... in which there are some unicorns and some men with strange minds.
This book has two seemingly unrelated stories happening simultaneously. In one story arc (the hard-boiled wonderland), a man in his thirties is working as a Calcutec. His job basically involves him working as a human computer; his consciousness has been split so that one part of his mind can process and encrypt data, while leaving the main part of his mind to function as a normal human's mind. He goes to work for a professor whose laboratory is hidden in an underground cavern infested with man-eating monsters. He soon finds that this job has pulled him into some kind of larger conflict. The second story arc (the end of the world) involves a man arriving in a town surrounded by a wall. The townsfolk never leave their town, as they understand themselves to be at the end of the world. The town harbors a herd of unicorns, and all people coming into the town must agree to be separated from their shadows. The man is sent to work as the Dreamreader at the Library, while he puzzles out the purpose of the town and the significance of the shadows and the unicorns. Over the course of the novel, it becomes clear that the two stories are actually part of one larger narrative.
