Martian time shift

Initially, the novel was mass-produced by Worlds of Tomorrow in August, October and December 1963. At that time he had a different name - “We are all Martians” ( All We Marsmen ). In 1964, Dick's work was slightly reworked and released under the current title ^[1] .

At the time the book was written, autism and schizophrenia were poorly understood mental disorders; also, autism was not so different from childhood schizophrenia ^[2] . In addition, psychological and psychoanalytic explanations of major mental disorders like these have been proposed ^{[3] [4]} .

In his 1968 essay entitled “Self-Portrait,” compiled in the 1995 book “The Changing Realities of Philip Dick,” Dick reflects on his work and lists which books he considered “could have avoided the Third World War,” which includes the novel "Shift of time in a Martian" ^[5] .

Jack Bohlen - a repairman who emigrated to Mars to escape from the attacks of schizophrenia . He lives with his wife and little son. His father, Leo, visits Mars to claim the seemingly useless mountain range of Franklin D. Roosevelt after receiving insider information that the UN is planning to build a huge residential complex there. The complex will be called AM-WEB, an abbreviation of the German phrase “Alle Menschen werden Brüder” ( people are brothers among themselves ), a line from the Schiller's ode “To Joy”.

Bohlen had a chance meeting with Arnie Kott, the die-hard leader of the water industry workers' union; when the helicopters of Bohlen and Cotta called for help to a group of critically dehydrated blinkmen, the indigenous inhabitants of Mars, who are believed to be genetically similar to the African bushmen of Earth. Bohlen blames Cotta for his indecision to help Blikman, which enrages Cotta.

After visiting his ex-wife Anna Esterhazy about their own "anomalous" child, Cott hears about the theories of Dr. Milton Glaub, the psychotherapist at Ben-Gurion camp, an institution for those suffering from common developmental disorders. Glaub believes that mental illness can be altered states of perception of time. Kott became interested in Manfred Steiner, an autistic boy from the Ben-Gurion camp in the hope that the boy could predict the future - a skill that Kott would find useful for his business enterprises. Since Ben-Gurion’s camp is planned to be closed, Kott proposes to take Manfred from Glaub’s hands. Manfred, in turn, is afraid of the future, which only he can see, where Mars is abandoned, and AM-WEB is a dump for forgotten people like him, where he will eventually be chained, like a decrepit old man, to a bed on a life support system .

Cott rents Bohlen's contract from his current employers and hires him to create a special video device that can help Manfred take the time at his usual pace (Cott also ultimately intends to get revenge on Bohlen). Bolen feels sympathy for Manfred, but his assignments are strained, because he is afraid that contact with a mentally ill child may cause him a relapse. Bohlen also starts a love affair with Cotta's mistress.

As an assignment from his usual work, as a repairman, Bohlen is sent to serve simulacra to a public school, where lessons are taught by robotized models of historical figures. These figures deeply disturb Bohlen, because they remind him of his own schizoid episodes when he perceived people around him as inanimate mechanisms. When he takes Manfred to school during an assignment, simulators begin to behave strangely, as it seems that Manfred changes their reality. In the end, Bohlen is asked to take Manfred. In the light of other events, however, it is not at all clear whether Manfred really influences the simulacrum or he simply influences their perception by Jack Bohlen.

Only Geliogabal, servant Kotta and part-time Blixman, finds contact with the boy. From Manfred's point of view, people are strange creatures living in a world of fragmented time, where they disappear in one place and appear in another, and otherwise move abruptly and uncoordinated. Heliogabal, turning to Manfred, moves smoothly and gracefully. He seems to be talking to Manfred without words.

The impetuous event of the history of the suicide of Norbert, the father of Manfred Steiner, which links Cotta with Manfred, and also deprives Otto Zitte, Norbert's colleague, of livelihood. The snag in the plot is a meeting between Cotte, Bohlen and Cotte's mistress, Doreen Anderton, in Cotte's house, with Manfred in tow. This episode is viewed three times before it actually occurs, apparently, through the eyes of Manfred, but with the participation of Bohlen. At the same time, the perception of events becomes difficult - the events become more surreal, and the perception is hallucinatory. When events finally reach the critical point that Bohlen is so afraid of, foreseeing the outcome, Bohlen himself does not experience this. His awareness stops when he and Doreen arrive at Cotte's house and pick him up after they leave. He only knows that he and Kott broke up like friends, but really like enemies.

Under the pressure of Cotta, Heliogabalus shows that the sacred rock of the blinks "Dirty Knot" can be used as a portal for time travel, which Manfred can open. Kott focuses on past changes with two goals: revenge on Jack Bohlen and demanding the Roosevelt Mountains before Leo Bohlen.

Returning in time to the moment when he first appeared in the novel, leaving the sybarite bath operated by the Union, Arnie Kott discovers that he repeats the actions that led him to meet with Bohlen, while dealing with perceptual distortions that seem to come from Manfred's mind. He could not get to the Roosevelt Mountains to plant his stake, being legally compelled to go to the aid of the glaciers, as before. He encounters Bohlen, as he did originally, but in an attempt to shoot at him, he “dies” from the arrow of the glacier.

Waking up from the vision, Kott realizes that he failed. He decides to abandon his plans, leave Doreen and allow Bohlen to continue his life. He still wants to help Manfred, who wandered during the supposed episode of "time travel." Leaving the cave in the “Dirty Knot”, where they performed the strange ritual of Heliogabal, he encounters Otto Zitta. After the suicide of Norbert Steiner, Kott, his best client, decided to take over Norbert's business. Sitte was a competition, so the people of Cott destroyed the smuggler's warehouse and adjoining property, leaving a message stating that "Arnie Kott does not like what you are upholding." Zitte was chased by Cotta, following his helicopter to the “Dirty Knot”. He shoots Cotta, who thinks he can still be stuck in one of Manfred's hallucinations. Bohlen and Doreen land on a Cotta helicopter and take Cotta back to Lewistown. Cott dies, believing to the last that he was just experiencing another hallucination.

Bohlen returns to his wife, Sylvia, who was seduced by Zitta on his sales circle. Despite acknowledging infidelity, Jack with Doreen and Sylvia with Zitte, they decide to save their marriage. Something happens in Steiner's house, and Steiner's widow runs off into the night, screaming. Breaking in, Bohlen and his father see Manfred, old and in a wheelchair, hung with pipes, accompanied by a glacier. Manfred joined the group of blinks after leaving the “Dirty site” and saved himself from AM-WEB. He came back after a while to see his family and thank Bohlen for saving.

In the muffled final scene, Bohlen and his father are looking for Steiner's widow in the dark, with “business, competent and patient” voices.

Several audio versions of the book have been released:

• Audiobook "Shift of time in Martian" - read by Grover Gardner (rather under his pseudonym Tom Parker), without abbreviations, the duration is approximately 9 hours (6 audio cassettes ). It was released in 1998 ^[6] .
• The second unabridged version of the Martian Shift Time audiobook was released in 2007. Also read by Grover Gardner, the duration is 9.5 hours (8 CDs ). The audiobook came out under the title "Shift of time in a Martian and the Golden Man", as it includes the story of Dick "The Golden Man " ^[7] .

• Autism ;
• Schizophrenia ;
• Colonization of Mars ;
• The 1950 novel The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury .

• Aldiss, Brian, “Dick's Maledictory Web”, Science-Fiction Studies # 5, 1975, pp. 42-7.
• Jameson, Fredric. Archaeologies of the Future of the Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, London and New York: Verso, 2005.