Valis

Written by Philip K. Dick

Narrated by Joyce Bean and Phil Gigante

What is VALIS? This question is at the heart of Philip K. Dick’s groundbreaking novel, the first book in his defining trilogy. When a beam of pink light begins giving a schizophrenic man named Horselover Fat (who just might also be known as Philip K. Dick) visions of an alternate Earth where the Roman Empire still reigns, he must decide whether he is crazy or whether a godlike entity is showing him the true nature of the world.

VALIS is essential listening for any true Philip K. Dick fan, a novel that Roberto Bolaño called “more disturbing than any novel by [Carson] McCullers.” By the end, like Dick himself, you will be left wondering what is real, what is fiction, and just what the price is for divine inspiration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Oct 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781455840328

Philip K. Dick

Over a writing career that spanned three decades, PHILIP K. DICK (1928–1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned to deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film, notably Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, as well as television's The Man in the High Castle. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, including the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and between 2007 and 2009, the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

Reviews for Valis

[sallowswine · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Holy shit. This book is like if Vonnegut were actually deft and interesting. Sincere, thought-provoking, and just a bit ludicrous (in the best way possible). Essentially a semi-autobiographical--using the term very loosely--account of Dick's breakdown and his attempt to make sense of it, I caught hints of mutual influence with Illuminatus! trilogy and other works by Wilson, even with Dick somewhat tongue-in-cheek referencing Cosmic Trigger. Definitely check it out, especially if you're having an existensial crisis.

[Ben · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Outstanding book and read wonderfully. Essential book for students and practitioners of the spirit.

[Tomi Toivio · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Philip K. Dick tells the story of his real-life religious experiences in this fascinating books.

[aeceyton · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book can be so frustrating, at ponds just feeling like a speedfreak acquaintance jabbering away. Worth it in the end,, an important touchstone.

[pgiunta_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In 1974, a schizophrenic drug addict named Horselover Fat attempts suicide after a close friend succeeds at it. While struggling with guilt over her loss, Horselover is struck by an enigmatic beam of pink light that he attributes to a deity known as Zebra.Afterwards, he experiences visions of the Roman Empire and gains detailed insight into early gnostic Christianity, which he chronicles in his exegesis. Horselover also credits the light for imparting crucial medical information that saves the life of his son, Christopher. A short time later, however, his wife Beth leaves him, taking Christopher with her.Through all of this, Horselover's friends—David, Kevin, and Phil K. Dick—believe that he is insane, until Kevin persuades the group to see an independent science fiction movie called VALIS, playing at a small theatre in town. The film, about an alien satellite called Vast Active Living Intelligence System, contains overt and subliminal messages that correspond to Horselover’s experiences after encountering the pink light. Convinced now that Horselover’s account was legitimate, the four friends take up a quest to contact the filmmakers in the hopes of learning the truth about VALIS and the information it revealed to Horselover.It is explained at the beginning of the story that Horselover Fat might be Phil K. Dick projecting his inner turmoil into a second personality. Either way, VALIS is one of the most bizarre, engaging, imaginative, and occasionally disturbing novels I’ve ever read and could have been conjured only from the mind of Phil K. Dick.

[the7ken7petersen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have rated this as a five star read. I can equally see why some have given this work but half a star. It is either a brilliant, unique book, or the deluded meandering of a damaged mind. I'm not sure which.This is one of those books in which one feels that, if one just reads the next paragraph, things will become clear. It doesn't, but the certainty remains that there is wisdom within these pages. It is the sort of book that will reward a second read (or is that merely the belief in the next paragraph reinforced?). It will be a while before I put in the effort required to go through this again, but I'm glad that I've tried it.A confused review of a confusing book.

