but not his best - Rated 
This is PK Dick treading his usual themes:
what is reality?
how can you tell what is real?
are the people around me real?
am i real?
etc etc.
The subject matter of a post WW3 community is really just a backdrop to these themes. At least there is none of his later preoccupations with religion in this book.
HAving said all this, this is still a very good SciFi book and I would recommend it, but as I say there are better PKD books out there.
Sci-Fi?? - Rated 
Not being a great reader of sci-fi Philip K Dick is an author that I do read. What he writes is so much more than mainstream sci-fi, raising both metaphysical and philosophical questions. This book is really ahead of its time as it shows us to some degree that we're going through the same predicaments currently. We are all aware of media manipulation and political spin, and that is mainly what this book is about.
The setting is after the third world war, where millions of people are living in giant town sized bunkers underground. The information they receive comes from the tv and political officers, showing them the devastation and the war raging on the surface of the earth, where the government are still and robots are fighting the war. These people are stuck underground for years whilst this war rages on. But what if the war had ended and there was peace on the surface? What if the few people on the surface lived on massive tracts of land? What would happen if people found out? Read this book and find out, and you will never view the news or statements from politicians in the same way again.
Straightforward book on propaganda, lies and stupidity - Rated 
Ph. Dick entagles us straightforwardly in intrigues, propaganda and human stupidity. This author appears to be quite pessimistic about our capability to think for ourselves - not blaming us, he just writes a superb story full of warnings against taking for granted whatever appears to be real. Probably one of Dick's more accessible books, and a real pleasure to read either as just entertainment, or as food for your brains.
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