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Want to read a strangely imaginative science fiction book?
If so, maybe you should try reading Martian Time-Slip by Philip
K. Dick. It features a colony on Mars, schizophrenia, black market operations, autism, real estate schemes, strange visions of the future, adultery, guns, and...time slips. Martian Time-Slip was first published in 1964. It was written by Philip K. Dick, a highly respected science fiction writer who wrote over thirty books and many short stories. His fiction was the basis of several major movies. His book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was filmed as Blade Runner. His story We Can Remember it for You Wholesale was filmed as Total Recall. His story Minority Report was the basis for the movie of the same name directed by Steven Spielberg starring Tom Cruise. |
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Martian Time-Slip is
set in 1994 (!) on a fictional Mars - a more livable Mars than
reality. Its speculations are rooted in the early 1960s. This book, with few changes, could be
set in a mild weather Australian outback. Scarce water is run through canals. The land is arid, but small gardens can be grown. There are a few native, dark skinned Martians called Bleekman who are distantly related to homo sapiens. The UN controls Mars, and there are many national settlements. Life on Mars is tough, but jobs are hard to find on Earth. The colony is supposed to be self sufficient foodwise. Gourmet food items such smoked oysters or kangaroo tail soup are sold on the black market. |
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Jack Bohlen is a repairman. His wife, Silvia, is a depressed housewife. Jack's father Leo
is coming to Mars concerning land in the F.D.R. mountains. Health food salesmen and smuggler Norbert Steiner has an autistic son, Manfred, at Camp B-G. The Steiners live next door to the Bohlens. Arnie Kott is rich and powerful. When his supply of black market food delicacies from Norbert Steiner is interrupted, and he misses out on land deals in the F.D.R. mountains, Arnie gets mad. He feels that he deserved to know such information in advance. It's theorized that the autistic perceive the world at a slower speed, and schizophrenics have precognition. So Arnie decides to get himself a "crazy" person to provide him with predictions of the future. He gets mute ten year old Manfred Steiner released. |
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Jack Bohlen encountered Arnie
Kott when responding by 'copter to a Bleekman water emergency. Arnie acquires Jack's
service contract, and asks him to build a device to communicate with autistic boy
Manfred. Touching upon Manfred's strange reality, and repairing the public
school's teaching machines, strains Jack's mental stability. Jack suffered a
schizophrenic episode in the past. Jack's relationship with his wife Silvia and
his father Leo are severely complicated by working his with Arnie, Arnie's
mistress Doreen, and Manfred. Handsome Otto Zitte works for Norbert Steiner at a field in the F.D.R. mountains. Once he was a union repairman, but was caught for giving "socialized repair", bartering repairs for sexual favors. Young Manfred Steiner perceives his own bleak future. He draws decaying buildings. Hoping to step back in time, Arnie takes Manfred on a trek to the Bleekman sacred site of Dirty Knobby. But the boy distorts time in ways not quite what Arnie had in mind. |
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