[Inter Ice Age 4] is described as "both science fiction and philosophical thriller"; well, as a thriller it is disappointing. It begins well enough, and the first half is reasonably successful in sustaining the reader's interest, but the second tends to be disjointed as well as unconvincing. Kobo Abé apparently took a medical degree and is therefore able to use the jargon effectively, but even the most devoted of modern doom-watchers are likely to find the pseudo-medical and scientific ideas in the novel too phantasmagorical and implausible. Indeed, much of the detail is just nauseating.

What, then, of the claim that the novel is "philosophical" and "challenging" and what about the "most profound moral concerns" of the author? The only direct clue to these is contained in a postscript in which Abé attempts to set out his concept of the novel and in particular the nature of "the future...