The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick.

An interesting and weird read. The synopsis reads: “In the overcrowded world and cramped space colonies of the late 21st century, tedium can be endured through the use of the drug Can-D, which enables the user to inhabit a shared illusory world. When industrialist Palmer Eldritch returns from an interstellar trip, he brings with him a new drug, Chew-Z, which 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.” Palmer Eldritch is the centre of attention of the story but in fact he is not the protagonist. He is a mystery because of his motivations and his nature. The book follows the life and tribulations of Barney Mayerson, a pre-fash consultant or a precog (someone who can see the future) and his boss Leo Bulero. Bulero owns a company which distributes virtual landscapes and in the background distributes Can-D. When Eldritch arrives with Chew-Z they try to eliminate the competition. 

 The book is divided in 2 parts. The first part introduces Mayerson, Bulero and Roni Fugate (Mayerson’s assistant), the legal product they sell and the Can-D problematic around the space colonies. This part reads like a normal novel. The second part starts when one of the characters consumes Chew-Z. Then life turns into a mixture of delusions and reality. From then on the reader doesn’t know what is happening under the influence of the drug and what not. What takes place under a simulation and what is real. It is under these circumstances that Eldritch comes to the surface. We don’t know if he is human, an alien or a god. Towards the end, the topics of religion and gods gain prominence with some characters questioning their existence in a world where there is no hope without a drug.

I first learned about this novel when I read How We Became Posthuman… by Katherine Hayles. Hayles writes about Dick’s novel (p178) in connection with the concept of the Schizoid Android (an unfeeling female) a kind of prototype for a posthuman and compares Roni Fugate to Rachel the android in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The schizoid android appears in several of Dick's books as a woman with black hair. Apparently Dick based his schizoid creations on his emotionally cold, detached mother.