The Müller-Fokker Effect

This may be the most batshit book I have ever read or come across, which is impressive, though it is also very much not in the ways I expected it to be bonkers. It is truly impressive how utterly nonsensical it becomes as things go on.

(I expected it to be batshit; I got it in a bundle of weirdest books I can find on the cheap shelves from a friend.)

There's a song by Pink entitled 'Chaos and Piss', if you extended it to 'Chaos, Piss and Computers' it would not be a terrible description for this book.
The central premise is that the government want to transfer human consciousness to computer, but since this is set in the '60's they only have those big tape machine's to work with.
However that's beside the point, as realistically this doesn't have a plot. Imagine a Dickens novel or Catch-22 maybe but with NO central character. So your just stuck with the crazy side characters. You have an eccentric millionaire who thinks everyone else is fictional, the founder of a playboy-esque magazine, a tele-evangelist, a painter, an advertising executive, about a half-dozen other major characters show more aswell as a full accompaniment of racists, conspiracy theorists, art critics, military cadets, indians and transvestites.
The '60's aesthetic is one of the best things about it and the individual elements are interesting if a little hard to follow at times due to the large assortment of characters.
It's also not the worst time to read it as its sci-fi elements are probably more apt today than they were in the '60's and its political connotations are unfortunately not out of date especially with Donald Drumpf running for the american presidency.
Overall better than Roderick the only other Sladek i've read, but definitely not for those who like to have a normal a-b-c plot. show less

Well, obscure sci-fi is certainly the right designation for this! I loved it though. Didn't really get all the stream of consciousness stuff, but I did enjoy the ride. And I liked the non-PC plot - it's refreshing, if dated.

This absolutely hilarious novel contains more puzzles than a year's worth of Mensa Bulletins. I have found several palindromes and other brain-damaged prose. The play on the number pi has to be seen to be believed. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that there is some esoteric puzzle solution in here that would get some special prize from the author. (Silly dis idyll is). (Note that I do not mention the religious or song parodies).

Discarded. Poor. Nathaniel West dreariness constantly compounded. Little or no technology or physics expounded, shallow caricatures for characters. Multithreaded plot for the sake of sequentially killing characters. Dull.