Rating: 
Summary: "Flash Gordon meets Easy Rider meets God!"
Review: Crackpot Dick, shimmering with big bright ideas, bad dreams, worst fears, deepest hopes, and Horselover Fat! Half the book makes no sense...I love it
Rating:
Summary: How odd and how good
Review: Bear with it - I know - the first 50 or so pages make no
sense, but they do later on. The amazing part about this
book is how confused you get, only to have Dick make it
all seem clear in just a few lines a few pages later.
And when you do reach those moments where you understand
what is going on the book reaches moments I haven't had
since reading Joyce or Vonnegut for the first time.
Rating:
Summary: Fish Cannot Carry Guns.
Review: Written after Dick's "epiphany", this work is one ofhis more enigmatic, and one of our all-time favorites.Excessive analysis of this one seems futile. Go with the flow -- at any rate it's quite enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: A mind-mangling semi-fictitious philosophical autobiography
Review: The schizophrenic hero searches for
the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity after reality is fired into
his brain by a pink laser beam of unknown but possibly divine origin.
He is accompanied by his dogmatic and
dismissively atheist friend and assorted other odd characters. One of
my favourite Dick novels.
Rating:
Summary: An Oddly Disorienting Masterpiece
Review: This is perhaps the densest, hardest to penetrate book I've ever read. And I've read a lot. Essentially autobiographical, sprinkled with fictional elements to create a small semblance of "plot", Valis is Philip K. Dick trying, through writing, to find out what the hell happened to him in the 70's. It can be nearly impossible to follow at times. And reading the Tracate sprinkled throughout the book (and in an appendix at the end of the novel) one truly has to wonder if the man was insane. But if you dig below the surface, and see what Dick's really getting at here, you will find that the book is worth the trouble it takes to read it. No doubt you'll never understand all of it. That's not the point. I would not recommend this book for everyone, it's dense and hard at times to follow and not at all written in a conventional style (not that much PDK is.) However, if you are tired of mainstream literature and long for something more, or perhaps answers to the BIG questions, then this book is for you. Also, an absolute must-read for Dick fans, personal and wonderful as it is. If Valis turns you off at first, don't worry, stick with it, it's worth the rollercoaster ride it takes you on.
Rating: 
Summary: shallow philosophy inspired by mental illness
Review: When I was fifteen years old, I thought that PKD was just the best and deepest writer in the world. And that this was, by far, his best book. Going back and looking at his stuff as an adult, I have to say: this is his best book, and I thought he was really deep when I was fifteen. When I was fifteen.Dick is a terrible prose writer, one of the worst ever to make a career of fiction. There is no music to his language whatsoever. His strength is his "philosophy", which in the end is nothing but the typical solipsistic, half-baked, doped-out hippie relativism that is popular among the younger generation in these decadent days of spiritual ignorance. "What is reality?", all Dick's books ask. But Dick has no answers. For answers you need better and higher and smarter and more evolved writers than this also-ran. Valis is interesting only as a document of the mental illness Dick unfortunately suffered from late in his life. Dick was a decent man, but a lousy thinker and a worse writer.
Rating:
Summary: You Either Get It or You Don't....
Review: "The twisted part of Valis is that it makes more and more sense as the book goes on, drawing the reader into this insane way of thinking." I've only read about 5 of Dick's books, but all have been masterpieces. This one tops all the rest. It's companion pieces are excellant books too, but if you read and understand this book I defy you to remain completly the same. Dick's ideas on theology, cosmology and morality might be insane, or they might the only sane ones we have. In any case the book is an incredibly difficult, rewarding piece of literature. I find that the beginning draws you in and doesn't let go, but others have been unable to keep reading after page 5 or so. Stick through it to the end and the rewards are great. Dick also performs some amazing writing stunts here; the adventures of Horselover Fat, Phil Dick, an accusing dead cat and God make for compelling reading. There is, however, virtually no plot; this is almost a treatise on religion, not a novel. Still fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: Comedy at its best.
Review: This book is extremely funny. It has also taken huge steps to renewing my sense of wonder. My appreciation of religions as a whole has increased. I think I may also be slightly more understanding of crazy people.
