An intriguing book and one which I wanted to read for a long time before I got my hands on a copy. I enjoyed it quite a lot. Unfortunately, for some reason I decided to sell my copy back to the second-hand bookshop I got it from, but it's a book I would like to have in my permanent library. ( )

Felt a bit confused. Felt like Dick built a world to write a story about, then set a different story in that world. ( )

A rather strange one, this. Time running backwards is a theme infrequently tackled; in Brian Aldiss' 'Cryptozoic', it's always been running backwards and our evolutionary advantage as hominids arose when we developed the ability to perceive time the wrong way round and foresee the future (i.e. run time in the direction we are familiar with). But in Dick's novel, causality seems reversed but people's experience of it isn't. So the police have resurrection squads to dig up the dead when they spring back to life and find themselves entombed; and the business of eating and digestion has become neatly hedged around with words like 'ingest' and 'disgorge' to describe what it is that people find themselves doing.

The problem is, if time ran backwards, we wouldn't notice, being locked into that timeframe ourselves; and to make it noticeable involves making exceptions so that the story can be told. Perhaps this is why very few writers have tried it. Dick's attempt shows up some of the pitfalls of this plot device. ( )

Bon il faut dire que les livres sur l'inversion soudaine de la flèche du temps ne sont pas légions, et l'histoire ici est somme toute convenue, mais le maître reste le maître, et j'ai dévoré ce bouquin. ( )

Written about the earth as it goes through the "Hobart Phase," where time reverses itself. People are aging backwards, gettting younger and eventually entering the womb. The dead start to awaken and need rescuing from their graves. A dead religious figure is about to reawaken, and competing groups are fighting violently for control of his person.

The mere physicalities of a world where time is reversed is enough to give yourself a headache. Dick incorporates just enough details to remind you that time is running backwards; people greet each other with goodbye, end conversations with hello, and disgorge food onto plates, to be put into the refrigerator, and eventually returned to the store. But conversations flow using forward-flowing speech, cars are driven forward, and enough details are "normal" to make it possible to follow the storyline. This all combines to make the book a fun and intriguing read without hurting your head too much.

I love that the most evil organisation in the book is the library. Librarians are eradicating information. Patrons enter the library and never leave again.

If you can suspend belief about the impossibilty of such a world even existing, this is a very absorbing novel. Just keep reminding yourself that it is science FICTION, and don't take it too seriously. ( )