The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

There has been enough refinement in recent science fiction to make the concepts of this book obsolete. I have nothing against Phillip K. Dick. Its just that the plot, descriptions of items and people won't make sense to the reader

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is a psychedelic-fueled science-fiction trip - complete with flashbacks and paranoia.
Dick paints a ghoulish portrait of the future and, at the same time, illuminates some of the terryfying trends of the present.
The first colonists of Mars chew Can-D to relieve the tedium.
But the freewheeling Palmer Eldritch hatches a plan to bring the hovelists a more cosmic hit - salvation in a can.
What ensues is a swirl of alternate realities and mind trips as the principal characters stumble in and out of the evil one's steely grip.

God perished for man, but the superior being wants us to perish for it.

Read it.
It's a gas.

Far off on inhospitable planetary colonies, volunteers "chosen" by the UN make their lives bearable by chewing a drug called Can-D, which temporarily transports them into the life of the doll Perky Pat. The drug becomes a kind of religion, with fanatic users arguing that they really are transported into Perky Pat's world and that the experience constitutes a kind of Holy communion. Meanwhile, Palmer Eldritch returns from his ten year journey bearing a new kind of drug-- Chew-Z-- a competitor to Can-D. He claims that while Can-D promises a new life Chew-Z can actually provide it. However, there seem to be more than a few catches...
A book that deals with Dick's perennial obsessions-- God, the nature of reality, and the experience of the Holy. The ending gets a little too tangled for this to be one of his best works.

"The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" by Philip K. Dick shows that writer at his finest. In the novel, Dick is able to offer an interesting plot and bend reality through an exciting story. The novel proves humorous as Dick is able to satirize corporations, artists and even summon up drugs that turn users into Barbie and Ken. It's a tour de force of the imagination and perhaps no other writer could put it all together as well as Dick does. The novel also touches on religion--an increasingly important subject to Dick in the latter stages of his career. Still, the novel does show some of Dick's flaws as a writer. The novel often slows down and the characters--besides Palmer Eldritch himself--are not exactly memorable. These are minor flaws and "Three Stigmata" remains as fresh today as it did when it was first published almost five decades ago. Recommended--and not a bad choice for readers looking for a first Philip K. Dick novel to read.

This is easily one of the weirdest books by PKD I have read - I've read 6 others and a collection of his short stories. If you've read anything by PKD, you will know this is saying a lot. Someone described this book as being the literary equivalent of a Dali painting and I agree 100%. Like most of PKD's work (and Dali's) the line between reality and irreality is extremely blurred. Also like Dali, there is a strong emphasis on the dream world, or artificial hypnogogic hallucinations. TTS starts of fairly easy to digest (for an SF novel) before becoming incredibly visionary, in a world plagued by global warming and what is probably overpopulation, with the people run by one government, the UN, who are trying to colonize the entire system. Notice I said easy to digest, not ordinary. PKD's worlds are never a utopia though, as evinced in this book by the deteriorating of life on Earth due to daily temperatures in the 180s and incredibly dreary life on colonized planets and moons. Our basis begins with the drug Can-D, which is in illegal use on the colonies, and seems to be the only thing preventing the colonists from dying of pure apathy. PKD is not one to give a direct explanation of anything, and it takes several pages to comprehend what this drug does.

Akin to most of his books in this period, PKD does not have one main character in his book. The main character is the reality he has created, and what better way to develop this character than through the use of several characters, each with a unique perspective, as opposed to the study of one particular character and life as seen through him or her. Of course, PKD isn't going to chose purely random people from his created environment, but ones that end up created a network of relationships throughout the story (think Pulp Fiction). We have a "Pre-Fash precog" working for P.P. Layouts who uses his precognitive powers to decide if a proposed manufacturers' products will become fashionable, and thus profitable to his company - Barney Mayerson. His boss, Leo Bulero, has undergone E Therapy - a vogue and elitist medical procedure that triggers the inert evolutionary capabilities of the human mind (don't tell Darwin). Mayerson's ex-wife is a potter now married to a salesman trying to sell her pots to Mayerson. There is Sam Regan, an ordinary colonist who gives the reader his first taste of Can-D, whom Mayerson encounters later in the book. There are two other women that Mayerson becomes involved with during the book; one his secretary whose precog powers threaten to outshine his own, and the other a Neo-Christian colonist who adds some theological insight to the story. And let's not forget our title character, Palmer Eldritch, an industrialist returning from the Prox system to push his new product - a legal and more powerful competition for Can-D: Chew-Z. But don't think that tells you anything about Eldritch.