[tblake-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

GNOSTIC SCHIZO EXISTENTIAL SURREAL SF MASTERPIECEI cannot review VALIS objectively, as it is a book that belongs to no known genre or pre-existing category, combining as it does elements of autobiography, philosophy, science-fiction, gnostic theology, psychoanalysis, and existential self-construction. Like the posthumously published EXEGESIS, it takes its origin in the need to understand respond to the events of February and March 1974 (which he called 2-3-74). Dick was irradiated by a brilliant pink light emanating from a Christian fish-symbol (ichthys) necklace worn by a young woman. He had a series of visions over the next two months, and spent the rest of his life trying to understand them.The novel splits Dick into two characters: the narrator, Philip K. Dick, a moderately successful science-fiction writer; and Horselover Fat his crazy illuminated friend, to whom the visions arrived, and whose life became a quest to resolve their enigma.The principal framework of explanation is a science-fictional variant of gnostic cosmology in which this universe has been constructed by a false, evil and crazy, god, which explains all the irrationality and the suffering that it contains. The world is the Black Iron Prison, and we are its suffering prisoners. The true God is outside the universe and breaking through to heal it and us in various ways, including the pink light that Dick experienced. After recounting many surreal experiences and visions the book ends with the narrator, Philip K. Dick, sitting before the TV, watching and waiting. He is clear that this is his way of continuing the search and keeping to his mission: keeping awake and open.I think many of us experience moments of revelatory intensity and also of intense despair at the emprisonment of our daily lives and of our very selves. I first read VALIS in 1981, when it first came out. I was all alone in a student room in a god-forsaken empty outer suburb of Paris, unable to speak French, dreaming repeatedly of being shut up in a prison that was shrinking and squashing me out of existence. I empathised with the Gnostics and with their idea of this life as a prison. I read VALIS and it spoke to me instantly and deeply.My own "pink light" came at a moment of extreme existential and intellectual isolation in my birthplace, in Sydney: I read Deleuze and Guattari's ANTI-OEDIPUS, and it changed my life. I left Sydney for Paris, attended Deleuze's lectures for 6 years, and finally took on French nationality and settled down as an English teacher on the French Riviera. And I'm still trying to understand what happened to me. We all have our "pink light" at least once in our life.Dick's novel opens with the beginnings of his eventual crack-up and suicide attempt:"Horselover Fat's nervous breakdown began the day he got the phonecall from Gloria asking if he had any Nembutals. He asked her why she wanted them and she said that she intended to kill herself".This is no message from a divine light, but the beginning of a soul-destroying relationship with a toxic, thanatotic individual, whose name "Gloria" is an ironic mockery of her real state and aims. However, the novel ends with an optimistic phonecall from Horselover Fat reporting on his quest to find the 5th Messiah:"one day I got a phonecall from Horselover Fat: a phonecall from Tokyo. He sounded healthy and excited and full of energy, and amused at my surprise to be hearing from him".The split between Dick and Fat continues, but now it enriches his life instead of despairing it. Eros has come to win out over thanatos. After all the speculations and synchronicities, after all the encounters both toxic and salvific, there is no final explanation, only a new sense of optimism and openness:"My search kept me at home; I sat before the TV set in my living room. I sat; I waited; I watched; I kept myself awake. As we had been told, originally, long ago, to do; I kept my commission".

