Status Updates From Laberinto de muerte

The quasi-religious references to prayer and intercessors and deities is kind of intriguing, because what do these terms REALLY refer to? But mostly my feeling is that the characters are written very badly. They do seem like children play-acting at being adults. They’re stumbling toward a mystery, though, so maybe that’ll win me over. At the moment, my feeling about the book is unease.

Every male character POV includes them creeping on the women. Oh, he’s tall. He has a firm handshake. She has well-rounded breasts. It’s disturbing. Also, I’m guessing there was a reason for it but when 2 different characters arrived separately, the scene of introductions repeated word-for-word. Weird. Last: Susan Smart says “they” call her Suzie Dumb. Wtf, are these scientists all 12 years old?

I’ve never read any Philip K. Dick, so I chose this for my latest audiobook. I’m already worried about whether it’s going to be a DNF for me in this format. It’s all weird sci-fi words which may be easier to follow from the page but less so when listening and driving. I’m not sure I understand anything that’s happened so far, except the main guy spoke to an AI chatbot that acts like Gandalf.