Sun 30 Jan 2022
Diary Review: PHILIP K. DICK – Martian Time-Slip.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy[10] Comments
PHILIP K. DICK – Martian Time-Slip. Ballantine U2191, paperback original; 1st printing, 1964. Cover art by Ralph Brillhart. Previously serialized in Worlds of Tomorrow, August/October/December 1963 as “All We Marsmen.” [See Comment #2.] Collected in Five Novels of the 1960s & 70s (The Library of America #183, 2008).
Mars in the early 21st century is not really an emigrant’s paradise: water and supplies from Earth are severely limited. The colonies barely self-supporting. The suicide of a black marketeer is the focus of events overwhelming a tightly-knit cast of characters, beset by their own problem of existence. “Death .. Sets a radiating process of action and emotion going…†(page 101).
Neurosis, and schizophrenia in particular, is the main theme, personified by technician Jack Bohlen, who find himself lost in an autistic boy’s time-warped world. Individual characters are developed individually, possible only in the closed world of Mars.
A great deal could be done in further development; for example, the society of the native Blackmen is barely touched upon. But it would add nothing to the plot, fitted together well.
Rating: ****
January 30th, 2022 at 8:09 pm
For what it’s worth, if back in 1967 you had asked me (and how hard it is to realize that that’s 55 years ago) who my favorite SF writer was, I would have said Philip K. Dick.
And I would have said THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE was my favorite SF novel. Strangely enough, though, I don’t believe I read anything by Dick since this on, other than a single short story (on my Kindle), and I’ve yet to watch the TV series based on HIGH CASTLE.
I’ve got to remedy that, and soon.
January 30th, 2022 at 11:52 pm
This serial was in Worlds of Tomorrow, not Galaxy.
Back in the sixties Dick was also my favorite SF writer but I was reading everything he published. A few years ago I reread most of his novels and thought he was even better than I remembered. Despite his success, he was often broke until Blade Runner and then he died an early death.
January 31st, 2022 at 9:22 am
Walker, You’re quite right about WoT, not Galaxy. I’ll fix that right now. And yes, Fate was quite cruel to Dick. I don’t remember if he ever saw the BLADE RUNNER film or not, but if he did, it was just barely before he died.
January 31st, 2022 at 9:58 am
I read TIME-SLIP back in the 70s and don’t remember a thing about it. On the other hand, parts of UBIK, GALACTIC POT HEALER, and DR FUTURITY call to me for re-reading.
January 31st, 2022 at 12:44 pm
What I have in mind is to go back to his earliest books published by Ace, some of them as halves of Ace Doubles. I recently came across a box I have filled with them, and even though the print is smaller than I remember, I’m going to tackle them as soon as I can.
January 31st, 2022 at 10:37 am
Dick would not have been surprised that the future turned out to be every bit as decrepit and paranoid as he imagined!
January 31st, 2022 at 3:21 pm
I was 14 when the book came out and was so offended by the profanity in the book that I took a pen and scratched out each and every swear. Can’t say I remember anything else about the book. It was clearly too advanced for my age.
January 31st, 2022 at 6:52 pm
Ha! I don’t remember anything like that about the book! In fact, to be honest, I don’t remember it very well at all. It’s been too long.
What I find amazing now is that so many novels have been published in snazzy hardcover collections by the Library of America, nine of them, if my count is right.
January 31st, 2022 at 7:44 pm
Dick was never my favorite, but within his lean fast reading titles there were always thick volumes worth of ideas he threw off casually that any other writer in the genre would have built whole books on.
February 1st, 2022 at 12:03 am
I recall reading that Dick originally wrote Martian Time Slip as a story set in the American Southwest–a “mainstream” novel. When it failed to sell, he rewrote it as sf… Of course I do not recall where I read that, probably in one of the PK Dick online zines. And I don’t believe everything I read.
In the late sixties, a friend mentioned Martian Time Slip as the kind of sf he didn’t like–he didn’t want to read about “someone’s wife having an affair with the plumber.” That is not exactly an accurate plot description, though the book does include the head of a plumber’s union, and someone does have an affair. Accurate or not, fifty years later I still remember that reaction to Martian Time Slip.