[antao-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Is Phil Dick talking about regressing back to former time periods, or the much more radical notion of previous structures existing in the sub-strata of reality and emanating forward, like the notion of ancient Rome, a proto-fascist state, The Black Iron Prison of VALIS, falling forward through history. I think for Phil Dick - sensing these things - was no mere matter of psychological themes. And in the exploration of these realities one thing is clear - the date doesn't matter. A smug talking refrigerator door is about everyday oppression. It is humorous but it represents the shadow. Have you heard the automated checkout robot at Woolworths? "Unexpected item in the bagging area." Combining elements of stern accusation and exasperation. So he had it right, now everyday objects talk to us, and form part of an oppressive regime who's intent is to shackle the soul.The text is the text is the text, and readers must make of it what they will. But I can tell you this: back when he was writing, I and a bunch of others were reading, and everybody I knew thought he was writing about exactly what you seem to think he was writing about. I'm curious: were you around, back in the day?The movies based on Dick's stories do not necessarily accurately reflect Dick's own themes and metaphors. These days, "android" normally means a humanoid robot, but several decades ago in SF, "android" typically referred to an organic (flesh-and-blood) but synthetic (human created) being. The android was sometimes used as a metaphor for the human being discriminated against on racial or other grounds. ("If you prick us, do we not bleed?") Dick, however, uses the android metaphor differently: as I noted elsewhere, the android for Dick is a human who is damaged in their capacity for empathy and relatedness. That's why Dick would not have been thrilled with the idea of a Phil Dick "android"; but a Phil Dick robot would be just fine.But is Phil Dick talking about regressing back to former time periods, or the much more radical notion of previous structures existing in the sub-strata of reality and emanating forward, like the notion of ancient Rome, a proto-fascist state, The Black Iron Prison of VALIS, falling forward through history? I think for Phil Dick - sensing these things - was no mere matter of psychological themes. And in the exploration of these realities one thing is clear - the date doesn't matter. A smug talking refrigerator door is about everyday oppression. It is humorous but it represents the shadow. Have you heard the automated checkout robot at Woolworths? "Unexpected item in the bagging area." Combining elements of stern accusation and exasperation. So he had it right, now everyday objects talk to us, and form part of an oppressive regime who's intent is to shackle the soul. It seems to me all past structures are embedded in their futures and our presents and futures. The shadow does not come from Rome, although the metaphysics or physics of it so expressed is very powerful. Whether it was Rome or Akkad or Sparta or any one of the countless human nightmares past or present (North Korea for example) they are human, all too human, nightmares. The shadow is in us and always has been. Unfortunately it seems to be growing stronger and may overpower us all in the form of government super-agencies and private super-corps doing what fascism failed to accomplish, or something unexpected my change it all. Technology and knowledge can empower the shadows but they are in us, and I can't think of it ever being different. Religion and spirituality, God, and trying to live in some godly or spiritual way has not done very much to make things better beyond some inspirational, and co-optable, individual cases. The emergence of technology is as inevitable than it is dangerous. But it becomes dark because it's what people want, or want enough to ignore the negative consequences of getting what they want. Shackling the soul is a perennial human choice. The shackling potentials of today's tech-world just seem to all come together without any plan or prevision. We fought, often bloodily, totalitarianism, slavery, and autocracies with amazing success, but a whole different order of control is emerging and the development of its tools are inevitable.Phil Dick did have previsions of it and his artistry makes his work far more than just projections of dystopias based on tech. In him the human being is caught up in it all, but also deeply involved in it all.

[tracy_tomkowiak · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Way out there. Loved it.

[stellarexplorer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Is this a work of brilliance? It's possible. A better person might have had the patience and discernment to decide. I had trouble navigating an inpenetratable obscurantism that spreads through the pages like a plague. Gnostic preachings, archaic theological exegeses, rambling philosophical didacticism...very tough going. Not just because it was obscure or even difficult, but mostly because it was tedious. Might a good editor have been called upon?I wouldn't be the first to suggest that PKD's books make better movies, despite his fertile imagination, penetrating questioning and infectious paranoia. Anyone who has Amazon Prime and has yet to watch the Amazon original production of The Man in the High Castle has a delicious treat in store.A challenging question is What is Valis About? I'll give it a rough back-of-the-envelope attempt, no doubt insufficient. It's about a character and his alter ego, who is the author Philip K Dick by another name, and his struggle with his sanity. Or it's about the character and his understanding of the gap in history that followed the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, only to have history really resume in 1974; this character has mastered a wealth of ancient wisdom including the Gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi. It's about a supra-human technology that reorients people with rationality against the predations of our irrational world. It's about a psychotic refugee from the drug culture who's trying to keep his bearings even in the face of the senseless deaths of friends. If that sounds good to you, and you're a patient and persistent reader who is willing to try to separate the wheat from the chaff, have at it. There are morsels of good in there.

[scolgo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very confusing and somewhat annoying at first since the author seemed to keep repeating himself on many points. As the story developed though, I realized that it was all a very well-planned storytelling device. By the time I finished this book, I realized how thoroughly it had pulled me onto the crazy edge that the author was dancing on while writing the story. Very, very clever Mr. Dick!

[stahl2ricco · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

GOD IS NO WHEREGOD IS NOW HERE

[wildmaggie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the most bizarre book I've ever read. I kept reading to the end to see if the author would start to make more sense. But it's the same all the way through. The whole book is inside an insane person's mind.

