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Valis (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Horselover Fat's nervous breakdown began the day he got the phonecall from Gloria asking if he had any Nembutals..." (more)
Key Phrases: Horselover Fat, Linda Lampton, Eric Lampton (more...)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
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  Kindle Edition, August 3, 2004 $9.99 -- --
  Hardcover, February 28, 2003 -- $99.87 $99.88
  Paperback, July 1, 1991 $10.04 $6.20 $2.91
  Mass Market Paperback, September 30, 1985 -- $80.39 $3.94
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  Book with CD-ROM, September 30, 2008 $22.76 $18.86 $46.57
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The first of Dick's three final novels (the others are Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). Known as science fiction only for lack of a better category, "Valis" takes place in our world and may even be semi-autobiographical.

The proponent of the novel, Horselover Fat, is thrust into a theological quest when he receives communion in a burst of pink laser light. From the cancer ward of a bay area hospital to the ranch of a fraudulent charismatic religious figure who turns out to have a direct com link with God, Dick leads us down the twisted paths of Gnostic belief, mixed with his own bizarre and compelling philosophy. Truly an eye opening look at the nature of consciousness and divinity.



From Publishers Weekly

The quest for God is the binding theme of this trilogy. The "funny and painful and sometimes brilliant" VALIS(anagram) finds protagonist and Dick alter-ego Horselover Fat unable to reconcile human suffering with his belief in God. Invasion is a "fascinating and highly readable" vision of Armageddon, blending New Testament, Kabbalah and Dick's own worldview. In Transmigration , Angel Archer reminisces about her father-in-law, Timothy, an Episcopal bishop obsessed with a set of ancient scrolls that shed faith-threatening new light on Jesus: "This finely crafted, odd but compelling book demonstrates Dick's great erudition, keen human insight and subtle ironic sense of humor," said PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage (July 2, 1991)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0679734465
  • ISBN-13: 978-0679734468
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #94,876 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Philip K. Dick
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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
Horselover Fat's nervous breakdown began the day he got the phonecall from Gloria asking if he had any Nembutals. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Horselover Fat, Linda Lampton, Eric Lampton, Mother Goose, North Ward, Santa Ana, Rhipidon Society, Black Iron Prison, Nag Hammadi, Ferris Fremount, Orange County, Gloria Knudson, Great Punta, Nicholas Brady, Synchronicity Music, United States, Holy Spirit, Leon Stone, New Testament, Soviet Union, Elmo's Fire, Father Larry, Marin County, New York, Richard Nixon
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Customer Reviews

98 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (98 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Arcane Religious Philosophy as Schizophrenic Quasi-Biography, December 21, 2002
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.

Note that the make-believe movie seen by the characters in this book was expanded by PKD into another novel - *Radio Free Albemuth* - which was not published during his lifetime. A story within a story within a quasi-mental-autobiography, as it were.

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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Missing the point?, March 2, 2006
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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34 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars PDK at his strangest, August 31, 2003
By P. Nicholas Keppler "rorscach12" (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply put.
This is either the single most important work in the history of all mankind, or it is complete rubbish.
Published 1 month ago by xcb

4.0 out of 5 stars God in search of man
I approach this piece with fear and trembling. It's probably the most controversial novel of Philip K. Read more
Published 2 months ago by benshlomo

5.0 out of 5 stars Feel Bad Book of the Century
Sometimes a book unsettles you and makes you silently shake your head in fascinated disbelieve while you are reading it; sometimes a book profoundly affects your mood; sometimes... Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars An important work
This novel is to me one of those things that you want people to understand, you want people to see in it the same things you do. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Frank Rizzo

4.0 out of 5 stars NOT a book about madness, sadistic games, deception, pain
This book is PKD's story based on gnostic Christianity, or at least attempt to combine SF genre and give some kind of explanation of time, space,philosophy, closer to science... Read more
Published 14 months ago by M. Vasiljevic

1.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't get into it
I really love PKD. A Scanner Darkly is one of my absolute favorite novels, and I've enjoyed everything else I've read by him (though some of his short fiction is a little weak),... Read more
Published 15 months ago by adead_poet@hotmail.com

5.0 out of 5 stars PKD's finest book in my opinion
This is Phillip K. Dick's finest novel in my opinion. He wrote it at what I think was the peak of his artistic abilities: he has freed himself from the confines of traditional... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Justin M. James

3.0 out of 5 stars Conspiracy Theology
Wow! This novel is akin to a beautiful train wreck. Unnerving, intriguing, bizarre, and potentially relatable. Read more
Published 16 months ago by C. Edell

5.0 out of 5 stars Gnostic visions and sacred musings...not your typical science fiction
This is my first book by Philip Dick. I am now reading the follow up to Valis, "The Divine Invasion". Read more
Published 17 months ago by Neil R. Cronin

4.0 out of 5 stars Reality is that which remains after you stop believing in it
Like most of Phillip K. Dick's novels, the main characters around which the story of Valis revolves are engaging, sympathetic, and mirrors of the social and psychological... Read more
Published 20 months ago by S. Michael Wilson

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