The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (S.F. MASTERWORKS): Philip K. Dick

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Guardian Staff (2002-05-15). "China Miéville's top 10 weird fiction books". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 2019-09-05.

A difficult gift | Books | The Guardian

Six colonists on Mars, Sam Regan, Tod Morris, Norman Schein and their wives, have an experience with Can-D. The drug allows them to enter the materialistic culture of Earth for short periods of time, although there is some disagreement about whether they are actually on Earth or are just having a hypnogogic or hallucinatory experience. Sam is having an affair with Fran Schein during their Can-D translations, which is interrupted when the other four take the drug, since everyone present occupies the same persona. IV. Hunca moved a step closer to the layout. "The Chinese," she breathed, unable to contain her excitement any longer as she gazed at the doll's-house. Her ample breasts rose and fell under the thin synthasilk sweater. "I know you meet them all the time. You must have some." This is largely because the characters are taking hallucinogenic drugs, either on Earth or Mars, or in transit between the two planets. Under the guise of a reporter, Bulero travels to Eldritch's estate on the Moon, where Eldritch holds a press conference. Bulero is kidnapped and forced to take Chew-Z intravenously. He enters a psychic netherworld over which both he and Eldritch seemingly have some control. After wrangling about business with Eldritch, Bulero travels to what appears to be Earth at some time in the not-too-distant future. Evolved humans identify him as a ghost and show him a monument to himself commemorating his role in the death of Eldritch, an "enemy of the Sol System". Joe: Far out, man. I dug a lot of the stuff going on at the periphery of this novel. Flying taxi cabs and a personal computer that fits into a suitcase. Some of it was hard to picture, you know, like radical gene therapy treatment that gives people bubble heads, but I like what PKD is saying about higher consciousness in the 21st century being available only to the super-rich.I've little more to say. This book is... unknowable as Eldritch itself. Instead of trying to make sense of the book, I will instead give you advice.

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Goodreads

He himself was a believer; he affirmed the miracle of translation—the near-sacred moment in which the miniature artifacts of the layout no longer merely represented Earth but became Earth. And he and the others, joined together in the fusion of doll-inhabitation by means of the Can-D, were transported outside of time and local space. Many of the colonists were as yet unbelievers; to them the layouts were merely symbols of a world which none of them could any longer experience. But, one by one, the unbelievers came around.” Escapism: Life on Mars is so soul-crushing the colonists lose themselves in simulacra of real life, acted out via a parody of Barbie dolls and copious amounts of drugs.About halfway through the book, characters start to see Eldritch in the flesh. He is recognizable by his titular traits: a mechanical arm, a mouth full of metal teeth, and cybernetic eyes. One could go down a whole ’nother path about how the melding of human and robot is inherently creepy – something that also preoccupied George Lucas in his early “Star Wars” drafts, notably when inventing Darth Vader – although this point of view was more common in old SF than it is today. The difference between Can-D and Chew-Z is that the areas you go when you hallucinate on Chew-Z can be controlled, e.g., by Palmer Eldritch (although there's a suggestion that they might be controlled by the humanoid inhabitants on Prox, the Proxers [a rumour which the novel later describes as "trash"]). Leo Bulero goes to assassinate Eldritch, but is turned away from his hospital room by Frank Santina, the head of the U.N. legal division, and Zoe Eldritch. So he calls Felix Blau, the chief of a private police organization, and requests help getting to Eldritch. Felix informs him that Chew-Z Manufacturing is setting up a rival drug distribution operation and hiring artists to create layouts.

Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch’ (1965) among PKD’s ‘Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch’ (1965) among PKD’s

The plot takes place variously on Earth and on Mars, and in the imagination of its characters. For the last 30% of the novel, it's often difficult to understand where it is taking place.Joe: I felt my brain expanding a bit while reading this, which is what I'd hoped for. I hope I don't turn into a bubblehead, but I liked how PKD begins to question the structure of reality. The reader is never entirely sure what is going on once the drug fueled trips begin and I liked that! Without going into the synopsis in any detail, this novel features a drug induced virtual reality, initially with the aid of Ken and Barbie-like dolls in their nicely furnished dollhouse. The VR sessions are called "translations", a very popular past time in the hellish Mars colony. The drug is caled Can-D, later on a new type of drug called Chew-Z comes on the market and immediately make the Can-D drug obsolete by doing away with the dolls and other paraphernalia and allowing any fantasy world to be created by the user. Of course this being a PKD novel things are never what they seem. Deducing that the U.N. is siding with Eldritch, Leo uses Roni’s precognetic ability to trace him to Veteran’s hospital on Ganymede, where he is convalescing under a pseudonym. Roni also foresees that Leo will be arraigned for Eldrich’s murder, and threatens to go to the U.N. with that knowledge. III. There are multiple pieces of evidence to think that Barney never recovers from his 1st Chew-Z experience: This novel, in my opinion, posits that the essential state of humanity is eternal isolation. We can never find solace in each other. Each person is utterly alone, with no escape. None are capable of understanding others, nor of being understood ourselves.

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (Literature) - TV Tropes The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (Literature) - TV Tropes

But there’s little doubt that PKD is upping the chill factor by suggesting that the god of humanity isn’t human (or the template for humans), but rather a “creature” that has lost some of its humanity.Drug of choice for those colonists on Mars and other remote planets, a drug enabling its chewers to inhabit the same body and mind-stream and then travel together to an appealing illusory reality in another dimension.