Customer Reviews

Martian Time-Slip and The Golden Man

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This was my first read of a Philip K. Dick book. Dick was a prolific writer of Science Fiction writing 30+ books over his life.

This book (Martian Time-Slip) reminded me of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles in the way human society on Mars carried on its same practices of bigotry, greed, betrayal and other human foibles. Another grand experiment seemingly doomed.

Where this book really shined was in Dick's description of a schizophrenic and what goes on in their mind. Dick used an interesting writing method in one place to show a particular scene from the perspective of two characters with normal minds, one autistic child, an aboriginal Martian, and a schizophrenic. The method, though originally a little annoying in the beginning was very effective in creating a window to understanding and experiencing how a schizophrenic feels.

The reader of this book does a good job of creating the speech rhythm and sound of someone from the 60's and handles the various voices quite well. I liked him very much and will seek other books he might have read.

The Golden Man is a short story that is interesting, amusing, and a little disturbing. It is about a time on earth after some type of horrific war where many human mutations have been born with the world policy to destroy all the mutations before they can reproduce. The story focus is about a boy/man of 18 who cannot speak but is tall, golden, muscular - basically a perfect physical specimen, but cannot communicate verbally and sees the world from a different time perspective than normal humans. Obviously, woman find him irresistible and men see him as the ultimate danger.

In Martian Time-Slip, I found no single sympathetic character. I listened to the CDs on my commute. It was easy to sink back into the world the author created. It was easy to analyze each character especially because they were all flawed in some way. He did a terrific job of playing the setting on Mars into the plot. It was such a layered piece. He tackled several themes/issues head on. I did not sink into The Golden Man as deeply. Still, it was enjoyable.

At one point in this book, I said to myself, If anyone was in doubt as to whether Philip K. Dick took drugs, here is confirmation. But I was just mixed up in the time slips.

It is the future. Humans have colonized Mars but life is hard on the colony with little water and scant employment. The native Martians are a low class. Jack is a repairman whose path crosses that of Arnie Cott, a corrupt local power broker. There are time warps and visions of the future, schizophrenics who live in a different time realm, and Martians with special powers.

But really this book is about people dealing with fear and with suffering, about power and its misuses. And it asks the question, What is reality? What do we really know about it?

Not much.

I enjoyed it. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Grover Gardner and published by Blackstone Audiobooks. Good reading. [Note on content: one character uses profanity regularly, and there are one or two brief, not-particularly-graphic sex scenes.]

The audiobook includes an additional CD with the story The Golden Man, ostensibly the basis for the Nicholas Cage movie Next. In fact, the two have nothing in common except the idea that a person can see the future, but I enjoyed both.