THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH, THE

In the overcrowded world and cramped space colonies of the late 21st century, te
dium can be endured through the use of the drug Can-D, which enables the user to
inhabit a shared illusory world. When industrialist Palmer Eldritch returns fro
m an interstellar trip, he brings with him a new drug, Chew-Z, which is far more
potent than Can-D, but threatens to plunge the world into a permanent state of
drugged illusion controlled by the mysterious Eldritch. THE THREE STIGMATA OF PA
LMER ELDRITCH is, by universal consent, one of his three key novels, and the boo
k in which he first took his perennial interest in the fragile nature of reality
to a new level of imaginative intensity.