{"id":37005,"date":"2026-05-25T14:36:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=37005"},"modified":"2026-05-25T14:36:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:36:34","slug":"guest-contributor-tregonsee-25may2026-dystopian-sf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/25\/guest-contributor-tregonsee-25may2026-dystopian-sf\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Contributor &#8211; Tregonsee &#8211; 25MAY2026 &#8211; Dystopian SF"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My experience with PKD through\u00a0<em>The Man In The High Castle\u00a0<\/em>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\u2019s\u00a0<em>A Canticle for Liebowitz .\u00a0<\/em>With it\u2019s Sarcastic Humor, and it\u2019s 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\u00a0<em>The Man in the High Castle\u00a0<\/em>compelling enough to experience the discomfort where\u00a0<em>A Canticle For Liebowitz\u00a0<\/em>seems to ultimately yield some release,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My experience with PKD through\u00a0The Man In The High Castle\u00a0is similar. It is beautiful prose and a fascinating idea but the sheer unpleasantness of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,1489,237,4,242,4833],"tags":[5223,5211,1596,5209,5222,5224],"class_list":["post-37005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-guest-contributors","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","category-tregonsee","tag-a-canticle-for-liebowitz","tag-do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep","tag-guest-contributors","tag-philip-k-dick","tag-the-man-in-the-high-castle","tag-walter-miller"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Guest Contributor - Tregonsee - 25MAY2026 - Dystopian SF - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/25\/guest-contributor-tregonsee-25may2026-dystopian-sf\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Guest Contributor - Tregonsee - 25MAY2026 - Dystopian SF - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My experience with PKD through\u00a0The Man In The High Castle\u00a0is similar. 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