Review: Five Novels of the 1960s & 70s: Martian Time-Slip / Dr. Bloodmoney / Now Wait for Last Year / Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said / A Scanner Darkly

Five Novels of the 1960s & 70s: Martian Time-Slip / Dr. Bloodmoney / Now Wait for Last Year / Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said / A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

MARTIAN TIME-SLIP (***)

Arnie Kott: ‘... we got the future, and where else do you think things happen except in the future?’ (p. 115)

Martian Time-Slip refers to living in different times instead of present, also past or future.

This novel by Philip K. Dick is set in a colony on Mars and tells the story of Manfred Steiner, an autistic boy who can help other people to live in the past or in the future.
Arnie Kott, leader of the water worker’s union, becomes interested in Manfred because he wants to use Manfred’s skill to predict future in his business ventures.

Martian Time-Slip is a speculative science-fiction novel because Dick doesn’t tell about space ships or other futuristic electronic devices; so who remembers Blade Runner (or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) is crowded out by reading this novel.


FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID (***)

(Dec 6, - Dec 18, 2011)

"The exclusiveness of space, we've earned, is only a function of the brain as it handles perception. It regulates data in terms of mutually restrictive space units. Millions of them, trillions, theoretically, in fact. But in itself, space does not exist at all." (page 40)

"Do you now see what happened to Taverner?
He passed over an universe in which he didn't exist. And we passed over with him because we're objects of his percept system. And then when the drug wore off he passed back again." (page 842)

"No nights are black enough for those that in despair their last fortune deplore." (page 736)

DR. BLOODMONEY (****)

It was a peculiar, nonsensical idea. It was as if the man had been gripped by his unconscious. He was no longer living a rational, ego-directed existence; he had surrended to some archetype.
(page 286)

In his earphones a loud signal came in. "Dangerfield, this is the New York Port Authority; can you give us any idea of the weather?"
"Oh," Dangerfield said, "we've got fine weather coming. You can put out to sea in thoese little boats and catch those little radioactive fish; nothing to worry about."
(page 319)

"Good lord," Barnes said. "He doesn't know what you're talking about. He's mentally ill." To Stockstill he said, "Listen, Doctor, isn't schizophrenia where a person loses track of their culture and its values? Well, this man has lost track; listen to him."
(page 395)

NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR (***)

Because, the cab said, life is composed of reality configurations so constituted.
(page 667)

It's the same, Kathy informed him. Everything's the same, when you break through to absolute reality; it's all one vast blur.
(page 494)

Are you waiting for last year to come by again or something?
(page 646)

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