At one point I was burnt out on the sci-fi I was reading and searched out some different recommendations. “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” came up from someone. It’s not sci-fi, it’s kind of an out-there fiction novel, and very much not western. I felt about it the way that I felt after going to an avante garde musical performance at MoMA years ago: way beyond my level of appreciation. This book is better than that performance, and at least with this book I can recognize that it’s fascinating, creative, pushing the boundaries… and also simply not for me.