Description:

On a future Earth scorching in a permanent heatwave, the United Nations forcefully drafts recruits for its other-world colonies, where a doll called Perky Pat is all the rage. That's because, stuck in the hovels they have to call home, listening to the horrendous Venusian winds howl or watching the Martian sands relentlessly sift into their gardens, the colonists will do anything to make their lives bearable. Including taking Can-D, the illegal drug that lets them become Perky Pat and her friends. With their carefully furnished Perky Pat dollhouse set-ups, the displaced humans are transported to a lavish, idealized, old-Earth setting--a world of lovely beaches, fancy houses and guilt-free sex. In short, a world far removed from their dismal reality. There's only one source for Perky Pat paraphernalia--and Can-D: Leo Bolero's Perky Pat Layouts, Inc. Thanks to his cutthroat business management and the skill of his chief precognitive, Barney Mayerson, Bolero is so powerful, even the U.N. bows to his operation. But now, unexpectedly, Bolero faces competition: Palmer Eldritch--adventurer, magnate, genius. Eldritch had returned from a ten-year galactic journey. And he's begun to market a product called Chew-Z, something he brought back from who knows where. The fact is, no one has any idea what Chew-Z really is...or does. But the colonists on Venus and Mars are more than willing to find out. How could they resist the advertising? The Chew-Z slogan says, "God promises eternal life. We can deliver it." The question is, what kind of eternity? And who--or what--is the deliverer?