[elenipapanou · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow! That's how I'll start my review on this book. Dick uses the vehicle of fiction to understand the meaning behind his spiritual experience. I have had a similar experience and a lot of what is revealed in Valis runs parallel to what happened to me, which is why I personally resonated with the story. What drew me in was Dick’s use of first and third person in the narration. The reason for the switch was so that the narrator could be more objective about his spiritual experience. However, this split in narration evolves into something greater, which I won’t mention here as I don't want to give it away. Dick’s decision to use two points of view is eventually made very clear. I couldn’t see this story being told any other way. Valis is filled with introspection, madness, and spiritual insight, all effectively seasoned with humor. Dick never takes himself too seriously and always makes it seem as if he’s open to every explanation that he muses over. My personal favorites in this book were the movie sequence, the discussion between Phil and his friends about the meaning behind it and their subsequent meeting of Sophia. During the reading of the book, I was noticing similarities between Dick and Robert Anton Wilson, and I was pleasantly surprised when Dick mentioned RAW's book, Cosmic Trigger!Valis is not an easy book to read, and the plot is thin, but if you're looking for something with depth, you'll enjoy it.

[blake.rosser · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The most brilliant sci-fi novel I've ever read, and maybe the best.

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A common saying is that there is a thin line between genius and insanity. PKD turns the line into a 4D hypercube and goes on at length about Gnosticism, WWII battles, history, politics, drug culture, and its still incredibly interesting. I won't pretend to judge on the nature of what happened to him, but his books are as interesting to think about as ever.

[michael5rimmer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dizzyingly layered; demands to be re-read, but not until my head has stopped swimming.

Whether you buy-in to Dick's religious/philosophical position or not, there's certainly lots to think about and, if you make it through to the end, it will stay with you for a long time.

As is usual with PKD, there's much here about the nature and perception of reality and what it is to be human. There's a big chunk of auto-biography and painful honesty. Where PKD deals with characters, they are by turns funny, infuriating, warm, pitiful and frightening. There's also big chunks of religious and philosophical exposition (much of which went over my head, hence the need to re-read), so it's not a book I'd recommend for everyone. If you haven't read PKD before, it's probably better to start with something else and come to this in 5 to 10 book's time.

[pondlife_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I normally like PKD, but I found this just too weird and crazy. The only reason I kept reading it was because of the semi autobiographical nature, with both the narrator and Horselover Fat representing PKD.The first half of the book seems to be going nowhere, but then the second half tells the real story.Some people may like this, but it was just too much for me. I think I'll stick to PKD's earlier works.

[funkendub · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What a strange, strange and again wonderfully strange writer he was.

[figre · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It seems that, the later in Philip K. Dick’s career a work comes from, the more likely it is to blend his own life (and associated bouts with mental health and schizophrenia) with the fiction he is writing. I have not seen it any more evident than in the book Valis – the first of his final trio of novels which explore concepts of self (what Dick novel doesn’t do that) and the concepts of religion.The story is told by Dick and, as he often did in his later writing, he has put pieces of his real life into the story. Does it add or subtract from the verisimilitude? I’m not sure. But it is definitely Philip K. Dick who is writing.The first half of this book is a slog to get through. It is Dick laying out the concepts and thoughts about – well, for lack of a better term, we’ll call it religion - that he will use as the basis for how this novel will move forward. He puts these thoughts forward through the meandering, schizophrenic writings of Horselover Fat, a man who has watched suicide and death committed around him, and whose mind is not better for all of it. The only thing that will keep you reading through the first half are Fat and his associates and the pieces of the plot that are oh-so-slowly coming together. But work your way through that first half. Eventually you will find yourself propelled into another of Dick’s jewels, a story that causes you to rethink what and where you are, and how you accept reality.As I started this novel, I was ready to relegate this to the worst of Dick’s writing. By the end, I had gone out and bought the final two books to see how it would all come together. I would never recommend this as an introduction to Dick, but for those who understand they are about to enter a different world with his writings, it is another excellent piece to add to your collection. (And for those who have not discovered Philip K. Dick – what are you waiting for?!)

