Thomcat
5/25/2017
Questionable psychology and a Mars settlement more like Northern California than a NASA colony. PKD writes a good narrative that varies with his characters, but while it works with A Scanner Darkly, this SF Masterworks novel seems just out of sync to me.
One must first look past the non-colony aspect of the Martian residents - Bradbury's stories helped with that. Then one must discount the Natives, who are described in extremely racist terms - 1964 helps here, but not much. This leaves one with a thriving "black market" in items brought from Earth. Sorry, my modern sensibilities to the cost of this transport takes me too far from the story.
A story which may be political, with union and capitalist notes. Other reviewers comment on this, but I didn't see it. Perhaps because it just took forever for me to read this book. More by half than any other PKD novel I have read.
A one star rating is "I didn't like it", and while that covers many aspects, it doesn't cover the whole. The two star "It was just okay" fits fine - there are better choices out there.