Valis

This book is a schizophrenic head f***. I've been tearing through the NPR top 100 scifi/fantasy list and just got totally fantansied out, so I thought well a PKD binge will straighten my brain back up. So I read 'A Scanner Darkly', then 'Radio Free Albemuth', then 'A Divine Invasion'...but when I was early into ADI they mentioned Fomalhaut (from RFA) and then I started thinking hmmm I don't remember the first part of the book but I'm deja vu'ing the heck out of the Fomalhaut part. I looked it up an ADI is book two of Valis trilogy, ok scratch ADI for now, gotta read Valis.

Holy crap. The book is very difficult to read switching between first and third person frequently with only fourth wall breaking to confirm you're not crazy and everyone is playing along. It's filled with rambling and semi repititive at times revelations of life, the universe, and religion, but it also seems to be a parallel retelling of Radio Free Albemuth. It even goes so far as PKD referencing A Scanner Darkly AND Radio Free Albemuth and explaining parts of them, which really further messes with you, especially if you just read those books.

It's hard to sum this book up, except to say that it feels like a thinly veiled non-fiction book disguised as fiction. The global conspiracy, alien communication, sources of ancient religion, spritual entities, you name it. The book got into my head like no other either. I fell asleep reading it, about twenty pages before the end, and had the craziest lucid dreaming half awake can't move body shaking phosphene hallucination inducing direct brain transmission from VALIS that explained to me the book is based on truth and is the gateway to opening your mind up...just like the movie in this book is for. VALIS told me they'll be back to me at the right time. When I woke up I actually was convinced for a little bit that it actually happened.

4.5 stars for inducing crazy phosphene alien communication incorporating me as a homeoplasmatic member of the Rhipodon Society.