What I like about PKD is that he can create these decidedly SF attributes of a society, but doesn't base his story on them. They are, in my opinion, more of an added bonus or, more commonly, a tool to develop his underlying philosophical ideas. This is what I think the best SF is made of. Of course, you will have always have your pulp SF that is really an adventure story that takes place in the future, or with aliens, or with robots. Don't read this book expecting an orthodox adventure or mystery with a completely tangible solution. A lot of PKD's book end with more of a catharsis for the characters than an ending to the storyline. Remember that the real main character is his world, or his altered reality, in many of his books, and to have a real ending would be to end with the society in a state of utopian equilibrium. PKD is generally not interested in this, although this book did seem to have a stronger "ending" than some of his others.

I think so far I've really told you more about PKD's style than his themes or philosophy. I'm really not sure how to do that, given that it is all very visceral, and it also took PKD the whole book to do so. The topics include the usual reality, plus realized heavens and hells, survival on a grand scale, and very importantly - what I can only think to describe as psychotheological thought. I won't tell you exactly what he says about these things, partly because, again, it's too visceral (he's really an artist not a scientist), and partly because this isn't SparkNotes and I'm not going to give away the whole book. For that reason I also don't want to delve into the plot, although I will say it is very fascinating, unique, and it puts your brain through a centrifuge inside your skull.

To give a starter to the plot that might entice you, I should give a vague description of what Can-D is supposed to do. P.P. Layouts makes miniature creations of what looks like an ordinary place on earth. The pre-fash precogs assist in selecting items to "min" (miniaturize) to act as accessories. What you get is some kind of replica of a part of Earth, which is legally distributed. Illegally they traffic Can-D which "translates" the characters onto the layout or really onto Earth or whatever (it's still up for debate among the characters within the book), as a convenient escape from the desolate colonies which they were forced by the UN to inhabit. Don't even ask what Chew-Z does. Try not to spend all your time understanding exactly how everything works. It's ridiculously complicated and it's really not the point anyway.

This novel has a religious basis. People have refered to this as an 'LSD', or 'wildly disorientating' novel, but that is simply not the case. I guess many people don't really understand what PKD is getting at. This book deals with God and Satan, as well as the phenomenon of the wine into blood thing, ontology etc. I'm not qualified to discuss these issues, but it must be said that they were of profound importance to PKD.
As a SF novel, 3 Stigmata is absolutely brilliant. The ideas in this book are enough to ensure its brilliance alone; like Perky Pat and Can-D (which I felt was sheer genius on PKD's part), the hovels on Mars, the extreme temperatures on Earth (although this gets little attention as the book progresses), E-therapy, and of course Palmer Eldritch himself and Chew-Z. The time-travelling as a result of Chew-Z provides some of the best moments in the book, and the ending, where Barney and Palmer Eldritch merge into one... well, this defies words.
If anything is flawed in this book I believe it is the characterisation. In PKD's best books you feel strong empathy for the characters, good and bad (a prime example of this is Ubik.) Aside from Palmer Eldritch himself, who is a brilliant character, the chars. are not PKD's best. Barney, Leo, Roni, Emily are half the people Glen Runciter and Joe Chip are.
This is not my favourite PKD novel, but that is due to the subject material, not the execution of the novel. '3 Stigmata' is the first really religious PKD novel, and it stands as a precursor to later works such as 'Valis' and the 'Divine Invasion.'

