I guess if you're writing about a forecasting machine, inevitably, there will be as much exposition as there is narrative but SO MUCH of this book is just catching the reader up on exactly WHAT THE EFF is going on, it reads like someone describing a movie they've just seen. "Oh! I forgot to tell you but it's important to know, his wife had an abortion earlier." I'm going to go ahead and say my favorite part of the book is the cover, a stylized fetus floating below the cryptic tagline, "A Novel of the Future", although the parts about aquatic dogs are good too. ( )

It's difficult to talk about Inter Ice Age 4 without going into spoilers, but here are a few general comments: this is one of those works of science fiction that drops in a whole lot of ideas instead of just focusing on one. The book can roughly be divided into fifths. While Kobo Abe tries to tie everything together, the first three-fifths of the book didn't feel cohesive while they were occurring, and the information dump taking up the fourth fifth, that attempts to reframe the narrative into a sensible whole, does only a mediocre job. The final fifth has a few standout segments, but is largely plagued by problems present throughout the book stemming from a removed tone and excessive amounts of fake science. There is a lot of world-building done in Inter Ice Age 4, but strangely it's mostly done at the tail end of the story, meaning that Kobo Abe spends a lot of space explaining a world that is in fact explored very little. Still, one segment in particular at almost the very end of the book manages to breathe life into what was previously a very impersonal story, taking advantage of the world established up to that point and providing an interesting perspective to close out the book. For that segment alone Inter Ice Age 4 isn't a waste to read, though most of it is mediocre science fiction pulp. You would hope that a writer like Kobo Abe could elevate pulp to something more, but for the most part his writing style's ability to evoke a Kafkaesque feeling isn't used to the book's advantage. Much of the character interactions just feel unnatural in a boring way, not unsettling as Kobo Abe is capable of achieving (just look at Woman in the Dunes). That being said, there is again one clear exception where the surreal feeling his writing can evoke is used to full effect. In sum this book is mostly nothing special, merely another work of science fiction pulp, but there are a couple of high points here. Give it a try if you're the type of reader who can ignore a book's shortcomings and focuses on its best parts.

More specific comments:
So as I said, the book can be divided into fifths (roughly). The first fifth dealing with a researcher building a machine to predict the future is fine, but it's very different in subject matter and tone than the rest of the book. Also, we are never given much reason to sympathize with the main character, who is largely defined as "researcher building a machine to predict the future." He's driven by his desire to keep his project from getting axed, which is a relatable enough motivation that I was satisfied with it.

The second fifth deals with the main character and his staff attempting to use the machine to predict small-scale events, specifically a murder they've become entangled with. The prediction machine suddenly and rather inexplicably morphs into a machine that can read the minds of dead bodies and create artificial personality replicas of people with a small amount of programming. This is where some of the stranger elements of the story begin to seep in, the problem is that if you read the description of the book you already know that this isn't what the story is actually about. Another, larger problem is that the motivation shifts from the continuation of the research project to solving a murder so that the main character is not a suspect. There doesn't seem to be any realistic way that the main character would be pinned as the murderer, however, so this whole motivation doesn't ring true.

The third fifth largely deals with the main character visiting a facility that creates underwater versions of land animals through scientific manipulation of embryos, a practice uncovered through the murder investigation. This segment dumps a lot of fake science on you, and I for one found those segments very boring. The motivation at this point is also unclear. It feels as though the main character lets himself get dragged to this facility more in service of the plot than for any reason an actual person would act on.

The fourth fifth features the use of Kobo Abe's writing style that actually worked gangbusters, namely the phone conversation the main character has with his own artificial personality replica, a wonderful segment that leaves you wondering if this is really occurring or if the main character is going bananas. Unfortunately much of the rest of this fifth is spent with other characters explaining to the main character the plot so far and the reasons behind it. You can follow the plot, but it's unnecessarily convoluted.

The final fifth deals with more fake science as aspects of the undersea world of the future are explained. See how unrelated this is from the first fifth of the book? This is not a story that feels cohesive, but rather a mishmash of science fiction ideas welded together a bit sloppily. Up until this point everything is written in an impersonal, undramatic manner, as the main character coldly analyzes everything that is occurring to him. Here, for the first time, Kobo Abe has him express some actual emotion- though there is still a good deal of arguing in a logical, completely unrealistic fashion. The redeeming segment in this fifth, and indeed in this book overall, is the few pages exploring the life of the main character's son, who has been conditioned to live underwater in the future society. Suddenly all the pages spent explaining this future world are actually put to use, and the thoughts and desires of this water dweller are set forth in a far more compelling manner than anything in the book that has come before. This final section raises questions about how the current generation views the past, and what if any obligations they have to their predecessors. There aren't any answers attempted, instead the book chooses to leave us to ponder what is to come, and we can interpret what has happened as we see fit. It's a very interesting ending to what is otherwise a stilted, mostly boring book. It made me wish that either the book was split into two, the first half focusing on the main character and the second half focusing on the son, or alternatively that the segment about the son had been a standalone short story. Unfortunately neither was what Kobo Abe chose to do. ( )

Written in 1970 when wide use of computers was still in its infancy, Inter Ice Age 4 is more speculative fiction than science fiction. Consider this: What would happen if you could input all the information necesary for a machine to forecast the future? Dr. Katsumi does just that. It all starts with choosing a supposedly non-descript person to use as a guinea pig. Input all his personal information and facts and predict his future. Unfortunately the specimen is murdered before that can be done.

What happens next is a series of events that begin with an attempt to use the forecasting machine, Moscow II, to find the murderer and ends with...well, that would be telling!

The first part of the book, trying to find the murderer using the forecasting machine, is intriguing and one wonders why this is something we might be able to do in the 21st Century. However, after the story takes an unexpected turn, the story gets quite dry. It was a big struggle for me to finish reading and I mostly skimmed over the last quarter of the book.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, if are patient and curious, yes. If not, don't bother. ( )

Not a very enjoyable read, as it is somewhat dry and hard to maintain focus, yet for me it was still worth working through. It stayed in my mind after reading. Abe touches on aspects of humanity through choice and freedom. A small part mystery and a larger part science fiction prophecy with implications of choice. The redeeming factors for Inter Ice Age 4 are the search for a viable candidate for "the machine" and the projected progression (and implied retrogression) of the young Aquan back to land. The full circle nature of the ending made this novel worth 3 stars, while the rest was very distant and antiseptic. The main characters' individualistic drives are their strengths, as well as their flaws that initially lead them to growth and ultimately hasten their destruction. ( )

damned weird. Dry as the Sahara, yet, to me at least, strangely compelling. ( )