The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch Summary

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch Overview

Philip K. Dick's science fiction novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, a Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel in 1965, depicts a dystopian and distinctly American society in which the line between reality and artificiality is blurred at every turn for its unfortunate characters. The extreme heating of Earth's atmosphere has necessitated colonization of other planets and moons, but living on a desolate planet such as Mars proves to be horrifically dull, inhospitable, and lonely for all involved. Enter Can-D, a mind-altering hallucinogenic that, for a few scant minutes, allows its user to inhabit the fun and predictable world of Perky Pat and her boyfriend Walt. Upon the opening of the novel, the tycoon and explorer Palmer Eldritch has just crash-landed on Pluto after a decade-long trip to the Prox System, where he has gathered a new species of lichen needed for a potent and sinister new alternative to Can-D called Chew-Z. Chew-Z soon floods the marketplace and while users' Chew-Z worlds differ in the extreme, they share one common element: the shadowy presence of Palmer Eldritch, complete with his cybernetic hand, eyes, and teeth. Displaying Philip K. Dick's characteristic ensemble cast of vividly drawn and sympathetic characters, the novel displays themes such as betrayal, greed, omnipotence, corporate culture, and virtual reality.