Valis

By Philip K. Dick ,

Book cover of Valis

Book description

It began with a blinding light, a divine revelation from a mysterious intelligence that called itself VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System). And with that, the fabric of reality was torn apart and laid bare so that anything seemed possible, but nothing seemed quite right.

It was madness, pure and…

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Why read it?

6 authors picked Valis as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Maybe I am gullible. Maybe everything I thought I knew was a lie. I don’t know anymore.

This is how this book left me feeling. And I’m not mad at all. But if I ever believed the ravings of a mad-man, I believed Horselover Fat’s. Every last damn word.

There was truly a scary blurring of lines here between what could happen and what actually did happen.

I read Valis amongst several other Philip K. Dick novels for my research and found it incredibly compelling.

The struggle of the narrator to work out the meaning of his experiences is relatable, and the stakes are as high in fiction as they are in reality.

I have a feeling that this book will remain essential for a long time to come and wish I had read it sooner.

I consider myself a very spiritual person and I believe that it is a person’s responsibility to question what it means to be spiritual in order to better understand one’s own faith.

As I am, Philip K. Dick was obviously obsessed with wanting spiritual answers. Valis is very entertaining, but it also made me question all that I believe in a way that expanded and made my spirituality stronger.

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Book cover of The Switch

The Switch by April McCloud,

A hundred years in the future, in a world where technologically enhanced bodies are valued above organic ones, Complete Life Management (CLM) is selling perfection in the form of the latest and greatest bionic model, the Apogee. As an elite runner and inadvertent spokesperson for the humanism movement, NYPD Detective…

This book served as a primary inspiration for my book. One of Dick’s later works, it follows a drug-addled protagonist, Horselover Fat, in his search for the Vast Active Living Intelligence System: an artificial AI that coincides with Dick’s vision of a gnostic God.

There are few books, in my view, that will change how you will see the world. Typically, experience does that, but this book is almost a substitute for experience. At the least, it will disorient you. Like Dick’s other works, it is disorienting.

You may not remember the story, the characters, or even the message! But…

Blimey. Even by PKD’s standards, this is an unconventional read. VALIS is a story which seeps into the author’s real life, or vice versa. It includes autobiographical elements as well as science fiction and philosophy. Its bravery impresses me. This is art written with the utmost passion, honesty and perhaps even desperation, as it details the author’s mental illness and unexplained experiences and tries to make sense of them. And yet it also manages to be great fun. Really. 

VALIS—Vast Active Living Intelligence System—is one of PK Dick’s most inspiring, and at the same time, depressing, novels. A bizarre film leads a rag tag group of friends to even more bizarre adventures. They meet a 2-year-old Messiah who cures the protagonist’s psychosis. Any more would be spoiling the plot.

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Book cover of The Switch

The Switch by April McCloud,

A hundred years in the future, in a world where technologically enhanced bodies are valued above organic ones, Complete Life Management (CLM) is selling perfection in the form of the latest and greatest bionic model, the Apogee. As an elite runner and inadvertent spokesperson for the humanism movement, NYPD Detective…

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