#54

Every now and again I likes me some Dick, and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch was some of the best Dick I ever had. Of course Dick is an acquired taste, what with the never quite knowing whether you're in real reality or a variety of the pseudo-, and here there are the usual pre-cogs and the layers and levels and quadrillion associated narrative complications associated with such.

Dudes who have been drafted by the UN to colonize Mars eat a drug called Can-D in order to escape into an artificial toy world, inhabiting briefly but realistically the lives of a doll named Perky Pat* and her companion on a miniature layout. Along comes a drug called Chew-Z which takes things to a whole other level, and Bernie Mayerson can't figure out if Chew-Z is the second coming of God or an alien invasion. Neither can the reader, but who cares? It's damn good Dick.

*I swear Perky Pat was in at least one Dick story I read before.