Martian Time-Slip (GollanczF.)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
One of the stand-out novels in Philip K. Dick's career of wildly reality-bending SF, Martian Time- Slip (1964) convinces by placing its insanities in a quiet, even domestic context. Here colonised Mars has a flavour of grubby, struggling 1950s suburbia, where money (not to mention water) is in short supply, jobs are insecure, the humour's mostly black, and small tragedies like one minor character's suicide cause far-ranging ripples. The good old human comedy of lies, power-play, real-estate deals and extramarital naughtiness continues as ever--all distorted by the real SF factor, an autistic child's dislocated sense of time. In one memorable scene he sketches the glorious new Martian housing project just being planned ... but as it will look a century later, a decayed slum. So powerful are this boy's visions of nightmare futures that they suck in other people and infect them with sick images of the "gubbish worm", an appalling symbol of entropy. Gubbish devours beauty and reduces language itself to meaningless gubble-gubble. The very human and occasionally even likeable villain Arnie Kott plans to exploit this time-twisting ability, whereupon things become very tangled indeed. Another worthy reissue in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, which has yet to pick a single dud. --David Langford
Book Description
Philip K. Dick is the bestselling author of MINORITY REPORT and BLADE RUNNER
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Madness on Mars,
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This review is from: Martian Time-Slip (S.F. MASTERWORKS) (Paperback)
Arnie Kott (the head of the plumbing union), Jack Bohlen (the schizoid repairman), Manfred (the autistic child), Norbert Steiner (the black market goodies man), and Doreen (Arnie's mistress) are just some of the people who inhabit PKD's dystopian vision of Mars, where economic stagnation is complemented by the spiritual stagnation of the residents, who shun and marginalize the native population - the Bleekmen.Martian time - slip is relatively slow moving compared to 'Ubik' for example, but there is perhaps more rich symbolism here as PKD explores the issue of the fallen state of schizophrenia in his own inimitable fashion. Overall the tone of the novel is one of reflection and comprehension, even sadness at times. I particularly enjoyed Jacks encounter with the malfunctioning teaching machines (Kindly Dad is especially humorous). This moment is full of humour and fear and is typical PKD. The 'Jack' character is complicated and full of pathos having more in common with the autistic Manfred (gubble, gubble) at times as he attempts to contain the madness inside himself. On the downside is that PKD employs some dubious 'Sci-fi' ideas, including the canal-network (in which futuristic Mars is criss-crossed with a network of water-bearing canals), and the slow motion chamber (which is supposed to help the autistic Manfred, who 'only' suffers from an accelerated sense of time). The existence of highly evolved life on Mars could also be criticised, but one should not let these minor points stop you enjoying one of PKD's best works.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quiet and compelling work,
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This review is from: Martian Time-Slip (S.F. MASTERWORKS) (Paperback)
Those who prefer the pulpier, pacier Dick novels, and I am one of those, might find Martian Time Slip slow and unexciting on a first read. Infact first time through it made no impression at all. I returned to it later though, on the back of having read most of PKD's output, and found a compelling novel hidden beneath the slightly bland veneer. The main fascination of the book is that it deals with at novel length, a theme that would consistently recur throughout Dick's later fiction - that of the 'tomb world' - a fallen state, entered into through depression, illness (autism in this novel) or some form of mental shock, in which human contact and empathy is no longer possible. In later works, including the exceptional Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldtritch and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the tomb world recurs as just one theme or plot strand amongst many. Here it expands to fill the whole.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Far Reaching Mind Of Manfred Steiner, A Must Buy!,
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This review is from: Martian Time-Slip (S.F. MASTERWORKS) (Paperback)
The book offers a more placid side to Dick's writing, it is no where near as dark as some of his some of his more famous novels such as A Scanner Darkly (a must read). and more accessible than than his later novels (Valis). Some may find this book slow of the mark but if you stick with it, the novel becomes gripping and the reader is soon lost into the throws of ever distorted time sense in the mind of Jack Bohlen. Unusual for Dick, mind bending drugs have no feature in this novel. Instead Dick uses the Schizophrenic boy Manfred Steiner, whose distorted time sense means he can see far and wide into the future as his medium for the chaos that erupts around the life of the key characters. Jack Bohlen was just an ordinary repairman on Mars until a unpleasant encounter with the head of the plumbers union Arnie Kott leads them both down a dark road of despair and desperation. Arnie wants to exploit the child Manfred possible time seeing ability, but to do this jack has to build a machine to communicate with the child. Jack now has a very high paying job but will the close proximity with this withdrawn kid spark off a second Schizophrenic episode. A amazing novel one of dicks best, easy to read and yet will have the readers mind doing loops as they try to untangle the martian time slip. A must have in any Phillip K Dick Collection.
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