The "standards" are my favorites. There were a few outliers that I didn't expect. I'm predisposed to like anything "time travel": "Martian Time Slip" and it's

The "standards" are my favorites. There were a few outliers that I didn't expect. I'm predisposed to like anything "time travel": "Martian Time Slip" and it's analysis of autism (sci-fi autism) was a subtle body horror; so Dr. Futurity (reminds me of interactive fiction time-travel puzzles), The World Jones Made (more precog trying to change the future and having "prescience" aka Dune), Time Out of Joint (kinda like The Truman Show or "Time Enough for Love" by Albert Finney), and Counter Clock World about time moving backwards and the religious cults it spawns (just plain nutty, not perfect, but a fun concept to toy with). He has a recurring theme in some books where the idea of the first Martian settlers from Earth being abandoned-working class drug-addicts is pops up several times, and I think that is one hell of a way to look at it compared to all the other stories about Mars. The idea that they are all failed farmers and sit around taking government-issued mind-altering drugs and playing board games where they become the characters to deal with suburban boredom is just bonkers (Three Stigmata of Palmer E., Martian Time Slip [poverty on mars] and a few others). "Ubik" is really top-tier though. There's a reason that the standards are called "standards". :)