"The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch" by Philip K. Dick; 7/10

I almost just didn't rate this book, I remember it so poorly.  But I remember liking it an awful lot at the end. As I try to catch myself up on the basic plot over at Wikipedia (which, truth be told, I have done with this blog a lot more often than I would have liked), I'm mainly just confused.

The book has perhaps a slightly stronger science fiction element than your average PKD (many of whose books I frankly don't even think of as sci-fi), and some standard Phil tropes.  Reality questioned. Precognitive capabilities.  A repressive state. A paranoid protagonist. Rampant use of hallucinogenic drugs.  And the women- so untrustworthy!

I say these things and make him sound like he just repeats himself over and over, but the really amazing thing is that this book felt completely different from the others, and apart from thematic similarities I find his books to be radically different, one from another.  The protagonists are usually the same character, more or less, with a different name, but not always, and sometimes very not always. 

This book was a little darker and trippier, as well as being harder to follow and somewhat tedious at times.  He worked in this thing called "Perky Pat" from an earlier short story of the same name, and it barely fits in the novel.  I think I'm bound to read this one again, hopefully when I have more continuous attention and time to be paid so that I can follow it better and give it the review it deserves, which this is not.

Sorry readers. Sorry Phil. Sorry Phil's cat.