Actually I ran across this excellent novel as an Amazon.com recommendation and I am very glad I clicked on the link to add it to my shopping cart. I managed to to finish it a couple nights ago. There were a few moments that felt formulaic, but that may have simply been a product of the fact that I have been reading contemporary fantasy novels for awhile now but haven't read this one even though it was written back in the late 80s so it may not have been when it came out. Much of what I have read has been published well after that.
There were several things in the novel that spoke to me, including the lyrics to one of the songs that the main character writes:

Drinking coffee,

Have to stay awake and think of you.

Aching awfully,

Knowing my perceptions aren't true.

If you were what I've made you

Not as your acts betrayed you

How could I keep away?

But things will lead me on.

A word, and then it's gone.

What lives here, and what's stray?

Tell me, please, what's signal and what's noise?

Interference

Or is that the broadcast that I've got?

Your appearance

Renders me incapable of thought.

Here's your voice on the phone.

Your sweet and sullen tone,

What am I to believe?

Did you blow me a kiss

Or was that just tape hiss?

When I hang up, will you grieve?

Have pity, now, what's signal and what's noise?

Here's your photo,

I found it cleaning out my bottom drawer.

When you wrote, oh,

I couldn't keep from wondering what for.

Through the gray, through the grain,

A picture taken in the rain,

That doesn't show your face.

Connected dots don't make a line,

You confuse me every time,

Confusion has its place,

But just this once, what's signal and what's noise?

trying to seperate signal and line noise can definitely be considered one of the major themes of my life. Mixed signals and confusion abound, difficult or nonexistant communication has plagued most if not all of the relationships in my life.

Is there really a point to this post? Even I'm not sure *evilgrin*