An exciting, funny, and brisk novel that starts as parody and then builds a whole universe around the exigencies of parody, letting itself edge toward some dark implications. This is followed by three codas that hit those depressing, existential ideas lurking in the background much harder: the codas start a little iffy but move toward very, very good and melancholy. By the end of the book, it's a huge tonal shift from the actual
novel part, but it works.
I would've liked a few physical descriptions of characters, uniforms, and the like, though.
(Side-note, apparently I can't read a book featuring a protagonist named "Dahl" without
constantly getting hungry.)