Martian Time-Slip - Philip K. Dick Book Review

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Review Summaries

"Jack Bohlen is one of the best repairmen among the sparsely populated colonies on Mars, circa 1994. Arnie Kott, the wheeling-and-dealing head of the plumbers' union colony, has an inkling that Manfred, one of the "anomalous" children kept in a special school and perhaps scheduled for deportation and destruction by the UN administration, may be able to foresee the future. Kott hires Bohlen to work with Manfred, partly because Bohlen is so handy and partly because his history of past mental illness may make him better able to communicate with the all-but-autistic Manfred. Power politics, black market smuggling, casual adultery, land speculation, and the robot teachers at the public school (from Angry Janitor to Lincoln) all figure into this typically disconcerting 1964 Dick plot."
David Loftus, Resident Philip K. Dick Scholar

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Overall Review

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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot

Composition of Book
Descript. of chases or violence - 10%
planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 20%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 20%
Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 50%

Tone of book - cynical or dry-wit
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - science fiction story
Repressive society story Yes
Mental/magical powers focus Yes
Inner Struggle Yes
Plotlet: - coping with mental/magical powers
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Who's a slave/repressed? - discrim against people with mental powers

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Profession/status: - blue collar worker
Age: - 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 40's-50's
Profession/status: - business executive
Eccentric: Yes - eccentric
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a substantial amount
How sensitive is this character? - hard edged
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique

Setting
Terrain - Desert - Mountains
A substantial portion of this book takes place on a non-Earth planetary body: - humans in a futuristic society - neutral aliens - primitive aliens - empty, or nearly empty world
Planet outside solar system? Yes

Style
Person? - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - moderately detailed references to deaths
scientific jargon? (SF only) - some scientific explanation
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - vague references only
How much dialogue? - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog

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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).

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