This novel is a precursor to Dick's sci-fi masterpieces. Mary, a quirky, twenty year old suffering from a borderline personality disorder and dysphoria, takes center stage. Her mood swings, frigidity, diffused guilt, unstable identity and inability to decide who to mate with dominate the plot. Dick creates the character Mary living in an alien world- "sometime in a hundred years her world might exist." The womanizer, Schilling's attempt to bring her up to the surface and provide Mary with a retreat, a place to hide, fails miserably. Later, in his sci-fi, when Dick provides his misfit characters with alien worlds to inhabit his writing takes off. But trying to describe this sort of neurotic within the 1950's milieu barely works. The happy ending for Mary was a pleasant, though barely credible, surprise

This is my favorite book of Dick's. The everyday struggle of the characters tears at the heart. I actually prefer Dick's "regular" novels to his science fiction. Few saw clearer the reality around them than this master of the imagination.

I loved this. It's one of Dick's better books. Story of strange young woman and how she finds her place in the world. Very interesting characters.

Somewhere somewhen PKD is morphing into Michael Bishop, classical music rolling into words on the keyboard. If you've read all of PKD's works and are jones-ing for more, check this out. And as our media crazed society increasingly resembles one of PKD's novels, don't we need all the help we can get?

Excellent pastiche on P.K. Dick and some of his characters. Though undeniably liberal and anti conservative in political overtones, it can be forgiven because the story is cute.

This is not only a tribute to Philip K. Dick - my favorite author - but also written in his exact style. It's uncanny.

Although mostly known for his novels, Philip K. Dick also had a pretty impressive pile of short stories. This collection contains 15 of them: The Preserving Machine, War Game, Upon the Dull Earth, Roog, War Veteran, Top Stand-By Job, Beyond Lies the Wub, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Captive Market, If There Were No Benny Cemoli, Retreat Syndrome, The Crawlers, Oh To Be a Blobel!, What the Dead Men Say, and Pay for the Printer.

For those of you who don't know, the story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" is the story that the movie Total Recall is based on. Personally, I think it is much better than the story the book is named after. But another very interesting story in here is the possibly prophetic "What the Dead Men Say". It is an eerie mix of Ubik and VALIS. A cryogenically frozen man is believed to be sending messages from space, tying up all forms of communication. That particular story was written in 1964, several years before PKD's strange experiences with forces beyond earth.

There are at least five other stories in here that I particularly enjoyed. Needless to say, every PKD fan owes it to themselves to read this collection at least once.

This contains a handful of early short stories. Though most people are probably familiar with PKD's longer works, PKD is really into his own in the short story field. I find that he is much more able to hold my attention in a short story. In addition, I believe that the 'literary' style of writing that many critics claim is lacking in PKD's novels is indeed present in his short stories. Contains 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,' and 'The Preserving Machine,' two exceptional short stories in the science fiction genre--indeed, in any genre.

This book is indicative of the paradox of Philip Dick. It shows that, for all his lapses, he was one of the great writers of the Twentieth Century.

Populist pulp sci-fi that meditates on Kant, Jung, Proust, Joyce and renaissance music. A classic 'thriller' plot-line that metamorphoses into something entirely other. A hero who isn't the main character of the book, and who isn't even a hero. Minor characters who appear as the fully rounded protagonists of their own worlds. Outragously dated futurism alongside spot-on perceptive prediction. Frankly poor, slapdash writing that has a uniquely moving and lasting effect on the reader.

Like most of Dick's writing, this is a work of flawed genius. Dick simultaneously embraces and subverts the science fiction genre to create his own unique, fractured vision of existence. In doing so he shows us that the 'final frontier' of Sci-fi is not space but the human heart.

Or, as insiders know that work, "Why do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Twenty-five years before we had William Gibson and "cyberpunk," we had Philip K. Dick, and if nothing else, this work proves that he was way ahead of his time and that his successors in the genre have done little to build upon his ideas or surpass his vision. In Flow My Tears, we are shown a near-future society transformed to a neo-fascistic police state. Jason Taverner, a pop superstar, finds himself one day without an identity: his friends and lovers don't recognize or remember him and his music and TV shows are unknown. Most significantly, perhaps, he does not have the precious ID cards without which he cannot safely travel more than a few blocks without being waylaid by police and sent into a forced labor camp. Taverner must contend with a rogue's gallery of bizarre and memorable characters to discover how his identity was lost and attempt to recover it. Sometimes Dick's writing is clunky - it is as if ten words at random were removed from the paragraph, and the reader is left slightly uneasy, but this may contribute to the book's strong mood of paranoia. A touch of psychedelia a la Burroughs compounds this effect. Luckily for the reader, unlike in many of Burroughs's works, there actually is a story here. And the characterizations are excellent. Unfortunately, however, somewhere towards the ending, Dick breaks down. The book ends quickly and crudely, like a field amputation given by a half-trained medic in the middle of a battle. In addition, there are allusions to Jung, Renaissance poetry, and several other thinkers or artistic movements which obviously influenced Dick, but I feel that he could have done more to develop these references and themes. All in all, though it is a prescient and moving work and one that should be enjoyable to any science-fiction fans.

