Title: Eye in the Sky
Author: Philip K. Dick
Category: Fiction
Page Count: 256
Rating: 3.5/5
For some strange reason, I seem to be reading a lot of science fiction books that attempt to reinterpret religion, and this book didn’t really have too much to offer on top of all of the other ones I’ve picked up. The main attraction is the fact that we can see what happens when you take someone godless and use some timey-wimey wibbley-wobbley stuff to throw him into an Old Testament world full of fire and brimstone.
There’s some good character work and some imaginative story telling here, but it was also held back due to the context in which I was reading it. Because I’ve read a few books recently that were remarkable similar to this one, it was hard for Dick to do anything that I hadn’t seen before. And yes, I’m aware of how weird that sounds.
There are also a couple of pretty messed up racial slurs thrown in, which I guess is a byproduct of the time in which it was written and which are also spoken by a character who’s supposed to be unlikeable. It didn’t exactly ruin the book, but it’s also worth at least acknowledging.
Overall then, this book was just okay, although still worth checking out if you’re a grizzled Philip K. Dick fan. Otherwise, it’s not really worth going out of your way for. He has plenty of other books which are better.
