Review by C.J. Bunce
It’s always exciting to work your way through a Philip K. Dick novel for the first time. The singular futurist who created the worlds of Blade Runner, The Man in the High Castle, Minority Report, and Total Recall probably created his most spectacular characters, ideas, and fantastical places in the pages of his five volumes of collected short stories. His 38 novels are an up and down journey through a man who allowed his personal crises to seep in, and often obstruct his imagination. Most of these were science fiction novels, but his novels outside that genre are another matter. One of these, written around the year 1956 about a disc jockey in the changing streets of 1950s San Francisco, is The Broken Bubble, one of the closest and earliest read-alikes you’ll find from this author to the energy and twists of a Quentin Tarentino movie, in a compelling read that world pair nicely with a popular, more modern dramatic read like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
