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Valis (S.F. Masterworks) Paperback – July 12, 2001

by Philip K. Dick (Author)

162 customer reviews

Book 1 of 3 in the VALIS Trilogy Series

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It began with a blinding light, a divine revelation from a mysterious intelligence that called itself VALIS. And with that, the fabric of reality was ripped open and laid bare so that anything seemed possible, but nothing seemed quite right. Part science fiction, part theological detective story in which God plays both the missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime, VALIS is both disorienting and eerily funny, and a joy to read.

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Product Details

Series: S.F. Masterworks
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Gollancz (July 12, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1857983394
ISBN-13: 978-1857983395
Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (162 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,131,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3800 in Books > Science & Math > Astronomy & Space Science > Cosmology
- #57291 in Books > Science & Math > Physics
- #59273 in Books > Reference > Foreign Language Study & Reference

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Customer Reviews

162

4.0 out of 5 stars

5 star		54%
4 star		22%
3 star		8%
2 star		5%
1 star		11%

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 82 people found the following review helpful

Missing the point?

By Accidentally Disastrous on March 2, 2006

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

I am a huge PKD fan, and I put this among my favorite of the man's work. It is a difficult work, yes. It took me 3 tries before I could get through the first 70 or so pages. I feel that many of the reviewers here are overlooking a major part of the story. Yes, it's full of endless religious speculation and it is terrifically solipsistic and postmodern, but beyond all that, it is one of the most heart-wrenching books about grief that I have ever read. VALIS is not about YHWH in pink lasers, or the Gnostic gospels (Well, _of course_ it's about both of those things, just bear with me), it is about a man who has lost, and because of that, is lost. He cannot allow himself to understand death and goes on a quest to understand everything but. It's a brilliant novel, not one for everybody, but certainly one for the ages.

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41 of 44 people found the following review helpful

Not for the Religiously Timid

By CV Rick on October 15, 2006

Format: Paperback

Philip K Dick experienced something profound in 1974 after a long battle with drug addiction, depression, and paranoia . . . what that experience was can best be described as a hallucinatory encounter with God. This book may be fiction as it's labeled, but more likely it's as close to autobiography as Dick could remember of his life from 1974 to 1978.

Many people consider this to be an unreadable volume because of its surreal journey through the mind of one with some sort of severe psychosis, and of its wild switches from first to third person, not to mention the confusion with which Dick puts himself in the plot as both the protagonist and narrator, but those being two different people. Add to that a heavy dose of gnostic gospel and widely varied obscure theological elements from many cultures, and you have a book few can even understand in the first reading.

That said, I loved it. Why? Because its actually a journey of awareness through a universe where time doesn't really exist, chaos reigns because the creator is insane, and Philip K Dick has trouble keeping it together yet manages to birth an entire religious awakening at the same time.

Before reading it, please familiarize yourself with Taoism, Buddhism, Gnosticism and even Jungian Psychoanalysis as well as various creation mythologies - perhaps a little light reading in the Joseph Campbell library - then dive in and see what can happen when this is all revealed to one man in a beam of light.

- CV Rick

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52 of 61 people found the following review helpful

Arcane Religious Philosophy as Schizophrenic Quasi-Biography

By doomsdayer520 HALL OF FAME on December 21, 2002

Format: Paperback

This book comes from the later stages of PKD's career, when he probably didn't even care about making his books accessible to the masses. That's something that up-and-comers have to do, and by this point PKD was surely trying to sort out his own personal philosophies in narrative form. You can see the websites for several different PKD fan clubs for speculation on what was going through his mind when he wrote this one. Here we have musings on religious visions, spiritual quests, and arcane ancient Greek and Gnostic Christian philosophies. Obviously one would also suspect experimentation in the arts of mind expansion, though in real life (if such a thing exists) PKD hated to be branded in that way. These are all played out by the typically off-center characters and curveball speculative plotlines of classic PKD.
This book can be quite frustrating at times, with long philosophical passages that are merely a mishmash of ideas PKD had come across in his personal studies, and that lead to philosophy overload but with little direction or grand overall insight to be found. Plus you have to wonder if this book is a literal or merely mental autobiography, or not an autobiography at all but one of PKD's subversive storytelling techniques, designed to warp the reader's mind. This book is told in both first and third person by the same character, a schizophrenic with two personalities that operate simultaneously and even interact with each other (a feature of several PKD stories). Here one of the two selves is the increasingly insane Horselover Fat and the other is his sane alter ego, who happens to be the author PKD himself. Ultimately, the mass philosophical confusion of this novel morphs into sheer fascination, albeit in a pretty cluttered way.Read more ›

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59 of 70 people found the following review helpful

PDK at his strangest

By P. Nicholas Keppler on August 31, 2003

Format: Paperback

Before this, he had written about a robot-hunter who suspects he may be a robot himself and a world in which people age in reverse, but Valis is the point where Philip K. Dick really got weird. Based on a supposed experience of the author himself, Valis is the story of Horselover Fat, a man who God (or some being of the sort) contacted using a pinkish ray of light. Fat is a 60s burnout trying to survive in the 70s and this encounter encourages him to write an exegesis, explaining the workings of the universe which apparently include a race of three-eyed creatures and an elaborate system of holograms. Fat is egged on by a group of friends including the Catholic David, the cynical Kevin, the cancer-ridden Sherri and a science fiction named Philip K. Dick, who freely admits he is also Horselover Fat (It will almost make sense after you have read it). Valis is part postmodern experiment, part philosophical treatise and even part science-fiction novel. For people who like their literature inventive, pensive and consciously bizarre (and that is how most Dick fans like their literature), Valis is sure to be a winner.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

A bit depressing but good book over all

This is one of the most difficult to read but enduring and formative books by PKD. Must read for anyone searching for a way out of the Black Iron Prison

Published 2 months ago by Anjel Craig

One Star

seems like a non-stop ramble of a drug addict.

Published 3 months ago by Ariel Silverstone

Four Stars

Good

Published 3 months ago by Ralph J. Edsell

Five Stars

Great read.

Published 4 months ago by Ender Wiggins

The one, the only.

Philip K had an amazing mind. He was an excellent writer. No one has ever been able to narrate the unraveling of such an amazing mind with the clarity of Philip K Dick. Read more

Published 5 months ago by J. Byrdd

ESTRANGEMENT OR ALIENATION?

I cannot review VALIS objectively, as it is a book that belongs to no pre-existing category, combining elements of autobiography, philosophy, science-fiction, gnostic theology,... Read more

Published 5 months ago by Terence Blake

I don't care for the fact that the Kindle edition ...

I don't care for the fact that the Kindle edition of the trilogy is $30. This is only the first book, while the print version sells all three books for $13. Read more

Published 6 months ago by BobR

Five Stars

Decent book , overall seemed somewhat dark

Published 6 months ago by Amazon Customer

Two Stars

This book is just weird with no real payoff.

Published 7 months ago by Matthew D. Stone

Not my thing

To tell the truth, I got two thirds of the way through this and still couldn't find an actual story. Read more

Published 7 months ago by wiredweird