Philip K. Dick's THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH has been published in 1965 and belongs to the masterpieces written by the american author. As in MARTIAN TIME-SLIP, another PKD first-class book of the same period, Dick gives here a tremendous life to the inner visions of his characters.
It's the first time in his literary career that PKD develops religious issues in a book. Only maybe the 1957 EYE IN THE SKY, a book which could be considered as a prelude to THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH had such mystical considerations in its plot. In TSPE, Dick clearly suggests that the illusions provoked by the drugs are similar to the Holy Mysteries revealed during religious celebrations.
Important themes developed in a magistral manner, inner visions described in the unique PKD style and, more important, the ability to create a novel with three or four novelettes linked tightly together, everything indicates that Philip K. Dick, in 1965, is at the beginning of the sumptuous literary career he will develop from the mid-sixties until his death.
A book for your library.

Dick's central conceit--how do we know what is real and what is imagined?--is an interesting one, and the paranoia (?) it engenders in his protagonist makes for a thought-provoking read. But the use of mind-altering drugs and certain other elements of this novel make it seem dated. More to the point, most of the characters are not persuasively drawn; they are stilted caricatures more than real people. By comparison, Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven covers similar territory, but with more credible characters; as a result it is a much more forceful (and scarier) book.

Sporting one of the neatest titles in all of literature, SF or otherwise, this novel is considered one of Dick's handful of absolute masterpieces, written during his peak in the sixties. People who saw Blade Runner, went and read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and liked it enough to want to explore Dick further and came here (remove the seeing Blade Runner part and that's me) may find this book a decidely odd experience. Not outwardly psychedelic in nature but certainly dealing with altered states of conscious and the nature of reality versus our perception of it . . . if you find yourself reading it and think you're missing something, trust me you aren't alone. Probably no one other than Dick knew exactly everything that is going on in here but for the rest of us it's an interesting dilemma trying to discern his exact meaning, or our best interpretation. In the future, the earth is unbearably warm, people are being drafted to be sent to dreary colonies and Can-D is the drug of the moment, a substance which allows people to "translate" into layouts based on a doll called Perky Pat and basically experience a life that isn't theirs. Then Palmer Eldrich returns from outside the solar system with his new drug Chew-D which he claims will deliver immortality and show the nature of God . . . and then things get funny. Dick's vision of a future world is absolutely fascinating and for us low brow folks who don't get all the wacky symbolism, makes the book worth it simply for his depiction of an overheated earth, the boring spiritual desolation of the Mars colonies, the pre-cogs who determine the latest fashions, it all feels bleak and despairing but there's a sense of humor lurking in the wings and a vague feeling that something larger is going on. It starts to lose coherency toward the end as the reader begins to question reality, especially what is the nature of Palmer Eldrich (great name, by the way) and eventually you find your head starting to hurt just a bit. And it's not that bad a feeling, as it turns out. PKD books are more experienced than described and nothing here is going to really be able to convey the texture of his novels, you just have to read it for yourself. It's not perfect but it's both thought provoking and entertaining on vastly different levels and so in that sense comes highly recommended.

A lot of sci-fi fans know how great a writer Dick was, but this particular book is a masterpiece of humor and vision. I just can't get over how wild Dick's imagination was and how he could so vividly transfer those ideas to paper. It was like being on a freaky acid trip reading this book and visualizing the story. One minute, I was laughing out loud, the next I was in rapture, deep in mental transport, contemplating the nature of divine things. Highly recommended for those that like "out-there" fiction.

This is purported to be PK Dick's first novel after he gave up drugs. Now for anyone who has read any of his earlier books, you know that they some- times get lost in his dreamstates. This one seems to get lost in his new reality of sobriety.

Like all his major works, PKD asks, "What is reality? Who is Gd? What does he/she want of us?" Once again our characters are living in a dystopia where drugs are used to keep the citizens happy. Only this time the dystopia is on Mars, Venus and six of the moons of the other planets. Because the lives the colonists lead are so dreadful, they are allowed to use an illegal drug "Can-D" to 'translate' to another plain of existence.

