Book Review: We Can Build You

This was the 2nd Phillip Dick book I've tried to read and although better than Valis, this book was still terrible. This is the guy who wrote the books that spawned the movies Bladerunner, Minority Report, Total Recall and the upcoming A Scanner Darkly, so naturally I figured I'd love his books. This book was ok in the beginning, got good at the mid-point and blew up in a fecal explosion at the end. Most of you know I have a "Halfway Test" with every book I read. If I'm not into a book by the halfway point, I read something else. There's just too much to read out there to suffer through something I don't enjoy. Well this one pulled a fast one on me and I'm still mad about it. Here's the rundown of the book, complete with spoiler ending.

The book is about a guy who owns an organ company named Louis. His partner decides to build a robot, or simulacrum as they call them in the future. They build an exact replica of Edwin M. Stanton, Abe Lincoln's Secretary Of State. Their big plan is to recreate the Civil War using robots. They call Sam Burrows, a famous billionaire, in hopes of selling the idea to him. Meanwhile, they build an Abe Lincoln, whom the reader really gets to know and like. Louis is slowly falling in love with his partners daughter, who happens to be the brains behind the bots. She's a recovering schitzo and entirely unappealing. The billionaire shows up and likes what he sees, so he makes an offer, only he hates the Civil War idea. Instead, he wants to build simulacrum families and put them on the moon (he owns all the moon colonies, but no one wants to go to the moon because it's desolate, cold and lonely). He figures with nice robot families next door, people will feel better about living on the moon.

This all sounds like a great book doesn't it? Yea, I was fooled too...

The ending drops off and leaves you angry, incomplete and pissed that the author is already dead because you want to dig him up and strangle him. Basically the companies disagree, Priss deserts and joins the billionaire and Louis decides he's gonna go kill him. He ends up flipping out, going schitzo over his obsession with Pris and that's it. The end. No wrap-ups of anything with the bots, the colonies, anything. Nothing that the book builds up gets resolved at all. The whole thing felt like the author got bored right at the climax and just quit.

Don't read this one. It's awful.