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I'd read Dick's _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_, (the basis for the great film _Blade Runner_), and enjoyed it a lot. I was expecting the same level of entertainment from _The Game Players of Titan_, but I did not receive it. This book is simply awful. The premise is too thin and non-existent to even be called "flimsy"; there is really no characterization (Pete is suicidal and lots of characters light up cigarettes at tense moments, that's about it); the description is nearly non-existent, and when it's present, it is extremely shallow and unimaginative. Oooh, the aliens (cleverly named "vugs" as to rhyme with "bugs") are described as blobs of protoplasm. The background of the story is barely touched on, and the game, "Bluff", the basis of the story, is ludicrous. Barely any descriptions are spent on it, but from what Dick says, the reader can see that it's just a shallow, boring idea (people gambling over large chunks of real estate and mates, with arbitrarily boring results time and again). The plot-twists are forced and pointless, and not enough background is even given to make the supposed "revelations" surprising or exciting. This is easily one of the worst books I've read, in terms of just about every aspect of it. I assume Dick later used his ideas and talents to better effect, because his reputation can certainly not be explained by the likes of _The Game Players of Titan_.

This book is a great deal of fun. I have enjoyed all of the books I have read by him. The Game-Players of Titan is multi-layered, on the surface it is quite humerous, dig deeper and you find some thought provoking ideas. Also, it ages well, reading it again you find things that you missed. While some might disagree with me, I also feel that this is an exelant book to introduce teenagers to SF, if they haven't discovered it yet.

This book has it all: the usual PKD's theme about the nature of reality and the human perception of it and the fragility of the human mind, plot twists that keep you from putting the book down, interesting characters and character interaction -everything that shuold be in a great book can be found in "The Game-Players of Titan." If you are new to PKD, I suggest you start with this book or "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich." Both are must-reads.

There are certainly seven, and maybe a dozen, books that have rightfully made PKD's reputation (THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, MARTIAN TIME-SLIP, THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH, DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP, UBIK, A SCANNER DARKLY, VALIS, and to a slightly lesser extent, EYE IN THE SKY, TIME OUT OF JOINT, CONFESSIONS OF A CRAP ARTIST, DR. BLOODMONEY, and THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER). But many of the others are nearly as fine. This is one of those, a wild, out-of-control, often very funny exercise in paranoia that reads like a warm-up for THE THREE STIGMATA. And it has a moment near the end -- when our hero sees our planet from the enemy alien's point of view -- which is perhaps the clearest and most powerful statement of one of Dick's central themes, the subjective nature of perception (and hence reality). Having your world-view challenged has seldom been so much fun.

It's one of my favorite books ever. I've just read it a second time, and it was just as good as the first. A fast paced and thought provoking thriller, it ranks as one of Dick's masterpieces (Androids, Flow my Tears, Castle). A great page-turner; you've driven over speed bumps slower than you'll read this book.