Rating: 
Summary: More Readable than Valis trilogy
Review: 'Albemuth' is definitely easier to read than the other books of the VALIS trilogy. It's more of a traditional story than one written around philosophical ideas. Reading it helped me understand Dick's idea of VALIS more completely.
Rating: 
Summary: Some Good Ideas Lost in an Absurd Plot
Review: As usual with Dick, there are some interesting things to besaid, but the flaws outweigh the good here. First, several aspects ofthe plot are ridiculous. Of course with sci-fi, you have to forgive the ridiculous, but at heart this book is a political thriller with sci-fi aspects thrown in. As a result I have a problem with the fact that the entire plot to bring down Fremont rests on some harebrained scheme to send out subliminal messages through popular music. The second flaw stems from the fact that Dick makes himself a character in the book. I have no problem with that in theory, but in practice it is a disaster. Dick plays it completely straight, all the while touting his importance as a writer. A lot of it was very tough to swallow. The third flaw was the inclusion of several long diatribes on the meaning of Valis during the parts narrated by Nick Brady. They just seemed goofy and brought the narrative to a screeching halt. Throw in the fact that the core political conspiracy (Left Wing Forces Using a Right Wing Puppet as their Agent) was lifted directly from The Manchurian Candidate and you have a book that must be considered a failure.
Rating: 
Summary: My all time favorite PKD book!
Review: Beautiful, paranoid, haunting, mind-blowing
Rating:
Summary: A gripping novel with subliminal messages.
Review: Browsing through the library I stumbled across this book; I hadn't read any Phillip K. Dick since The Man in the High Castle some years ago. Though the Russia/US conflict is dated now, the book doesn't suffer, as the main plot is the relationship between VALIS (aka God) and the characters. What really surprised me was the Christian theme running throughout, and the comparisons drawn between early christian believers and the believers in VALIS. While it is probably not theologically correct to say that VALIS and God are one and the same, I found his use of VALIS as a metaphor for God to be admirable. It's interesting too that in a time when worshipping God and Jesus is not cool, and something a lot of hipsters would snicker at, worshipping something like VALIS seeems a lot more palatable as it is placed in a context of being an extraterrestrial life form.
Rating:
Summary: Not Dick's best, but surprisingly coherent
Review: Considering how stoned he got during the 60s and 70s, one would expect Dick's last published novel to be somewhat incoherent. On the contrary, this is an extremely focused, coherent book. As a philosopher, and on his philosophical texts...well, to be totally honest, it's hard for me to take Dick seriously. There is no denying, however, that this is clearly a thought-out and gripping piece of writing. As simply a novel about repression, which Dick wrote about masterfully, this is an excellent work. Not as crazy as you might think, and definitely worth a read.
Rating:
Summary: Not Dick's best, but surprisingly coherent
Review: Considering how stoned he got during the 60s and 70s, one would expect Dick's last published novel to be somewhat incoherent. On the contrary, this is an extremely focused, coherent book. As a philosopher, and on his philosophical texts...well, to be totally honest, it's hard for me to take Dick seriously. There is no denying, however, that this is clearly a thought-out and gripping piece of writing. As simply a novel about repression, which Dick wrote about masterfully, this is an excellent work. Not as crazy as you might think, and definitely worth a read.
Rating:
Summary: A lucid version of VALIS.
Review: Essentially an older draft of the novel that was to become Dick's brilliant _VALIS_, _Radio Free Albemuth_ is, strangely enough, my favorite of the series (which also included _The Divine Invasion_ and _The Transmigration of Timothy Archer_). Dick's story works on an almost fairy-tale level, weaving together Christ imagery with revolution against a totalitarian government quite, um, breezily. This is the book that converted me into a Dickhead, and I heartily recommend it to the fans of Dick's older work who are intimidated by what they've heard about Dick's later, schizophrenia-induced novels.
