E.G. Sandvick
The subject and tone of this novel are reminiscent of Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz and Tim O'Brien's The Nuclear Age; the style and emphasis on philosophical statement will challenge the reader. . . . The author places his protagonist in ethical dilemmas that challenge the usual moral order. The epistolary form poses some limitations: little action, abrupt transitions between episodes, and little character development; nevertheless, a well-written novel, which avoids the usual stereotypes of the postnuclear destruction novel and presents a darker-than-usual moral vision.
Lawrence Norfolk
The business of scratching around in the wreckage, be it of the metropolis, of language or of consciousness, always runs the risk of being boring. Auster declines the risk and has tediousness forced on him anyway. The incidents and objects he describes betray an increasing desire to entertain the reader, but this is matched by their increasing insubstantiality; these 'last things' evoke no pathos, and, trading heavily on the Grand Guignol fascination which apocalyptic visions tend to elicit, the novel stands somewhere between Protect and Survive and Being and Nothingness
