Chew-Z is Goodie-Good Candy  Alex Golub discusses, in the
January 28 entry on this page, Philip K. Dick’s The Three
Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, one of his best. As Golub implies,
Dick drops the proto-VR line midway through the book for one of
his unique renditions of mind-altered hell. I actually remember
less of the political situation in the first half than the
endless, shifting realities of the last half, and particularly
the character who realizes he is never going to know objective
reality ever again. I found Dick’s sociology wanting in
comparison, a mixture of isolationist paranoia and classically
liberal pleas for love and peace, even in spite of happiness.
But Golub draws a parallel between the escapist proto-VR of
Dick’s book and today’s multiplayer games in terms of the sheer
amount of energy people pour into them.  I take exception to his
equating of first-world living with the total boredom of Mars,
though. With Dick, the glamor and decadence of the Perky Pat
game was inviting, but it’s made clea