I just finished thise one, and it's absolutely Philip K. Dick. This means it's absolutely excellent. The plot has been explained by others, so I'll get right to the good stuff.
PKD clearly loved to play with ideas of perception and reality. He does it really well here.
Previous reviewers have mentioned that they felt this novel fell apart at the end, but was consistently good before this. I have to disagree. The first majority of this book is great pulp SF. The last ten or so pages (don't count the epilogue as the end, PKD just uses it to tie things up) are a whole lot more contemplative and less action filled than the rest of the book. Most people don't expect much stylistically from a speculative fiction author, but the end of this book flows like poetry.
There is no masterful unfolding of some vast plot, and there is no enormous confrontation to close up the story. PKD is beyond clever; he's insane. I love it.

i admit it. i first picked up VALIS to seem like an intellect. (plus, i'd read several interviews of thom yorke, who mentioned the book quite often) god knows why, since, at the time, i was a freshman and all the kids around me were reading 'crosses' and 'go ask alice' and all the other horridly teenage literature. but i digress. the first time i read it through, i didn't quite get it. i found some parts to be a bit funny, others, just plain esoteric, fragmented, subtle. but i gave it another whirl about 3 months later, this time determined to get something out of it. and i did. VALIS is one of the most imaginative, original 'sci-fi' books i've ever read. dick makes the storyline easier--much, much easier than some other sci-fi books i've read, what with all the 482-h cyborg jargon and such--to follow because he maintains the story in first person. (albeit near the end of the story the reader is informed that the main character has been 2 people at once, but, the shock is surprisingly gentle.) the book is funny, depressing, extremely intelligent and original. it is "about": the search for god, theological conspiracies, strange pink lights fired at one's head, thus transferring information from god, from satellites, a young girl who claims to be deity, and dead cats. the story, for me, anyway, was easy to be sucked into because you find yourself cheering on the main characters- you see yourself through their characteristics, you want them to succeed in their search because, in a way, if they do, then you do as well. either way, read VALIS if you're looking for some odd-ball, straight up intelligent writing. don't be persuaded by other reviews or past dick books. take it from a lowly, short attention spanned, hyperactive 15 year old..and pick it up, if you'd like.

"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.

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.

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.

Tired of SF novels that read like increasingly banal versions of "Starship Troopers"? Well, Philip K. Dick is the cure for you. Each of his novels sets off on its own, wonderful meandering journey that takes you places you've never imagined, and Radio Free Albemuth is no exception.

The plot basically follows American History until the late 1960s, when a character named Fremont but actually a shell for Richard Nixon takes over the country by assassinating his rivals and proceeds to make a mockery of the Bill of Rights.

That's just the backdrop for a fascinating foray into the "real" meaning of the Bible, the Jesus story, and eternal life.

BTW, this book, at just over 200 pages, takes a while to read. There are no banal page-long descriptions of the weather, clothing, etc. a la a pulp fiction novel. It's rich with ideas from page to page, so it's not necessarily a page-turner. You have to stop and think about it -- best if read not all at once but a few chapters at a time.

This is, in many ways, the quiessential Philip K. Dick novel. It's not his best, and it's not the one you should read first (after all, it's part of the Valis series), but it is a culmination of the the themes that have always dominated his writing. In particular, paranoia and the nature of reality have always been his two major themes, and this book is no exception. At his best, Dick could truly make you ask the question "What is real?" and be unsure of the answer. His writing can also have that "looking over your shoulder" effect. He rarely portrayed either of these two themes better than in this novel. Also, the ruminations on God and religion that dominated his later writings (in particular the Valis series) is a major part of this book as well, though here it is looked at from a more remote perspective than in the previous novels. The plot is also very coherent and easy to follow, unlike in some of his books, while still retaining that unmistakable Dick touch. Essential PKD primer.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (or DADOES) was one of Philip K. Dick's more known books, as it was made into the movie "Blade Runner" with Harrison Ford. While the movie was good in itself, it did leave out much of the book, and thusly was more confusing. The book will clear up many of the questions raised from the movie.