Rating:
Summary: PKD's Ultimate Paranoia
Review: Having read a fair amount of PKD's work, I'm hardly an expert but I do know that some of his stories are incoherent and directionless, while others are excellent and deeply insightful (especially my personal favorite, 'A Scanner Darkly'). In either case, I will always be amazed by his uniquely subversive ideas. This book was found in unpublished form after PKD's death, and I think I can see why he did not submit it for publication. First, it runs parallel to the Valis Trilogy in ways that may cause confusion. Meanwhile, the ideas used here and the methods of narration are kind of a messy hodgepodge, although the book does succeed in the end. The most awkward aspect is PKD's insertion of himself as one of the two main characters in the story. This method sometimes devolves into merely an outlet for PKD to complain about being labeled as a drug-induced writer, and to play out his extremely paranoid delusions about the Feds monitoring and whitewashing his work. Meanwhile, as opposed to some PKD books that can't quite carry a single undeveloped idea, this book has just too many of them fighting for space. Here we have rampant McCarthyism, disenfranchisement, near-death experiences, subliminal messages, cosmology, and even ancient religious philosophy. All these ideas and awkward techniques make this book rather clumsy and careening, and PKD's sheer paranoia shines through at every turn. But you can still be moved by his nightmarish scenarios of conformity and state control gone mad - and these are valuable insights, regardless of their plausibility. ...
Rating:
Summary: PKD�s Ultimate Paranoia
Review: Having read a fair amount of PKD�s work, I�m hardly an expert but I do know that some of his stories are incoherent and directionless, while others are excellent and deeply insightful (especially my personal favorite, �A Scanner Darkly�). In either case, I will always be amazed by his uniquely subversive ideas. This book was found in unpublished form after PKD�s death, and I think I can see why he did not submit it for publication. First, it runs parallel to the Valis Trilogy in ways that may cause confusion. Meanwhile, the ideas used here and the methods of narration are kind of a messy hodgepodge, although the book does succeed in the end. The most awkward aspect is PKD�s insertion of himself as one of the two main characters in the story. This method sometimes devolves into merely an outlet for PKD to complain about being labeled as a drug-induced writer, and to play out his extremely paranoid delusions about the Feds monitoring and whitewashing his work. Meanwhile, as opposed to some PKD books that can�t quite carry a single undeveloped idea, this book has just too many of them fighting for space. Here we have rampant McCarthyism, disenfranchisement, near-death experiences, subliminal messages, cosmology, and even ancient religious philosophy. All these ideas and awkward techniques make this book rather clumsy and careening, and PKD�s sheer paranoia shines through at every turn. But you can still be moved by his nightmarish scenarios of conformity and state control gone mad - and these are valuable insights, regardless of their plausibility. ...
Rating:
Summary: A Culmination?
Review: I don't know why, but ever since I read RFA it has been my favorite book by PKD. Dick's strength has always been his loose entanglement ("grip" is too strong a word) with reality--something that has always shown in his work. His plots are never straight-forward and, when he is at his best, it is quite possible to finish one of his books and then ask yourself "what the heck really happened here?" Dick's ability to call even reality into question has always been his strength, and RFA is no exception. What makes this particular book so good is that his writing technique lives up to the task. All too often some of Dick's works come across with a jerky, "pulp" feel. This is not bad, and it fits his style and his earlier plots, but is usually not a recipe for creating a classic. In his later works, though, he really developed his writing into something that could stand on its own, and when coupled to his extraordinary plots amd ideas would make for an unmatched read in sci-fi. His VALIS trilogy is, according to many, the greatest of his many masterpieces. RFA is not really a part of that trilogy, as it was written separately and not published until well after Dick's death, as a sort of addendum. In one sense, though, I feel like it takes all of the ideas Dick was struggling with and developing in his later years--ideas about the nature of God, the history of humanity, the question of why there are so many religions and is it really possible for us to come together on that issue--and writes them out more clearly and succinctly than any other of his novels. Don't get me wrong, they're all great. But RFA is sort of the "meat and potatoes" of his ideas--clear, organized, and what's best: it's got a great plot. It's about love, death, the threat of communism, political revolutions, subliminal messages, record stores, messages from the stars, and votive candles. What more could you want?
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