Martian Time-Slip
by Philip K. Dick
science fiction
copyright 1964
read in May 2013
rated 6/10: read to pass the time
This is the second "great novel" in a massive volume of PKD stories. (PKD stories ?! Well, it doesn't sound quite right to say, Dick stories...)
Stigmata was confusing but fun... I think. Time-Slip is not quite as confusing, not quite as much fun.
Life on Mars has, it seems, improved slightly. Stigmata offered a hopeless life of scrabbling to survive, of using drugs to escape the reality of a harsh, dry, dusty environment. Time-Slip offers a harsh world where all the minor evils of Earth have been transferred to the new planet.
Still, the hero gets on with his life.
It's all a bit... everyday. Helicopters rather than cars. Water via canals rather than by pipe. An indigenous population forced to the lowest rung of society as they gradually die out. And mental illness as the norm. Just minor changes from life as we know it.
The science in most SF is "hard" science. In the days when psychiatry was a new but developing science, Dick used it as the central theme for his story. A "soft"science but good science fiction !
And in those days before science pooh-poohed the idea, Dick allows the mind to control reality.
Okay, it takes a while to get there, but I think that's what happened...
After spending most of the book getting there, we finally discover that the autistic boy is able -- through the power of his mind -- to control reality. And to control time. The discovery was a bit abrupt, perhaps I just missed some of the clues along the way.
The bad guy tries to change time and gains nothing. The hero gets a mystic token which he never uses, he learns some valuable personal lessons and survives, otherwise unscathed. The autistic boy pops up inexplicably so that we know that he, at least, has achieved what he wanted from his mental abilities.
A confusing ending, but happy.
A readable book, but not great.
I enjoyed it, but will probably not read the remaining three "great novels" in this PKD omnibus.
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