This is almost a reworking of an earlier novel Valis, which some consider to be Philip K Dick’s greatest novel. The themes and characters are rather melancholy but then this is probably the most autobiographical of his novels, which reads like an alternate history of the United States. Superb writing.
AS AMERICA GASPS IN THE STRANGLEHOLD OF A SKULL-CRUSHING TOTALITARIAN REGIME, A SUPERNATURAL INTELLIGENCE SPEAKS FROM THE STARS…
ARAMCHEK The word scratched in the sidewalk of the President's childhood home.
ARAMCHEK The name of the subversive society 'with no official membership' whose sole purpose is to overthrow the American government.
ARAMCHEK The name of a woman who may hold the key- and who has only weeks to live.
Will the agents of the omniscient Valis succeed in their mission of liberation? Or will the seek-and-destroy tactic of President Ferris F. Freemont extend the mind-numbing grip of the Antagonist across the parameters of the free world?
‘An engrossing, non-stop excursion into a believable vision of hell’ Publishers Weekly
‘The most brilliant sci-fi mind on any planet’ Rolling Stone
Author
About Philip K Dick
Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) was born in Chicago but lived in California for most of his life. His edgy, dark future visions are even more relevant now. His novels have inspired many other writers and been used as the basis for films such as the classic Blade Runner the blockbuster Minority Report and the indie 'cartoon' A Scanner Darkly.
Since his untimely death at age 53, there has been an extraordinary growth of interest in his writings, which during his lifetime were largely ignored by serious mainstream critics and readers. Such is no longer the case, and the novels of Philip K. Dick frequently appear on university curricula devoted to modern American literature.
From age fifteen to his early twenties, Dick was employed in two Berkeley shops, University Radio and Art Music, owned by Herb Hollis, a salt-of-the-earth American small businessman who became a kind of father-figure for Dick and served as an inspiration for a number of his later fictional characters, most notably Leo Bulero in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. In the early 1950s, with the helpful mentorship of SF editor and Berkeley resident Anthony Boucher, Dick began to publish stories in the SF pulps of the era at an astonishing rate - seven of his stories appeared in June 1953 alone. He soon gave up his employment in the Hollis shops to pursue the economically insecure career of an SF writer.
