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lbrunner.net · @lbrunner.net@bridge.neodb.net

Rated The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch 6/10

Very odd book, basically separated in 3 parts (all unequal in length and "quality"): the setting (~30-50%); drugs, hallucinations and other "what is real", typical PKD stuff (~20-30%); religion (the rest).



It's very similar to most PKD books: very male-gazey (15yo boy energy yo), existentialism, drugs, questioning reality, etc. It has the same issues as other books (e.g. objectifying women, characters making seemingly completely irrational decisions, e.g. <spoiler>Barney just leaving his job to "atone" and going to Mars, completely fucking his life for... not risking his life to save his boss??</spoiler>) but also introduce something I hadn't yet seen in other PKD books: religion and how it ties to how we perceive reality.



Overall, I don't massively recommend this book, I think Ubik or A Scanner Darkly does a much better job on very similar topics.

#book

Published 2019-11-06 12:06 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere