This is a three star book I'm giving four stars to because of its originality. Dick is an author unlike any other. He can definitely come up with some unique stuff. This isn't Dick's best book, but it's not bad. The premise is interesting. Due to the mysterious Hobart Phase, everything on Earth is moving backwards now, as of the 1980s (this world is in the late 1990s). Dead people wake up and are unearthed by companies who sell them to the highest bidder. The fact that relatives never seem to bid on these people is a fact conveniently ignored by Dick and I thought it was a weak component of the novel. Additionally, instead of eating, people disgorge (privately), smoke cigarette stubs back to full length, have sex to end a pregnancy, grow younger until they find a womb to end their life in, say "Goodbye" to greet and "Hello" in departing. Unusual, yes? Unfortunately, Dick didn't think it all through, it seems to me, because most of this world is completely linear. You don't drive backwards. You put your clothes on just as we do today. Shots fired from a gun are done so as in real life. Shouldn't bullets be flying back to gun barrels in this book? Real weak plot depth there, so that's one star gone.In this world, the Library is the ultimate totalitarian authority and scares the hell out of everyone. They "erad" books now and have their own army. We're introduced to Sebastian Hermes (and his wife, Lotta) as he and his crew are about to dig up the Anarch Peak, a MLK-type black religious figure whose followers founded the Udi cult, basically a bunch of pissed of, drugged out black people. (Another complaint I have with the book is Dick's treatment of women and minorities -- blacks. Women are users or to be used and blacks all find their beginnings in the 1965 Watts riots in L.A., and he describes howling mobs of them outside the library. It's very disappointing, and I don't want to sound too PC, but it's a real failure on the author's part, in my opinion.) Sebastian digs up Peak, but the Library steals him away and the book revolves around Sebastian's attempts to get him back (along with his wife, who the Library also has) with the help of the Udi and the Rome faction. There's an LSD grenade, which is pretty original. That's how he disables the Library's guards.In addition to the things I already wrote that were dissatisfying, I took issue with Lotta jumping in the sack with a cop who gets assassinated by the Library while Sebastian jumps in the sack with Ann Fisher, the dangerous Librarian's daughter, who seduces him to get the Anarch. However, the book does have some redeeming qualities to it, not the least of which is Dick's private struggle with theology. People and the world are made up of concentric rings that go outward until God is found. "Evil is simply a lesser reality, a ring farther from Him. It's the lack of absolute reality, not the presence of an evil deity." As is the case in most Dick novels, we're treated to the whole "what is reality, what isn't?" conundrum. I found it less confusing in this book than in others. I actually felt fairly comfortable with Dick's exploration of theology in this book, unlike several others I've read.The book was truly original, but not well thought out. I enjoyed it enough to give it four stars, but it probably only deserves three. I'm just partial to the author. I admit my bias. If you're a fan, you'll probably like it. If you're not familiar with Dick as an author, this isn't the book with which I would start.
Originally published on my blog here in July 2002.In general, Dick's novels contain a dazzling multiplicity of ideas; but Counter-Clock World is dominated by just one and careful limits are placed on how fully it is explored. It is in many ways (dictated by its theme) similar to Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake. There, people relive a decade of their lives, fully conscious that they have already experienced what they are going through; here, time has suddenly reversed.Dick doesn't go to the extent of reversing everything, for a similar reason that Vonnegut's characters' memories are not erased - if everything went backwards, there couldn't be a story distinguishable from a strangely told forwards one. (At the very least, the characters need to be aware of what is going on.) He describes several bodily processes - or, rather, more effectively, he mentions them and leaves the details to the reader's imagination - including shaving, conception and the unpleasant, private affair that is eating. Two of these reversed processes are used as the basis for the plot. Since all that has been created now must be destroyed, the library, which searches out books for this purpose, has become a powerful institution (controlling what knowledge is still available); there can be few novels which make the profession of librarian so sinister. The mainspring of the plot is the resurrection of the dead; undertakers have been replaced by vivariums, companies that seek out those who have recently been revived and want to get out of their coffins. (Dick doesn't go into what happens to those who were cremated.) A small vivarium discovers the lost tomb of Timothy Peak, a religious leader who created a popular cult based around communal drug taking. He is about due for re-animation, and the politics surrounding him make this important and dangerous; those who have control of the cult since his death are not likely to give up their power easily, and the Library doesn't want him to return at all because of the disruption his anti-racist stand caused when he was alive.The way that Counter-Clock World is written makes me think it was inspired by the striking image of the revived dead trying to get the attention of the living so they can be released from their coffins. The treatment of the time reversal is full of inconsistencies (such as the production of newspapers with current news in a world where all existing literature is being destroyed rather than published). It is an extremely ambitious idea and remains, I think, unique in science fiction; time's arrow is so fundamental in human thought that to conceive of it being any other way is incredibly difficult if properly carried through. It is not, in the end, one of Dick's most successful novels, but it is certainly a fascinating read.
Do You like book Counter-Clock World (2002)?
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—Manny
PKD is a gimmick machine. In Counter-Clock World, the gimmick is strong, and it's bolstered by substantial themes. For reasons I can't quite grasp, though, finishing the novel left me wanting more of the gimmick and more of his religious themes. Man is driven by his desires...that's basically the entirety of Lotta's character: to drive two major male characters. Religion is an outside influence that can never be quelled - but individually, as we find out with Sebastian, it's his selfish personal desires that ultimately coerce his actions. Messiah or no messiah. A whole lot of interesting concepts...I just wish PKD would have explored it much, much further.
—Adam James
When it comes to science fiction, it's not only about that one brilliant idea, but also the execution. This book is the perfect example for that. It has a brilliant premise- of a counterclock world. At a particular point in time, time reversed- that is to say people started crawling out the caves and grew younger to finally disappear as a cell. It's a one line idea. And dick presents it merely as a plot device to lead us to the main themes of the novel. The book is not really about reversal of time; it's about religious hypocrisies, the struggle for power and of course, like all his other works, it's also about government conspiracies.What disappoints, though, is that this novel has not executed these ideas to their full potential. Even though it touches upon the topic of religious bigotry and power struggle, it does not raise the moral conflicts that we have come to known Dick for.
—Malay
