The book starts off with a man going on vacation with his wife to his childhood hometown. Once he gets there he realizes that everything is wrong-all wrong. The streets are all named different names, the people are all different, and nobody can remember anything that Ted Barton (the man) remembers about the whole town. He ends up finding out that he actually died in the record books as a kid. So, he ends up going on a mystery tour (magical, in a way) to figure out everything.
He ends up learning all kinds of stuff. There's a kid who can build golems that can get in and out of the barrier between towns. There's these spirits called Wanderers that can float through objects and they're actually people from the old real town. The book has a strong thematic ending that basically resolves with two gods fighting among themselves and the town is just a small picture in a giant universe. Its kind of a metaphysical kind of horror but the beings themselves gives it a science fiction element because they live as part of the Earth as well as space nebula too.
It's short, simplistic, and straight to the point. Its not the best thing I've read from Dick but it was cool to read one of his short early works. To think this book had horror, fantasy, and science fiction elements and it was written in 1957! That's like way cool man. Although I'm not the biggest fan of horror in science fiction I do think the science fiction element overpowers the horror and it comes out pretty good.
Check this out if you want something short and fun
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