[trhummer_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those fascinating bad books (like Melville's "Pierre") that one is at a loss to explain: not in terms of its subject or style, but more in terms of its existing at all. If anyone other than Philip K. Dick had written this. . . but no one else could possibly have written it. Soggily plotted, executed with all the attention to craft that Huck Finn gave the fence he was whitewashing, "Valis" nonetheless exerts a gravitational pull; I can imagine that for some people (Dick included) it is a gravity well. Part of what holds the reader is the knowledge, which the novel insists on and reminds us of, that certain ingredients of this story are autobiographical. The pink laser, the delivery girl with the fish pendant, an autodidact's brew of Gnosticism and information theory: these things all were part of Dick's personal narrative. All in all, reading this book is like watching a wreck go down on the Rube Goldberg Highway to Dysfunctional Heaven.

[danconsiglio · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So good! Another of Dick's "Look at me! I'm crazyyyyyyy!" books. Read this before Radio Free Albemuth.

[banoo_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm not sure how to rate this book. It was good, at times tedious (I'm really not into theological debates or philosophical musings)... but, I liked Horselover Fat aka Philip Dick aka the insane guy.So take one crazy guy slightly twisted in the head due to taking too many 'uppers', let one of his girl friends jump out of a window, let his wife leave with the kid, kill off another one of his girl friends and then set the poor guy on a course trying to figure out just what we humans are and where are we going. Oh, and be sure to throw in a pink laser beam containing mysterious information and aim it at his brain, and surround him with a handful of other wacky characters. Dip into Greek mythology, gnosticism, Christianity, and an unexplained dead cat... well, it's explained how it died but not the why it died, well, according to little Sophia, the new messaih, the why is because it was stupid. Put all of this together, bring a sane, stable mind to the table (yourself I'm assuming, but I may be wrong) and watch yourself unravel.It's fiction. It's partly autobiographical. It's a crazy new religion, if I were to use religion in a general sense that's defined as why we're here and where we're going and what we should do to go where we're going.It confused me until Eric Lampton (Eric Clapton/Peter Frampton combination, name-wise with the mind of Jim Morrison??) and Mini (Brian Eno??) came into the picture and confirmed that all of this was indeed crazy. But then, Horselover Fat came back and I was confused again.I really don't know what I'm saying here. I really don't know how to discuss this book. I do want to read The Chronicles of Narnia. Funny thing that this book would lead me to that book. But then nothing is really funny... except for Kevin's dead cat.And one more thing... my number 714 was mentioned in this book. That's cool. Maybe I'll go to India now. Something needs to be found.

[ursula_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having only previously read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I'm not sure I was entirely prepared for this book, but I still found it fascinating.It's not scifi, it's mostly an autobiographical account of possible schizophrenia with some fiction thrown in. The subject of the book, Horselover Fat, has an experience in which he thinks that he has interacted not God, but "Zebra," the rational being behind the irrational world. This interaction occurs through a beam from a pink laser. The author of the book experienced the same thing, at the same time. Fascinating, at times fantastical, and then at times so lucid in its truth that it's hard to believe. If you have an interest in Gnostic Christianity or the nature of existence, you'll probably enjoy it even more than I did.

[robertday_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was having immense trouble with this book, probably because I was reading it in small-ish chunks whilst on my daily commute. I could make no sense of it whatsoever.But suddenly, one morning, I was sat on the bus and just as we passed the turn-off for the village of Breadsall in Derbyshire (England), it hit me. I understood what this book was about. It all made sense. I arrived at work a different person. Even now, the fact that I could take you to exactly where I was when it happened shows what a blinding flash of insight I had. (And no, there was no pink light.)But I got better.Now, years later, I remember little about it except that it demonstrated to me what a wierd place the inside of PKD's head was in his later years.