Now an entrepreneur named Palmer Eldritch has returned from a ten year trip to Proxima Centuri, with a new drug that's called "Chew-Z". I won't go through any of the plot, because like all of PKDs novels, they tend to get preachy and muddled, especially in the middle. Though this is one of his more 'linear' stories, he can't help but do some timeline jumping around just to make it less concrete.

At least from my reading, it seems like the theory of the story is that drugs cannot bring you closer to Gd, they can only make you feel like you are in a better world. But, like all drugs, it's only good to begin with and then you need to take more and more just to be 'normal'. Drugs are not the answer, in most cases its' the question.

The one thing that Dick never explains, and again this isn't unusual of him, is why is the earth heating up? Has the ozone layer broken down completely and therefore, people go to the arctic and antarctic to vacation at 'cool' resorts. It's sad when he throws out ideas and problem answers, without ever explaining the problems himself.

If you like mind-bending plots and twists, alternate realities, space travel, aliens, pre- or post-apocalyptic themes, and refreshing originality, then you HAVE to read this book. You will love this story. Philip Dick is a sci-fi genius. That's a known fact. While reading this book, you will discover how many other stories this one story inspired. And you will most likely go back to read it again.

Another quirky, clever, emotional ride for over-active minds.....shooting off on many possibilities and plans, but centering around the usual Dickian themes of drug translation, addiction/dependence and the meaning behind life.

It's an impressive read as ever, with the possibilities it presents for the characters within the scenarios.....how much do they know themselves? They don't seem to know until they are presented with their realities.....Palmer Eldritch....an enigma....another simple but advanced lifeform permeating itself through false realities....the hollowness of worlds....the need for a shared reality presents itself...through the hand, the teeth, the eyes... Identity is transcended by this strange lifeform......

Its ideas and its characters grow weaker, but this work is still significant food-thought to chew on, not obvious to digest but it is digestable....and bleak.

I've read 90% of what PK Dick wrote, and this is in the top 3, if not #1. This fun nightmare is so wonderfully strange and brilliant, it embodies his paranoias and fanatsies more densely than his other books. When people ask me what its about, I usually spend 10 minutes on what happens in just the first 50 pages. Put down your drugs, dump your drink in the sink, stop watching television. This is far better. And, like the users of Chew-Z, YOU WILL NEVER RECOVER.

I really enjoyed reading Philip K Dick's short stories and even wrote an article for an ezine, outlining his dystopian world and the recurring motifs of his hyper active mind. The next stop was reading the much-spoken about full-length novels. With a choice between Valis, UBIK and The Stigmata ..., I probably chose the least fascinating. The storyline and imagination in this book is all right and the book looks very promising at the start. But soon enough it becomes complex with the characters merging into one another, with places and incidents overlapping, the line between the past, present and future blurring, religious themes and concepts of "atonement" and "who am I" taking over. Between interstellar worlds and the pertinent question of who is God and what is evil, Dick's work becomes pyschedelic and if you are not as drugged as the characters in this book, there drug-induced world becomes all the more alient to the average reader. This book may have merit from academic research perspective, and can be read from the perspective of digging deep and wide to understand the psyche of Philip K Dick, but it is not an entertainer. It is not an easy read and gets all the more complex towards the end. It may be a critic's delight, but an average readers nightmare of a book. Read it only if you are a big Philip K Dick fan, are able to hallucinate, or have an academic interest in this work.

Philip K. Dick is probably my favorite author at the time, and it is probably because of this novel. I disliked the first novel of his that I read and I wrote PKD off after that experience. It was months before I gave him another shot. I already had this book so I felt obligated to read it. "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" was instantly captivating and I was converted into a PKD fan. I am unable to articulate why I enjoyed this book so much; I think it is something you just have to experience for yourself. Dick is able to create worlds so easily and then bring them crashing down around his characters. If you have already written PKD off like I did, give this novel a shot. It's well worth it.