The book follows Rick Deckard, a futuristic bounty hunter assigned to kill human-like androids (or as they were called in the movie only, Replicants. In the book, they were merely referred to as androids or andys). While hunting down a new model of andy, the Nexus-6, he falls in love with another andy, Rachel Rosen (Tyrell in the movie), who helps him in his mission.

The world he lives in has just come out of a plauge which killed almost all of the animals, and as of which, they are partly a status symbol, and also Mercerism (the main religion) states that one must have at least one animal at all times.

The book has an extremely dark feel to it, as with many of Philip K. Dick's other books, but this is a upside rather than an injury. I encourage everyone to read this book, even if they haven't seen "Blade Runner" or if they didn't like the movie.

Philip K. Dick's name isn't a household one, but the movies "Blade Runner" and "Total Recall" are quite popular distillations, and to a degree corruptions, of his coolest notions: that what we think of as being reality isn't real, and what makes us human is our capacity to care about others, not our ability to think or our use of technology. "Androids" is the book that was ultimately filmed as "Blade Runner" after being rewritten by more scriptwriters than this book has main characters. The setting here is not a decadent futuristic super-city but a post-apocalyptic world, after nuclear wars have destroyed almost all non-human life on this planet. Androids here are straightforward villains, lacking the sublime human touches their on-screen portrayers brought to them; the ending is, in fact, quite different here, much less powerful than what was seen in the film---even Dick himself thought, and said, as much. Deckard, the book's hero, is a grumpy married man who just wants to do his job well and try to love his painfully unappealing wife, and he largely fails at both endeavors---even his affair with Rachael the android is pretty sad stuff, and when he finally gets a real animal as a pet (the ultimate status symbol), well...let's just say, you'll feel the end of this book like a brick tossed at your forehead. This isn't his best work, but it might well be the perfect vehicle for anybody who wants to get introduced to his morbid humor, incredible flights of fancy, and his penetrating, cosmic themes of life, love, artifice, decay, and confusion---in many ways, he was the first "cyberpunk" author, doing his best work at least twenty years before the term was even coined. If you don't constantly compare this book to the Ridley Scott/Harrison Ford movie drawn from it, you will have a very good time; it's quite spooky, cool stuff, not perfect but about as good as it gets. Dick was perhaps the most brilliant, twisted, visionary sf writer ever---see for yourself here.

In Philip K. Dicks novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", Dick explores humanity not only in the near future, but also in the present. Although written in the sixties, Dick had a keen eye on what makes humans tick, emotionally as well as intellectally as he explored the life of Rick Deckard in the year of 2021. The cult classic hit movie BLADE RUNNER was loosely based upon this novel, however fans new to the book should be warned: the book is superior and vastley different from the movie. In the year 2021 Earth is slowly recovering from a world war that has destroyed most of the animal population and drives the healthy humans onto other outworld planets, namely Mars. Existing animals are taken care of by the humans unable or unwilling to leave Earth,and according to society, it is a sign of prestige and honor to take care of these animals. Humans have developed not only androids to assist colonists on other planets, but also electronic animals so humans unable to afford expensive live animals are able to keep their dignety with fake animals that look almost real. Already in the begining of the book, Dick has established a world that fits his unique style. Quetioning what is reality, identity, and consiousness is Dick's specialty. And nowhere else can you find that more prevulant in his protaganist Rick Deckard's conflict with himself as he pursues 6 renegade androids\replicants from the off worlds. During his pursuit, Rick encounters not only the replicants but also other characters that further Rick's journey into what seems is self-discovery. Dick has not only established himself in the genre of scince fiction with his work, but has also showed what a true writer is. His ability to explore the characters lives in this particular story and expanding the readers awareness is a sign of pure genius. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" has this written between its pages.

To all the would-be literary naysayers out there who say "all possible plots have already been used" and "every book is just a different version of a previously released book", I have one piece of advice for you: read a Philip K. Dick book. Particularly his Valis trilogy is highly unique and a bit eye-opening. How many books have you read that star God as a crippled, 10-year-old amnesiac? Not very many, I would imagine, but this is such a book. Setting the novel in such an off-kilter scenario allows Dick to examine, and thereby challenge, our conventional ideas of God. This book is very dense and hard to penetrate at times... many of the references escaped me, but I still found it interesting for it's novel views on theology and the nature of God. I highly recommend this book, and Dick's entire Valis trilogy, to anyone looking for theology-expanding fiction, or simply a unique read.

