SOJALS rating:

Very good (4/5)

I first read this in 1978 and most recently on the 17th November 2021

David and Silvia Bohlen are settlers in the American colony on Mars. David is an electrical repairman Silvia is a housewife and mother. Just a typical 1950's American couple. But it all starts to go terribly wrong when David meets Arnie Kott, ambitious boss of the Water Workers Union. Then we start to encounter a very different Mars as they slide into psychotic world where rotten decay pervades everything and everyone. From this dreadful world there are glimpses of what horrors are in store in the future.

Dick has brilliantly transported 1950's America to Mars. I'm always in awe how Dick can transform a simple science-fiction story into something so much more. This is such a penetrating observation of humanity in all its misguided perversity, uncertainties and incomprehension. Re-reading this novel in 2021, I'm blown away once again by the characters, their internal conversations, and the terrifying inner world of the dreadfully insane, as so brilliantly described by Dick.

It really is quite wonderful.