Valis

Name: Valis
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Rating: 3.6 (18 reviews)
Author: Philip K. Dick
ISBN: 9798894864860

Author: Philip K. Dick

Series: VALIS Trilogy

Narrator: Jefferson Mays

Unabridged: 9 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 10/02/2025

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction

Synopsis

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.

About 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

Goodreads review by Will on November 18, 2020

I was prompted to read this after it popped up in a season 4 episode of LOST. Philip K. Dick - image from FutureConscience Horselover Fat is both the narrator and a third-person character. He is our everyman through whom we are led in a contemplation of the nature of reality, god and sanity. Was Fat......more

Goodreads review by Bradley on May 13, 2017

Update 5/13/17: I had to dive back into VALIS because certain tales continue to resonate with me... and this one is still one of the very most important. Who knows? Maybe I am just a crazy as PKD because I'm obsessed with the perception of reality, holographic universes, the edict of "As Above, So Be......more

Goodreads review by Stuart on November 18, 2015

VALIS: Reconciling human suffering with divine purpose Originally posted at Fantasy Literature It’s often said that “one must suffer for one’s art.” They must have been referring to Philip K. Dick. He slaved away in relative obscurity and poverty at a typewriter for decades, churning out a prodigious......more

Goodreads review by mark on August 04, 2018

I/he looked in the mirror to find the face of God. We are all created in God's image, or so we've been taught, I/he thought. But I/he saw no God there; instead there was fallibility, weakness, hypocrisy, despair, and longing. A desire and a need to fool oneself, to compartmentalize so that one p......more