I'm a well read grad student who's bluntly honest about all things, although I try to be most honest about myself.
This is one of the weirdest books I've read in a long time. It's also one of the books that's filled with the most wonderful, sometimes even dark and wonderful, things. It's metaphysical, bizarre, and beautiful.
The characters are in different places (emotionally, mentally, and in some places physically) but I find I don't mind: this story seems far more about the journey than about the ending, and why not? It's an eye-opening journey, even if I'm not sure where it's going, how it will get there, or even what's really happening.
The characters are delightful, especially those stunned to find themselves in these situations that are indescribably strange. Their reactions are charmingly clueless, although the situations are so out there that 'clueless' seems to be the only sane reaction. It grounds the wholly ridiculous, occasionally whimsical, scenarios in a sense of reality: even if a kitty licking the water in which lies the human brain of a robot-man who's currently been rebuilt, the 'what the fuck is happening' quiet panic of the characters is reassuring. They go about their business, trying to fix things - like Robotman - but there are moments when they question 'what is happening? And why to us?'
The panic is there, bubbling underneath, even as everyone tries to cope with these situations. In fact, it's Larry Trainor's opening scene in which he - a man acquainted with the bizarre - who runs around, screaming inanities. (Which I suspect will turn out to be super rational - we just don't know why or how yet so they same to be the same type of unexplainable weirdness as everything else in this series.
And I find myself charmed. I'm enjoying this series so much so far.