[mckenz18 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is weird. I mean really weird--even by Philip K. Dick’s standards. VALIS (or Vast Active Living Intelligence System) chronicles the search of Horselover Fat for truth after being contacted by God through a pink beam of light. In undertaking this spiritual, philosophic, and cosmic journey, Horselover faithfully pens his exegesis. A (VERY) tiny taste of the weirdness you are in for: Entry 18. Real time ceased in 70 C.E. with the fall of the temple at Jerusalem. It began again in 1974 C.E. The intervening period was a perfect spurious interpolation aping the creation of the Mind. “The Empire never ended,” but in 1974 a cypher was sent out as signal that the Age of Iron was over; the cypher consisted of two words: KING FELIX, which refers to the Happy (or Rightful) King. Exactly. VALIS is a very strange book, but it actually is straightforward (to an extent) up until the introduction of the rock star Mother Goose and his film. Then the lines of reality become a bit more nebulous. One cannot say that Horselover finds the answers he is looking for in the end, and it is dependent upon the reader’s personal interpretation as to whether this book offers Horselover a happy (or even just satisfying) ending. This is one of my favorite PKD novels--it delves into Gnosticism and various other religious esoterica, it features Philip K. Dick’s trademark paranoia, it explores the nature of reality, and it blows mental fuses with every paragraph. Come to understand the significance behind the Black Iron Prison, KING FELIX, the Dogon tribe, the plasmate that patiently slumbered at Chenoboskion for centuries…read this book. The Empire never ended.

[eilonwy_anne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

VALIS is an enjoyable book, but very front-loaded with theology and philosophical background. It's fascinating and easy to read, but doesn't keep you turning pages. This is probably due to the way the narrative is explicitly 'broken' or irrational through the protagonist. Pretty gutsy choice. The story is intriguing, the dialogue often wry and funny, and some of the twists rather unexpected. Horselover Fat's personal theology is strangely appealing.

[reverends_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like most of Philip K. Dick’s novels, the main characters around which the story of Valis revolves are engaging, sympathetic, and mirrors of the social and psychological complexities faced by mankind. Unlike his other novels, however, the main characters in Valis are actually PKD himself. This results in the occasional switch from first and third person narrative, and several instances in which the author and the author surrogate interact with one another.Valis (the name assigned by the main characters to their vision of God) is less of a novel than it is a fictionalized account of PKD’s own spiritual journey. Because of this, a good portion of the middle becomes bogged down with in depth descriptions of PKD’s theological views and theories. Anyone not well versed in Gnosticism and Metaphysical Theory will be tempted to skim several pages of text at a time, and might even debate whether finishing the book is worth the trouble. This will be especially true of readers who are only familiar with his early science fiction work and not prepared for a crash course in PKD’s exegesis. In some ways, Valis could be considered PKD’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, except the focus of this road trip isn’t the American Dream, but the True Nature of God.Above all else, PKD is a master storyteller, and this is what saves Valis from being a stuffy and unintelligible pseudo-memoir about a spiritual journey. The uncertainty of the narrator’s true identity (both to the reader and the narrator), as well as the sympathetic nature of his plight and the conspiracy-drenched plot twists reminiscent of Robert Anton Wilson (whom PKD mentions in the book) will keep you interested enough to struggle through the denser passages. But you also find yourself riveted as you gain closer insight into the mind of one of the greatest science fiction authors of the last century.Valis is a perfect snapshot of a time not so long ago, when there existed a movement of authors that eagerly blended the lines between science-fiction and spiritualism. It was a time when optimism regarding mankind’s future potential was almost intoxicating, and the experimental expansion of the mind and spirit were deemed as important as technological advancements. Looking back, it may seem a bit naive and fanciful, but it was also full of hope and wonder, two traits that seem to be lacking more and more with today’s sci-fi authors.

[colinflipper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Like many other PKD novels, Valis deals with the question of reality. As usual, drugs and insanity get tied in, but the main avenue of exploration here is religion. In fact, significant sections of the book really wouldn't be classified as narrative fiction and are instead closer to be expository writing about the 'true' nature of the universe. This bogs things down towards the start of the book, but a plot does show up to carry things along.Dick is often accused of being a bad writer (but with brilliant ideas). Reading other books of his ('A Scanner Darkly', 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', etc), I had never really noticed this. I definitely do notice the sloppy writing in Valis.So, in summary, if you like the idea of reading about PKD's wild (and frequently confusing) religious beliefs, then dive in. Otherwise, you'll probably want to steer clear because the expository sections and generally flat writing will wear you down.

[shimra_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Classic, partially authobiographical book about searching for God while suffering from mental illness.