Guardian Review

In this novel Philip K Dick is on familiar territory o a near- future (at the time it was written) American police state where celebrity, drugs and seedy low-life jostle and frequently overlap. Jason Taverner is a six, the product of a long-abandoned experiment in genetic manipulation. Sixes are highly intelligent, laden with charm, and suffer iincurable physical beauty. Taverner has cashed in on his gifts to become one of the world's leading entertainers. One day he is assaulted by a spurned lover, hospitalised, and then erased from all official records, a nobody. Waking in a shabby hotel room, all he has is a wad of banknotes and the conviction that people should recognise him. As Taverner struggles to make sense of what has happened, Dick tugs at the seams of his unreliable reality again and again. Later in the novel, we drift off into lengthy monologues and less than interesting accounts of drug-induced hallucinations, but then suddenly Dick is tugging at the thread again, unravelling Taverner's and the reader's perceptions as only he can. Caption: article-uytryut.1 As Taverner struggles to make sense of what has happened, [Philip K Dick] tugs at the seams of his unreliable reality again and again. - Keith Brooke.