My experience with PKD through The Man In The High Castle is similar. It is beautiful prose and a fascinating idea but the sheer unpleasantness of the reading experience is off-putting. This is not to say I totally hate Dystopias. I think one of the most beautiful pieces of Science fiction (let alone Dystopias) is Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Liebowitz . With it’s Sarcastic Humor, and it’s crazy story that interweaves (Spoiler to a 60+ year old story the Wandering Jew wanders through all three sections and it MAKES SENSE) all sorts of mythology and Catholic and Christian trivia into a very odd resolution it is very compelling. I reread it, but not too often, it tears at the soul. Both PKD and Walter Miller (who later commits suicide likely due to PTSD from being a B-17 gunner in WWII in the raids on Dresden) were clearly troubled men. They are also very skilled writers. Their writing, to some degree, drags you into their madness, and this can be a very uncomfortable place to go. I do not find The Man in the High Castle compelling enough to experience the discomfort where A Canticle For Liebowitz seems to ultimately yield some release,
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As a long time and prolific reader of all types of fiction, I agree on “A Canticle for Liebowitz”. Memorable, to say the least.
Walter Miller has several short stories, I have a paperback collection of his work from the early ’60s. Every last one of those stories is wholeheartedly GOOD, and a couple are gems. Even Canticle is really three long short stories patched together into a novel. He Stopped writing somewhere in the early 60’s until he started a 4th piece in the Canticle Universe (which ultimately was finished and published by Terry Bisson posthumously). There is a lovely AI based story called The Growler that I’ve seen published in a couple of anthologies. I think the issue with finding Miller’s work… Read more »
Canticle can be a stretch for many modern readers. The Pre Vatican II Latin service Catholic church which Canticle derives from ceased to exist something like 60 years ago. When I first read it in the late 70’s the aspects of the Catholic Church were a puzzlement to a young man from a protestant faith, although 2 years of Latin helped. At this point it truly lies in the realm of alternate history as thank the Lord we managed to squeak by without the Flame Deluge.