Set in a science-fiction genre the story teller (PKD) has developed the uncanny ability here to insert a small but important wedge into the consciouness of the reader which will lead the reader to uncontrollably question their reality in a way previously only obtained through mind-altering practices of meditation or certain types of drugs. Will the reader be better off after such an encounter with PKD's craft? Only time will tell.

I first read this book when I was about 14. I've read it, lent it, lost it, bought it, worn it out and most of all been astonished at the brilliance of PKD's imagination. Now I have to buy it again. I preferred the original paperback cover, though. A really cool depiction of Palmer Eldritch reaching out towards you with a metal hand and that eerie metal eye of his. Buy it, you won't regret it!

I have liked the previous things I have read by Dick. These books include “The Man in the High Castle,” “Ubik,” and “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”. All of them were marvels of world building and storytelling. They were also fun mind-trips that set your thoughts of the future racing.

That said, I never really got into “Three Stigmata”. I’m not sure what it was. Maybe it was me first realizing the sexism in the book, where women are good pretty much for one thing. But I can let that pass. People still smoked everywhere in the book too. There’s a planet to moon videophone call that needs an operator to set up. I get that fiction is as much about the time it is written as it is about the time it is supposed to portray.
Maybe it was the plot, based on the drugs that people use to escape reality. Not sure..

Wait a minute. I know what it was. It was the ending, It didn’t really resolve for me and I have no idea what was going on. The book got too far wound up with its competing realities and it never really unwound, even reading slowly and rereading.

You, however, may like it. Clearly you are smarter than I am.

I wasnt really into Sci Fi books until my co worker at my job recommended clans of the alphane moon. Another Dick Novel. Ive read three of his novels and this is the best so far. Couldnt keep it down. Its a trip how he incorporates religion, the future and his ever so clever twists and turns. this book is weird at first but its totally worth buying,or checking out at your local library.

LONG LIVE PDK

Philip K. Dick was a strange one, for sure. I've read a number of his novels and short stories, but can't say I'm a huge fan of the man. I often find that when I finish the book I'm still not sure if I enjoyed it. This book ranks among those.

In the future, with Earth slowing heating up to a point where humankind might not be able to survive, mankind is being sometimes forcibly sent out to colonize other planets. The wealthy Palmer Eldritch left Earth a decade before to find another race among the stars and has recently returned only to crash land. Is it really Eldritch who was recovered? Or is it something greater or perhaps just evil.

Lots of philosophy and discussion of ethics thrown in, along with some humor and a bit of drug use. In other words, your typical PKD novel.

This is one of PKD's better books - and in true PKD fashion, it's over before you know it.

The other reviews delve into the subject and presentation, so I will share something that is both not in the book itself and highly valuable:

Purchase "Four Novels from the 1960's." This book is right in the middle - so you will not know when the story ends. I truly believe the best way to read this book is to not know the end is coming - because it will hit you the hardest.

"Four Novels" also has "The Man in the High Castle," "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," and "Ubik." All four stories are wonderful.

This is one of my favorites by PKD. Very similar elements to a lot of his other work, but, with Three Stigmata, I feel that he was far more successful in wrapping everything together into a cohesive whole than with some other PKD books. The actual three stigmata of Eldritch become downright eerie when they start manifesting themselves in this book.... very twisted and fully image inducing.

A darkly comic, often disturbing journey of self discovery where PKD cleverly gives the reader a literary acid trip. A book which stirs the reader to question the world in which we all live. Maybe, just maybe, things are not quite what they seem! This story haunts you after you read it - when PKD wrote this book he uncovered dark meditations on life which are truly unsettling but (as always with PKD) extremely funny. One of his best!

It's "about" nearly everything, (but mostly the eucharist, guilt, drugs, reality, virtual reality, entropy, redemption and the very human hope that Happiness (or God) can be found in a syringe, bottle or pill). In the hands of any other writer this book would simply collapse under its own weight, but Dick makes it seem light, and quite entertaining. I kept returning to this novel as the implications of each idea began to grow in my mind.

