The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

By Philip K. Dick

Book Overview

A Nebula Award-nominee from the Hugo Award-winning author of The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch explores the desolation of the minds, souls, and hearts of colonists on Mars in "a psychedelic odyssey of hallucinations-within-hallucinations from which no reader emerges unscathed" (Boston Globe).

In this mind-bending sci-fi classic, the harsh climate on Mars could make any colonist turn to drugs to escape a dead-end existence. Especially when the drug is Can-D, which translates its users into the idyllic world of a Barbie-esque character named Perky Pat. When the mysterious Palmer Eldritch arrives with a new drug called Chew-Z, he offers a more addictive experience, one that might bring the user closer to God. But in a world where everyone is tripping, no promises can be taken at face value.

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is one of Philip K. Dick's enduring classics, at once a deep character study, a dark mystery, and a tightrope walk of philosophical fiction along the edge of reality and illusion.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0547572557
• ISBN13: 9780547572550
• Release Date: October 2011
• Publisher: Mariner Books Classics
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Quintessential Dick

One of Dick's classics with virtually all his famous motifs and themes: multiple realities, chatty robots, a scheming woman, desperate colonists on Mars, gnosticism, the machine as an emblem of death, corporate and political intrigue, time travel, and pre-cognition. Industrialist and drug smuggler Leo Bulero has a problem. Mutilated cyborg Palmer Eldritch has returned unexpectedly after a ten year absence in space. Now he's threatening to undercut Bulero's business: providing a sort of commodified communion for colonists on Mars. With the elaborate playsets built around his Perky Pat dolls and with the aid of the narcotic Can-D, Bulero offers groups a pharmacological return to the Earth they've been exiled from and that is now burning up for unknown reasons. But Eldritch's Chew-Z offers a different, longer lasting trip, and one more solipistically seductive. But is Eldritch a man or the spearhead of an alien invasion? As with some of Dick's best work, the story feels oddly up to date whether it's the climatically changed Earth, the obsession with spotting commerical trends via pre-cognitives, a corrupt UN, or the talking suitcase that also happens to be a psychotherapist. Even if you're not quite sure what to make of the ending, this is one of Dick's very best novels.

God promises eternal life... Chew-Z gives it now!

Dick does dual-reality, as off-world colonies within their `P. P. Layouts' are addicted to an outlawed mind-altering drug called Can-D find themselves facing a new and improved mind altering drug that appears to also alter the fabrics of the real world. Leo Bulero and Barney Mayerson who run the Can-D market are trying to save company losses by exterminating the manufacturer of Chew-Z, Palmer Eldritch, who has just returned from a mysterious excursion to the outer limits of an unknown solar system. Which world is real and which is a fantasy and is Can-D in fact just a hallucination within the Chew-C hallucination, as everybody starts to experience parts of Eldritch's consciousness blend with their own hyper-reality, or have they all taken overdoses and are dead? Future alien phantasms come to tell them the story of what happened when Eldritch brought the alien Chew-Z back, nothing is coherent, mostly subliminally implanted, and yet users find themselves waking up back in their `P. P. Layouts' going about their own business trying to keep their off-world colonies working and waiting anxiously for their next hit. The Three Stigmata is a story about the enterprise of religion while at the same time drawing conclusions about the way our world is heading towards a matrix of similar experiences to be shared by all, modern popular television serials almost the result of this kind of prophetical statement, it is not Dick's most accurate hit when it comes to telling the future, but still has a lot of elements worth considering and mulling over, such as one's fall from clemency through drug use to UN officials making money behind the scenes, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is a short enough tale with a lot of interesting moral considerations that could be only found in the heady wine of a Philip K. Dick novel with comparisons drawn to his other (and better work) `A Scanner Darkly'. Orion SF Masterworks series rates this as #52 in its list. Philip K. Dick is often referred to as the best science-fiction writer who did not write science-fiction. You can imagine this work sitting easily between William Burroughs and Arthur C. Clarke. See you at "The Cosmic Puppets", next.

Everything I hoped for

This book was great. It has everything that I have come to expect from PKD, and even improved on some of his flaws. Historically, he has been berated by reviewers for lacking plot or characterization. Without losing the conceptual angle that is so brilliant in all of his work, this one focused more on story. The reader sees more of the main characters, as well. We learn all of their motivations and feelings. The author's characteristic wry humour is showcased in this book, too. For instance, he comments on American consumerism when he tells of the favourite past time of the Mars colonists who take the drug Can-D to experience a day in the life of a Barbie and Ken doll set. And he does it in a way that somehow makes sense in the story.Of course, stealing the spotlight is the real main character of the story, which is reality itself. You never know if what you are reading is really happening. The long-term effects of the drugs are unknown to the main characters, so when they experience getting lost in time or losing their identity, the reader gets similarly lost. As soon as you figure it out, you find that you are wrong.Some drugs are not so safe- even if used as directed.So, buy this book. Your brain will love you for it.

A head trip at times, but worth the effort

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.