From a stock pulp science fiction beginning, this novel swirls away into a psychadelic exploration of marketing, metaphysics and xenology. It is so heavily layered that it multiple readings and much reflection are needed to optimise its value but even at a superficial plot level it is an astonishing work if one can cope with the confusion that it generates towards the end. ( )

This book keeps messing with my head. ( )

I know that everyone says that this is PKD's masterwork, and I can see why, it's a pretty brilliant set of ideas, and the writing is splendid. I, however, didn't enjoy reading it as much as other PD books I have read in the past. ( )

I assume that the shared escapism of Dick's interplanetary settlers was intended as a satire on PKD's contemporary suburbia, or perhaps a literalization of television's "vast wasteland"; but there is an eerie connection between their drug-induced state and the "consensual hallucination" (aka 'cyberspace') found in Wiliam Gibson's Neuromancer.

The religious aspect is inescapable, but he gives you fair warning in the title. As for the last couple of paragraphs -- okay, they're weird. I'll get back to you after I've thought about them a bit...

PKD's vision of the future presented in this novel is frighteningly prescient -- people escape the doldrums of their life through an artificial "second life," plastic surgery has been replaced by medical "evolution," and so on. The ending will throw any reader for a loop, and requires several rereadings until you even think you might understand what is happening. However, PKD's strength has never been a coherent plot conclusion, but the startling details of the worlds he creates. In this novel, he excels at what he does best. ( )

In typical Dick fashion, this novel begins benignly enough -- even if this particular one features several unusual elements, like a hallucinatory gum and future-seeing "precogs" -- but eventually devolves into a complex, reality-bending nightmare.

Where this book lost me was not the projection of alternate realities that come to light with the emergence of the Chew-Z (it makes more sense, actually, to just assume that NOTHING after that is real), but with the incorporation of overt religious themes to explain what's happening.

The unresolved ending is open to a great deal of interpretation, and it's the interpretative work that ultimately turns this book from a simple sci-fi novel into a dense puzzle of a text. Prepare to have your mind warped.

Very few Science Fiction authors manage to create memorable works that easily retain their relevance in the near and/or distant future. Phillip K. Dick is one of those talented few, and The 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is one of those works.

Dick's not-so-distant dystopian future is one where global warming is an adaptable but growing dillema, with the bulk of humanity virtually sealed away in air-conditioned office buildings and apartment complexes. The solution, space migration to nearby planets, is such a bleak and arduous task that 'settlers' need to be drafted. These off-world settlers often resort to drug-induced shared hallucination involving miniature recreations of life back on earth. Within this structure we find corporations employing psychics to predict future sales trends, upper class elitists physically evolving themselves into 'superior beings', naturally created drugs that allow users to connect on different plains of reality and traverse freely throughout space-time, to name a few. In the center of it all is the titular Palmer Eldritch, a powerful and mysterious businessman who has spent decades communing with alien races, and has returned with what he claims to be mankind's mental and spiritual salvation.

What would normally be a one-trick-pony for other authors becomes a multi-layered examination of everything from religion and philosophy to physical/mental evolution and individual freedom versus responsibility. Dick doesn't bother with simple 'Good Vs. Evil' conflict, but instead shows us that both possibilities are sides of the same coin, and simply asks us to call it in the air. Highly recommended for those who like to think about a book long after reading it. ( )

Link to a review on my personal website (might be in Swedish). ( )

A very rich novel in ideas. I'm keen to see someone try and make a film of it. An interesting and unnerving book. ( )

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/4... ( )

All Philip K. Dick novels are about the nature of reality, and I think this is his best. Completely mind-blowing yet still comprehensible, it has the incomparable PKD style that I find so hard to pin down - it's some combination of brevity, the unexpected and a sense of the alien, but there's still something entirely Other about the way he writes that I find unique. Hard to describe the plot (not much of a review, this), but as with anything PKD it's completely unpredictable. ( )

Like "Ubik," this one will have you in a spin. Who is Palmer Eldritch? And does even he know?

I love the aspects of escapism: the fact that people take drugs to actually commune together in a fantasy world of their own construction reminds me a lot of modern videogames, especially MMORPGs. I love the fact that escape from the Earth is considered terrible, like a cruel fate that awaits the unsuspecting. In all, I really like this book. ( )

One day I will have to return to this book and re-read it. Very slowly.

Despite its pre-1980s origins (would any modern sci-fi author consider flying cars anything but out-moded fantasy?) Dick presents a very up-to-date view of the future: unremittingly grim; global warming; corrupt in every detail. Spartan in detail, terse in style and with some larger-than-life but always realistic characters, this was a good read.

Despite this, there is no escaping that this novel is as mad as a box of frogs. Alien invasion? The nature of God? The ability of the human character to form bonds in the most hostile of situations? Perhaps just drug-induced fantasy ... who knows what this is really about? I would advise anyone to give it a try and if they figure it out to e-mail me the explanation. ( )

In the future, Earth has many colonies where life is hard, and there is nothing much but work. Except Can-D, the illegal drug that enables the colonists to experience shared virtual reality experiences, far removed from their drab lives. For the manufacturer of Can-D, times are good. Until that is, the entrepeneur Palmer Eldtritch returns from his trip outside the solar sytem, bringing with him Chew-Z, which gives anyone whatever they want. But Palmer Eldritch rules as God in everyone’s virtual world...

Out of all the many books I had to read I decided to read this one, because it was supposed to be one of the science fiction classics. It’s author, Phillip K. Dick, is one of the top science fiction authors of the 50’s and 60’s, the era when some commentators consider science fiction novels to be in their heyday. This book is one of his more famous books, so I was expected a lot from it. To tell you the truth I was very disappointed. It started off quite well, but quickly deteriorated becoming confusing and plain odd. It doesn’t surprise me that this book’s author was often into hallucinogenic drugs, the story here is very trippy, and while it has a couple of interesting ideas like shared illusory worlds, it didn’t hang together well. It was only about 150 pages but I get the impression if it had been a lot longer, I wouldn’t have finished it. ( )