Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World takes a tour through two parallel narratives, exploring consciousness, the subconscious and identity.A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim.This book is science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel.Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.