Books Undone Reviews

The Hour of The Star is a technical masterpiece and an emotionally devastating tale of poverty—outward and inward—layered with a quest for meaning and a fictional writer who, through his character, unwillingly seeks to understand a life too unlike his own.

Ancillary Justice is an intriguing novel concerned with identity, civilisation, empire, and colonisation. It gestures towards several compelling themes, though it shies away from fully developing them.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a devastating post-apocalyptic novel that remains current because of its central theme: humanity’s own nature. It covers our insatiable need for war and conflict, how prone we are to bury the past instead of learning from it, and how easily we turn history into myth.

Tender is the Flesh is a complex, layered dystopian novel that examines language as a tool for the normalisation of horror, the biased and uneven moral standards applied to our surroundings, and the pressures that enforce social compliance. Despite this, it is frequently reduced to a narrowly framed vegan allegory.

More than a story, The Road is a philosophical discussion on meaning, purpose, and the true nature of humankind. The story is intentionally narrow: a post-apocalyptic setting, and a nameless father and son travelling south across the United States. There is no clearly defined goal beyond escaping the cold—which seems to follow them—and one message: ‘You have to carry the fire’.

The Book Thief is historical fiction at its core, but literary due to its presentation; it also blends a distinct speculative element: Death—the grim reaper—as a narrator… but not as the protagonist. It was originally sold as Young Adult fiction, though it is not, in my opinion, comparable in any way to what is sold as YA fiction at the time of this review.

A masterpiece that challenges reality in a multi-layered, faceted take of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Likely the precursor to The Matrix, and presented like a fun, fast-paced, yet deeply thematic, futuristic story. Genius as only PKD could craft.