Valis

By: Philip K. Dick

Narrated by: Jefferson Mays

VALIS is the first novel in a mesmerizing, science-fiction philosophical trilogy by Philip K. Dick, the Hugo Award–winning author of The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—the basis for the film Blade Runner.

“Dick is one of the ten best American writers of the twentieth century, which is saying a lot. Dick was a kind of Kafka steeped in LSD and rage.”*

What is VALIS?

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.

“More disturbing than any novel by [Carson] McCullers,” (*Roberto Bolaño), 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.

©1981 Philip K. Dick (P)2025 Recorded Books

A bit too much for me

I’m a big fan of the author but this book was chaotic. The story was meandering. Despite the problems, I stuck with it but in the end was pretty disappointed with the plot.

Masterpiece.

A moving tale of seeking the Gnostic truth, no matter how painful or surreal it becomes. Undoubtedly one of PKDs most pressing works, where reality is given his full surrealist treatment. A visceral story of man's search for meaning while confronting the Absurd. Absolutely sardonic, gripping all the way through.