This book breaks new ground in my understanding of the world, and it has created interesting parallels for me since I watched the Directors Cut of Donnie Darko at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: Hubbard & Dick: "Dianetics" & "Valis"
Review: Philip K. Dick and L. Ron Hubbard were both brilliant philosophical thinkers, but appreciation of their work has been marginalized by the fact that they were writers of pulp science fiction. Psychologically perceptive and metaphysically curious, both men had a keen eye for understanding and decoding the human condition. Occasionally couching their philosophies in cutting-edge futurist thought, they nevertheless managed to formulate groundbreaking theories on the nature of existence itself.
Their paths depart, however, as their bibliographies progress: Dick kept most of his ontological explorations firmly rooted within the context of his fiction, and later in life seemed to be on a Gnostic-influenced voyage with no definite answers. Hubbard, on the other hand, saved up his deepest insights for his latter-day nonfiction works, such as his breakthrough 1951 self-help manual, "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health."
Regrettably, "Dianetics" never gets into the really fun Scientology stuff involving the alien "Thetan" spirits, the evil Galactic Leader Xenu, levitation, or any of the other smacked-out-awesome ideas rumored to be found in the "Dianetics"-based religion. Oh well, if Hubbard won't tell us his secrets, then who wants to help me found the Church of Philip K. Dick? Let Dick's semi-autobiographical, spiritual, sci-fi masterpiece-"Valis"-lead the way.
Dick's final three books--all ingenious--are commonly, but not officially, called The Valis Trilogy. The first book is "Valis," and the final two volumes are: "The Divine Invasion" and "The Transmigration of Timothy Archer." All three are worth checking out.
(This review, which has been excerpted and updated from it's original form, is being posted on Amazon under the legal approval of a Creative Commons License -- material can be used elsewhere so long as the original author and site are credited. Author: Lucas Brachish of celebritycola.blogspot...)
Rating:
Summary: A book that surprised me more than once
Review: Horselover Fat is your objective narrator. As an outside person, it is his job to tell the story in 3rd person. However, Horselover Fat is also your main character, who occasionally tells his story in 1st person. Therefore, the narration of the story routinely slips between 3rd and 1st person. In fact, Horselover Fat will routinely describe events concerning Horselover Fat while expressing his concern for Horselover Fat. It's quite entertaining, actually.
Mr.Fat is a sad man living in California in the 1970s. He survives multiple attempts to kill himself in this book, and though you are certain he is crazy, he will occasionally break through the nonsense with statements of rational clarity. He has a wife (who left him), and a son (who went with his wife), and several "friends". One of them has cancer and she loathes herself, and though Fat attempts to save her, he inevitably fails. During the first half of the novel he is working dilligently on his "exegis", a series of grammatically complex statements that have something to do with civilization, humanity, God, religion, awareness, existence, and maybe something else. In fact, several parts of the exegis are cited in the book, along with footnotes for further reference. Perhaps one of the most entertaining dialogues is between Fat and his therapist while they are discussing obscure references about existentialist ideas. His therapist replies to every odd question Fat proposes without missing a beat, and Fat finally feels as if he has met someone who understands him. Later, when Fat has left the mental hospital and moved on to other things, he realizes that his therapist had tricked him. Perhaps his therapist hadn't understood anything about Fat, but instead, by talking to him directly, he distracted Fat from his depression and let him focus on what he thought was important. After that, Fat went back to dilligently working on his exegis, thankful to his therapist for his genius.
If you are not prepared for it, you might find yourself getting lost in the first part of the book because Fat talks himself in circles and you begin to wonder if there is a point. After awhile, however, you start to pick up on an underlying theme. It has a lot to do with human existence, free will, and similar metaphysical concepts. When you finish the book, you may feel enlightened, confused, or both.
However, I wouldn't bash this book just because I didn't understand all of its subtleties. It made me think, and that's exactly why I started reading it in the first place. Therefore, I am satisfied. 5 stars for "Valis", I say, and hats off to the late Philip K. Dick for being so creative.
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