Barney Mayerson is a precog, who can see possible versions of the future. In his job for P.P. Layouts, he divines what doll house furniture will become popular. But these are no ordinary doll houses. On Mars, Earth expatriates take Can-D, a hallucinogen that allows them to transport into their doll houses--in the layouts that they have purchased--back on Earth. Or at least they perceive themselves back on earth.

Chew-Z is developed by a competitor to P.P. Layouts, and the competitor's president tries to woo Barney into his company. But it's unclear whether it's really a company or something else, as Barney starts to use both drugs, and what is real and what is a hallucination becomes muddled.

This is another wild ride through the trippy brain of Philip K. Dick. It is a very good novel. It's fascinating. It's weird. Good read.

I have to admit, this is not my favorite Dick novel. It deals with a familiar theme--the nature of reality--but here it seems so overdone as to be almost a parody. It's not bad, but it didn't grip me as much as most. You gotta love the "Barbie and Ken" scenes, though...

While prose is not as compact as poetry, a question I asked myself while reading The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich was "What could have been deleted from this book without harm?" Another question perhaps harder to justify - perhaps because it gives the reviewer too much degrees of freedom - is "What could have been added to improve this book?"

Personally while I have great respect for Phillip K. Dick, I found this book had a lot of soft stone that should have been removed to reveal a "sculpture" worth seeing. Perhaps if one regards the book as an incoherent dream of some fictional insane mind - it makes some sense.

I think Dick wrote some great works, but l consider the time I spent reading this story to be a waste. In some sense it reminds me of some of the books by George R R Martin in the Game of Thrones Series (though Dick does attempt to reach something deeper it seems to me). This book and perhaps all of those by Martin suffer from being entertaining over a few pages and pointless over many. The well-written scenes end up leading to nothing more than a collection of well-written scenes that promise something greater than the sum of its parts but does deliver.

I have read this seminal Philip K. Dick novel in the late 60's and couldn't resist the opportunity to re-read it all these years later. I love this book as I do all of Mr. Dick's work and it was as enjoyable a read this time as it was the first time. This from someone who never reads books or views films more than once as a matter of principle.

This is the first book by Philip K. Dick that I have read, and I didn't really know what to think of it. It was engaging, but it was certainly of its time - the female characters are extremely weak, lazy, or whiny. I was frequently distracted by the implausibility of many of the ideas, and overall I found the discussion of the philosophical ideas a little heavy handed. That said, I'm happy that I read it, but I don't know that PKD is going to rank among my favorite authors any time soon.

There are many great descriptions of this book's narrative in other reviews below- so I won't repeat what has already been well-explained. However, I would like to add why I think this is such a great book.

(NOTE: I am NOT about to give anything away)

In this book PKD posits the idea that if we could choose our own afterlife/paradise/eternity, then we would all choose the SAME thing/event/idea. Of course, to know what THAT "thing" is, then you will have to read the book. ... ENJOY !... it is really, really great - I have read it three times...

This book is like being somewhere in between a prophetic dream and a bad drug trip. There's too much chaos involved in the plot for me to give this book 5 stars, but there's are enough creative ideas that will give the reader something to ponder. The idea of advanced life on Mars is also kind of quaint but bothersome, but Dick couldn't have known that until Mariner 4's photographs one year later.

A classic work of sci-fi by the master Philip K. Dick. Dick is the master of warping time, perception, and reality to intrigue, entertain, and confuse the reader. I highly recommend this book to any fan of Philip K. Dick, or of science fiction in general. A must read.

This was the first book by Dick that I have read, I am reading more! , but it just about blew me away. The whole story is just amazing. He spends lots of time setting up the characters which gives that extra insight to how they may feel and see things. The whole way I was guessing an outcome of the ending, but there was no way I could look that deep. He drags you through many realizations and keeps you thinking and guessing the whole time. WONDERFUL ending. This is a must read book.

