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Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick
01/07/2007 . Source: Sue Davies 
Pub: Gollancz. 375 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 7.99 (UK only). ISBN: 978-0-575-07996-7. Buy Martian Time-Slip in the USA - or Buy Martian Time-Slip in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
Time runs differently for all of us. Holidays are over in a flash but a two hour test can be interminable if you don't know the answers. For Jack Bohlen, time is a hallucinogenic experience. He feels he is slipping into the schizophrenia that forced him to leave Earth and move to Mars. Its not that his life is that bad but something is not quite right. His episodes are getting worse again and when he loses it, his imaginings are grotesque. He is just an ordinary bloke but put together with Manfred, an autistic boy, son of Jack's new boss, then even stranger events begin to occur or at least they seem to.
Although set on Mars, I can't help feeling this is to satisfy the publishers who could not cope with the concept of Phil Dick outside Science Fiction. This is yet another one of his treatises in the nature of reality and how much we govern our own version of it.
Dick's descriptive power is remarkable and in places as viscerally shocking as any horror novel can be. This novels slips in between 'Time Out Of Joint' and 'Eye In The Sky', sharing and revelling in many the obsessions examined in those novels.
'Martian' Time-Slip' is no simple SF yarn but a hypothesis of madness, a grim exploration of the internal hell that many people exist within. This novel also has a distinctive period feel. The focus on 'Peyton Place' morality, petty power-grabbing little monarchs of business and even the black market in cocktail party delicacies adds up to a glorious picture of suburban America, shot through with a weirdness that can only be summoned by the vision of this author.
Overall, it's a gripping and rather disturbing vision of a world where reality is subjective you can't help but feel for the main character and for Manfred. It falls down on wrapping up the story of Manfred because we never truly share where totally his inner vision but nevertheless it is an absorbing read.
Sue Davies
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