3.5 stars:This author was recommended to me, and I picked this novel because I liked the weird plot. It's about a matter transmitter that creates an "echo" of a person when they're transported. The echo-people can't communicate with the Real World, can only breathe transported air, etc. The story mostly follows a newly-created echo person.Another thing this book had that was strange was a narrator-as-a-character, yet it was 3rd person. What I mean is, there would be comments like "The reader might be wondering how Our Hero adjusted to this so remarkably well." I've seen this in offhand remarks before (King's done it a couple times), but never consistently throughout the book. Not off-putting, but it did pull me out of the story. The book I checked out was an omnibus of 3 of Disch's early novels, and I didn't notice anything like this flipping through the other two books. *shrug*So far I've just said how this was weird, but I did like it. Disch is a good writer, and he's obviously willing to experiment and try things that most seem to think are bad ideas. This had the feel of pulp science fiction, but was a lot smarter than that. I'll definitely read something else by him soon, probably from later in his career for comparison.