I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with anyone who says this book proves Dick's insanity. I found The Divine Invasion much more lucid than his earlier, more acclaimed works (The Man In The High Castle, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep). While his early books are surreal stories in which identifiably human characters struggle within a twisted plot whilst uncovering basic truths of life, this book is the deconstruction of God himself, his purpose, his thoughts and his perceptions.

Indeed, the very idea of God as an amnesia-stricken child is a brilliant backdrop for Dick to explore our perceptions of religion and reality in a very non-linear yet coherent manner.

Granted, even though it is peppered with clasically Dickian humor (poor Herb Asher listening to muzak within his cryogenically induced dream), this is not the most entertaining of Dick's work. It is however, in my humble opinion, much more thought provoking in it's scope and as such, a more valuable insight into PKD's unique mind than the brief glimpses of his genius contained in his more conventional SF novels.

Although Dick's final three books are best enjoyed as a trilogy, "The divine invasion" remains my favorite of the three. The science fiction setting of the book allows Dick the freedom to explore some of his more radical notions without having to ground them in the more mundane reality of the other books in his trilogy. One doesn't usually expect to encounter profound and moving meditations on the nature of good and evil in a science fiction book, yet Dick pulls it all together with his powerful storytelling ability.

I cannot understand why this Dick book had been out of print for years. Some of his most interesting characters and concepts found in later books evolved from this one, his most intelligent post-bomb novel. His flare for the unusal and his this -ain't -quite -what -it -seems twists keeps the reader guessing throughout. Even though we get just a glimpse of who the characters are before the nuclear destruction, we are sympathetic to their attempt to eek out an existance and share their hopes for a new world. Their personal evolution is wonderfully illustrated. Despite a somewhat abrupt ending, the book holds up when read today.

The first image in this novel is that of a black man named Stuart McConchie sweeping the sidewalk in front of a Berkeley TV shop, eyeing the pretty girls on their way to work and indulging in some contempt for the approaching patients of the psychiatrist across the street. In any ordinary novel, that image would tell you that the book is going to be about that black man and those patients. In PKD, the image tells you that the book will be about prejudice.

The average author, to tackle that theme, would provide us with a group of unprejudiced characters battling a group of prejudiced ones and make it very clear which are the good guys and which the bad guys. PKD was always a little too smart for that. Just about every character in "Dr. Bloodmoney" is suspicious of pretty nearly every other character he or she meets at one time or another. That includes several characters who have good reason to be suspicious - Bruno Bluthgeld, for instance, the Dr. Bloodmoney of the title, who believes himself personally responsible for the nuclear exchange that brings the world to its knees. Hoppy Harrington, too, has good reason for his suspicions - he's a telekinetic biological sport with no arms or legs at a time when atomic radiation has produced talking dogs and musical rats, so everyone's been looking at him funny his whole life; he's not just imagining things.

However, the culture of suspicion even affects little Edie Keller and the undeveloped but quite powerful twin brother in her body. The culture of suspicion gets to Edie's father, George, who thinks his wife is cheating on him (he's right). It affects everyone, even the best of men and women. About the only character with no prejudice to speak of in "Dr. Bloodmoney" is Walt Dangerfield, left stranded in an orbiting satellite by the outbreak of war, and his lack of suspicion eventually leaves him the most vulnerable of all.

The good guys, in other words, are highly intolerant of anyone or anything new. PKD makes good use of the irony that this xenophobia blinds the people of West Marin County to the dangers that Bruno Bluthgeld and Hoppy Harrington pose to them directly, simply because both men have been around them for awhile. There are plenty of mainstream novels which deal with that very subject - you could name ten or more in less than five minutes - without the necessity of dragging in nuclear war and mutant mental powers.

In short, this is maybe the least SF that an SF novel could possibly be. This is not necessarily a criticism, of course - in fact, it would make "Dr. Bloodmoney" an excellent entry point into the works of PKD except for one thing. The story doesn't really get moving until about a third of the way in.

The novel is one of PKD's longest, and he spends a good bit of time on the events of the day the bombs come down. The story proper, however, begins seven years later, when a worldwide culture of semi-rural enclaves has settled into its routine, loosely knit together by communications from the man in the satellite. The opening events have little or no connection to the main plot, although there's a nice description of World War III as seen through the eyes of a man who just knows it's all a figment of his imagination. Nevertheless, as nicely written as those passages are, I found myself thinking that "Dr. Bloodmoney" could have used a little tightening up. Take the passage where a mushroom hunter watches Hoppy Harrington nearly get run down by a wood-burning truck. Now there's a good opening scene, I thought - why not start here and add in all that backstory during the main plot instead of making me wait all this time?

