The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Dick at his wildest and strangest - a mystifying but brilliant book - SF: 100 Best Novels In the overcrowded world and cramped space colonies of the late 21st century, tedium can be endured through the drug Can-D, which enables users to inhabit a shared illusory world. When industrialist Palmer Eldritch returns from an interstellar trip, he brings with him a new drug, Chew-Z. It is far more potent than Can-D, but threatens to plunge the world into a permanent state of drugged illusion controlled by the mysterious Eldritch. He was the funniest SF writer of his time, and perhaps the most terrifying - The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction One of the most original practitioners writing any kind of fiction, Dick made most of the European avent-garde seem like navel-gazers in a cul-de-sac. - Sunday Times Cover illustration: Chris Moore