The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

PKD does it again. In a far future where humans are colonising the planets they need to be 'chemically encouraged' with the drug Can-D to maintain their lives in the boredom of life on the bleakest places imaginable. The principle drug involves sitting around a playing board called a Layout - think of Monopoly in 3D - and engaging with each other as the drug blanks their minds and takes them into the game.

Palmer Eldritch is a mystical figure who enters the story with a new drug called Chew-Z that he says eclipses anything else. Of course he wants to sell it because of course he does. But Chew-Z does not require a Layout, and the Layout marketers don't like it.

It sounds like a silly plot but PKD works his magic and we enter the typical PKD world where we question the difference between human sentience and whatever other alternatives are presented.

8/10

It really keeps getting better and better towards the end, if you're a bit lost at first, it all pays off

“Isn't a miserable reality better than the most interesting illusion?”

Wow. What a wild ride!
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A classic, mind-bending Dick that was probably the inspiration for Inception. It took me a few days to put the broken pieces of my brain back together after this one. Along with “Ubik”, “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” is now officially one of my favorite Dick novels. Man, that feeling after finishing the book, I was completely helpless. ⠀
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I'm not into religion and, in fact, I agree with what Fran Schein said to Barney: outdated junk. However, that mix of drugs and religion was masterfully executed. There were times when I thought “Oh, okay. We are going back to reality.” And then ... boom! “I guess not”. This is what I like the most about Dick's writing: nothing is what it seems, you can't tell the difference between what is real and what is not. Even in the end you are just a victim of ambiguity and subjective interpretations are left open. Michael Moorcock criticized the narrative as “incoherent” and, you know what, I agree. The plot can be incoherent, bumpy, erratic or whatever you want to call it but that's part of its beauty. ⠀
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Sometimes words are not enough. This is a masterpiece.

There were parts of this that I loved, and parts that I hated. It's interesting to read it in hindsight, as there are a lot of the ideas here in their embryonic form that later become PKD's hallmarks - the questions of identity, sanity, the face of god, and drug use that he later became known for are all here, but in such a way that seemed like he was still trying to figure out exactly what his thoughts on those topics were. I'd say this is a necessary read for people who are fans of PKD's work, but for those that are interest in just dabbling in his work, there are other books that would serve better.

Great ideas, but as usual for PKD, the writing can't support the grandiosity of his vision.

I'm a fan of Philip K. Dick, but I read his stuff years ago. I eagerly sought this book out because I heard from a couple of people that this one was one of his best. Maybe I merely disagree, maybe my affection for PKD has waned, maybe I need more now than he can give.

Dick is famous for his drug use and for taking speed before cranking out an entire novel in fifteen hours flat. This book, to me, feels like his most drug-influenced book. Not because of his crazy ideas, those are to be expected. It's because you get the feeling that he throws things into the story as they occur to him and made no effort to smooth things over in a subsequent draft. He switches gears on a whim and those whims come at the rate of about fifteen to twenty per scene.

If you're a big fan of PKD, go ahead and check this out. If not, you'll probably want to avoid it.