Martian Time-Slip

Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) struggled throughout his life with mental illness, a subject he used as the basis for his extraordinarily inventive novel Martian Time-Slip. At its core, the book wonders whether schizophrenia is merely a disordered conception of time — and if the visions of psychosis are actually a flood of images from the past, present and future. This theme is joined to a plot in which such access to information from the future would be extremely valuable, in this case an opportunity to buy real estate on Mars before a UN development project is announced. While Dick at this point in his career was still a mediocre writer, this is one of his better novels.