Joe's Reviews > The Penultimate Truth

Nobody does dystopia like PKD.

We start the book in underground warrens where the population has been living since the start of the war, which still rages up on the surface after 15 years. We know exactly what to expect from about page two; we're going to get a book full of underground crises with a huge plot twist at the end when it turns out the war's been over for years.

Except this is PKD, so we find out the war's been over in chapter 2; up above (where the rest of the book takes place), there are only a handful of people living in unimaginable wealth, off the labors of the teeming masses underground. But... with their million square mile demesnes, they still fight border skirmishes (with "leadies" for troops) and live a day-to-day existence coming up with propaganda for below while jockeying for position that's just as horrible as your worst imaginings of making up soap slogans on Madison Avenue.

This is a much, much more conventional plot than a lot of PKD -- you don't end up with the sort of unclearness about who and what has really happened that you get with "The Minority Report", or "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", or certainly "A Scanner Darkly" (or many, many more I could list). But, like pretty much everything he ever wrote, it's outstanding.