While this is not usually this first book mentioned when the name Philp K. Dick comes up, it is certainly one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written. This book delves deeply into the psychological paranoias of the future. Genius bizarre psychedelia wraps its arms around you and sucks you in. I've heard this is the only book the author couldn't go back and read because it disturbed him so much. I'll read it enought times for everyone

This was my first encounter with Philip K. Dick, the prolific sci-fi writer. His writing is confident, straightforward, and manages to make the distant future recognizable and believable. I enjoyed the plot - it wove together a number of separate storylines and included a bit of mystery - but felt that at the end of the book the author was trying too hard to say "something important" about the nature of reality and eternity. The story wasn't strong enough to carry weighty philosophical ideas; it began to seem a bit far-fetched, but it did make me think.

One of his best. PKD was huge in Europe in the 70's,while barely known in the US. He was star status there. My brother, who has lived in France for 40 years, corresponded with him and met him in the early '70s. According to PKD, "Valis" was actually a more-or-less true story. He said that one day he woke up and saw ancient Rome overlaying his life in Orange Co., CA. Also said that he wrote most of his books in 1 sitting, as much as 3 days straight without sleep. Speed, of course, was involved. That's the reason that I find most of his books are weak in the end. Still, what a classic mind. Too bad he never got the recognition here that he deserved.

A really remarkable concept, and brilliant execution. The story really flows off the pages and into the reader's head with exactitude and poignancy. One of my favorite books of recent, and an easy read, no less.

One of the few science fiction books that gave me something to think about once I'd finished it. The drug Chew-Z catapults the user into a bizarre universe dominated by the evil Palmer Eldritch, the man who discovered it. But is it really Palmer Eldritch who is in control? If not, who or what is? And is it really all that evil? Either way, an enigma worth puzzling over.

PKD had a unique writing style that reaches deep into your mind and makes you bond with his characters. He does it quickly and in many cases right at the very first paragraph.
I read this book some ten years ago and yet the story stays with me...even with today's distractions (Internet for instance!)bombarding my fading memory.
If you get a chance, read his works and you will soon thirst for more! It's a fact.

A great novel is kind of like a knockout cocktail - it takes just the right mix to make it work out. Unfortunately, for all it's grand ideas, Philip K. Dick's "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" just doesn't have the recipe down. There's far too much Christian theology and not enough philosophy for my taste.

The book contains an embarassment of riches in terms of ideas floating around in this heady brew. However, especially in the last quarter of the book, all of these ideas are seen through an overtly Christian prism. For example, the identity of Palmer Eldritch: is he a god, The God or some kind of God viz. Christianity. Only the latter is really explored. Nothing about what it might mean to be a god, the responsability of a god to mankind, etc.

Moreover, characters, some of whom are not overtly followers of Church dotrine, debate the bizarre events as if they were Cardinals with a lifetime of diocese experiance. In particular, Anne Hathaway is a self-professed missionary why tries to convert Barney, yet he's drawn to her? Why? She seems like a smarmy schoolgirl. She may be sexy, but who could deal with her self-righteousness? This just doesn't ring true to me, nor does it make much sense.

When faced with the inneffable, why would we revert to ideas that were worn out 1,000 years ago? Transsubstantiation!? Please! No one's taken that seriously since Martin Luther! Why would one turn to ideas the Church fathers argued over in order to justify their wholey man-made religion in order to make sense of psychadelic experiance? The end result just seems to be an intellectual game of twister in order to justify some kind of Christian belief. Well, if it takes such contortions to make it work, you'd better find a spiritual chiropractor because this is just silly.

Still, the book retains value for the simple fact that Dick is juggling so many interesting ideas. If only he'd let us see them through a multitude of view points instead of just the Christian one.

If you are new to PKD, start with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I would follow that up with Ubik (my favorite so far), and Radio Free Albemuth.

Palmer Eldritch was really weird (which I like), but the ending didn't tie it together as well as some of his best works did.