Robbins has repeatedly been described as a counterculture novelist, connecting him, at least in the minds of some critics, with Richard Brautigan, author of A Confederage General from Big Sur (1964), Trout Fishing in America (1967), and In Watermelon Sugar (1968).

Like Brautigan, Robbins is a West Coast writer, and like him, Robbins is critical of the commercialism of American society. Both Robbins and Brautigan find spiritual direction outside of Christianity, Robbins in neo-paganism and Brautigan in Zen Buddhism. Ultimately, however, these two authors differ in orientation. Brautigan, in Trout Fishing in America reveals what he sees as the phony optimism of the American Dream; Robbins, on the other hand, rejects contemporary Amerian society as sick, but suggests a realignment of values as a cure.