The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Philip K Dick explores the theme of mind-controlling drugs in this inventive and hugely entertaining novel. Part satire and part metaphysical drama, it stands as one of Dick's finest. When shady businessman Palmer Eldritch returned from a distant galaxy, he claimed to have brought a gift for mankind. Chew-Z was a drug capable of transporting people into an illusory world, a world they could linger in for years without losing a second of Earth time. For the lonely colonists living out their dreary term on Mars, here was the ultimate trip, a pastime that could deliver immortality and wish fulfilment - a double-edged power over time and space. But in return, Palmer Eldritch exacted a terrible price. He would enter, control and be a god in everyone's private universe - a universe from which there was no escape, not even death.