Classic sci-fi book review of MARTIAN TIME-SLIP (1964)
Article by RABID TRIBBLE
Philip K. Dick's 1964 novel MARTIAN TIME-SLIP is one of the early works by the author to explore the themes that would become staples of his oeuvre----the fragile nature of reality, schizophrenia, and altered states of mind. This story, about life in a colony on Mars, expertly tackles all of those themes.
Jack Bohlen immigrated to Mars years earlier in an attempt to free homself of his schizophrenia. He now lives a peaceful life with his wife and son. What causes his tranquility to be broken is the sudden suicide of his neighbor. Jack and his wife Silvia come to learn that the son of the deceased man is an autistic child named Manfred, who lives in a special care facility on Mars. Manfred can see far into his own future, and is disturbed in knowing that he will be sent to an unfriendly hospice once he's an old man where he will die after years of neglect and abuse at the hands of the attendants. Bohlen, who is a repairman, is hired by the tyrannical Arnie Kott, leader of the Water Worker's Union, to build a device that can help the despondent Manfred to communicate his visions of the future. The ambitious, greedy Kott wants to exploit Manfred's psychic powers for his own business advantage. Jack Bohlen, as he becomes acquainted with the boy, worries that his own mental illness will be reawakened because of his getting sucked into the boy's reality. Soon enough, Jack's mental state does indeed start to slip.
MARTIAN TIME-SLIP's plot cannot be easily summed up. Sub-plots abound, including two extra-marital affairs and time travel. As many other works of Philip K. Dick's, it is a mind-bending trip and deservedly a classic of the genre.
