Now Wait For Last Year

Now Wait For Last Year reviewed by The Sci-Fi Christian. Not my favorite of Dick's novels, and somewhat too similar to Three Stigmata, except this time the aliens appear in the novel. Otherwise, it's very similar: drugs, alien threat, playing with the nature of reality, settlers on Mars, time travel and hallucination, Dick's own lady troubles likely influencing his female characters, ethics, ersatz versions of "real" objects or persons and a supreme-like being, Gino Molinari in this novel. The alien race at war with Terra, the reegs, are ant-like, bringing to mind Ender's Game, and the dangerous Starmen are actually related to humans but cannot be trusted, bringing to mind the alliance between Japan and Germany in the alternative history, The Man In the High Castle. This is not to suggest there is nothing worthwhile in the book, but it does not exactly tread new ground for the author, although it was interesting read the California writer's 21st century predictions for Tijuana. Considering how much of a failure Eric and Kathy's relationship is, yet they're inevitably bound to one another, leads one to wonder what Dick's marriage status was at the time of its writing, too.