So, one star off for some loose-jointed plotting. Why not two stars off? Because those first pages, although they dangle from the book like a participle, do not strike me as unnecessary. Far from it - those pages contain some critical information, so critical that by the time the story proper kicked in I was thoroughly hooked. They just needed to be woven in more tightly, that's all. And PKD was notorious for writing fast and furiously - he needed the money. One more crime to chalk up to the American publishing industry, I suppose. Then again, they did publish "Dr. Bloodmoney", warts and all - let's be thankful for what we've got.

And, to return to the point we started with, let's hope that "Dr. Bloodmoney" teaches us what life can be like when, like most of these characters, we lay aside our prejudices and work together to build something good.

Benshlomo says, Some good art, like some good life, is messy.

Granted, I have only read 7 Philip K. Dick novels, but out of those 7 this one stands out as the best. This novel contains fascinating insights into the concepts of solipsism, megalomania, and paranoia (the self is everything). Dr. Bloodmoney percieves himself to be at the center of the universe, the author of all things, the entire world being a mere projection of his personal subjectivity. Using his power, he creates a nuclear war. So is he crazy, or is he really somehow behind this catastrophe? This is just one of the many interesting subplots we are presented with in this story. There are a number of other characters in this book whose situations are also very compelling, and Philip K. Dick weaves their lives together with the skill of a master storyteller. Dick has an amazing ability to seamlessly meld the tragic and the hilarious, and the end result is one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever written.

Philip K. Dick is not, unfortunately, for everyone. What concerns him as an author are not the things which concern most people: questions on the nature of reality, on what makes us human, on how people deal with a universe which feels, fundamentally, wrong. In this book many of the characters feel like they are living in the wrong universe and at the wrong time -- they live in Japanese-controlled California in a universe where the Axis has won World War II. How they react when they learn of a book, itself an alternative history, supposedly based on the I Ching, where the Allies win WWII, and how that fact changes their lives is the focus of this book. No, aside for the death of one individual, not much happens, on the surface. This book isn't about history, per se, it's about people. Highly recommended.

Philip K. Dick's masterpiece is one of the classics of the alternative history genre. This was my first Philip K.Dick novel and it's so good that I want to light up a Land-o-Smiles and read everything he's ever written. The characters seem like real people. The story is told through interleaved overlapping stories that revolve around the Nazi and Japanese domination of America after America and the British lost WWII in 1947. It's 1962 and the United States has been divided between the Nazis in the East and the Japanese in the West. America has become a third world country controlled and exploited by the victors. The Japanese are better masters than the Germans. The Germans have turned their part of the world into a living nightmare and are plotting to start a war with the Japanese. The Japanese are quiet and philosophical. The scenes of life in Japanese dominated San Francisco are oddly familiar. Dick has transposed the usual circumstance a visiting American finds in third world countries friendly to the United States: Wealthy foreigners living in exclusive enclaves, fawning local businessmen eager to get the foreign visitor's business, local police dominated and loosely controlled by the foreigners. The I Ching is central to the story, guiding the action of many of the protagonists.

In all an imaginative take on what life could have been like, uniquely flavored by the influence of Eastern Philosophy.

When Borges writes mind-bending stories with ideas playing off of each other never concluding but offering up tension for the readers, he is a deep writer. When Philip K. Dick does the same with novels, he's a genre writer. With novels like this one, Dick proves the fallacy of the science fiction ghetto.

America has lost World War II. The Japanese are in the West while the Nazis control the East Coast. Jews are secretly going about plotting the destruction of this system, while slavery is once again in fashion. Marijuana is legal and sold on the street corner and the Japanese still buy American pop culture trinkets with a missionary zeal. Meanwhile a man has written a book in which America won the War in an "alternate history" where FDR wasn't assassinated in 1936, Italy turned against Germany and Hitler committed suicide. So disturbing is this book ot the Germans that they are sending assassins to him.

Meanwhile the I Ching is giving readings that are startlingly accurate and yet the people don't know it. No one is what they seem and the puzzle of existence and identity is played with with glee.

The only warning I give when reading this book is that like most Philip K. Dick books, most of the resolution happens 50 pages before the last page and what wasn't resolved by then won't be resolved and you are left wondering where the ending is supposed to be. It's a hazard of reading most Philip K. Dick books, but in this case it's worth it