# VALIS *Philip K. Dick. First published by Bantam Books, February 1981. First book of the incomplete VALIS trilogy.* > I did not read the novel's text for this note. The plot outline comes from Wikipedia's synopsis, and Dick's own comments come from two interview transcripts I did read (Hartford Advocate, April 1981; The Twilight Zone Magazine, June 1982). Chapter titles were not checked; see section 5. ## 1. Book facts | | | |---|---| | Title | *VALIS* (the title is an acronym for "Vast Active Living Intelligence System") | | Author | Philip K. Dick | | First publication | Bantam Books, United States, February 1981, ISBN 0-553-14156-2 ([ISFDB](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?933), which lists the Bantam printing at 227 pages; [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valis_(novel)) says 271 for that ISBN, so the two disagree) | | Edition used here | Mariner Books trade paperback, October 2011, ISBN 978-0-547-57241-3, 271 pages (ISFDB's date and page count) | | Pages | 271 for the Mariner edition per ISFDB. 227 for the 1981 Bantam printings per ISFDB, 241 for the 1991 Vintage | | Series | VALIS trilogy: *VALIS* (1981), *The Divine Invasion* (1981), *The Transmigration of Timothy Archer* (1982) ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VALIS_trilogy)). The planned third volume, *The Owl in Daylight*, was never written | | Genre | Science fiction; philosophical and autobiographical fiction | | Awards | Kurd Lasswitz Prize 1985, best foreign SF novel (ISFDB; Wikipedia, Philip K. Dick). ISFDB also lists a 1982 Locus Best SF Novel entry at place 27, which is not a win | | Cover | [Open Library cover by ISBN](https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/9780547572413-L.jpg) (lookup returned 200) | **Where it came up.** - Video: [Philip K. Dick said we live in a programmed reality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uiFhuzPFw0), *Jim's Wormhole*, a YouTube Short. - Mention: [2:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uiFhuzPFw0&t=135s), "He spent his last 8,000 pages about it. He called it Valis." The preceding lines (from 2:00) tell the story of the beam of light that supposedly diagnosed his son's hernia. - Vault note: [[Video Summaries/Jim's Wormhole/Philip K. Dick said we live in a programmed reality]]. ## 2. Book resources **Reference pages** - Publisher: [HarperCollins page for the Mariner paperback](https://www.harpercollins.com/products/valis-philip-k-dick) (page opened; format list and price not read). - ISFDB: [title record with all editions](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?933). - Wikipedia: [VALIS (novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valis_(novel)); [VALIS trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VALIS_trilogy). - Open Library, Google Books and WorldCat: not checked (Open Library was unreachable; WorldCat blocks automated requests). The Open Library *cover* lookup by ISBN worked. **Where to get it** - **Print and e-book:** [HarperCollins](https://www.harpercollins.com/products/valis-philip-k-dick); [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0547572417) (the page opened but gave my script no readable text, so price is unchecked). The Library of America volume *VALIS and Later Novels* (2009) also appears in ISFDB's list of editions. - **Audiobook / Audible:** yes. [OverDrive](https://www.overdrive.com/media/12069549/valis) and [AudiobooksNow](https://www.audiobooksnow.com/audiobook/valis/10417302/) list an audiobook read by Jefferson Mays from Recorded Books. A web-search summary gives its release as 2 October 2025 and its length as about 9 hours 51 minutes; I did not find either figure on a page I could read. The [Audible page](https://www.audible.com/pd/Valis-Audiobook/B0FLYQYZMT) returned a 503, so its price and availability are unchecked. - **Libraries (free to members):** [Libby/OverDrive](https://libbyapp.com/search/query-valis%20philip%20k%20dick) and [Hoopla](https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?q=valis%20philip%20k%20dick). These are search links; the OverDrive page above shows the title exists in that catalog, but availability at any given library was not confirmed. - **Internet Archive lending / Open Library borrow:** not checked. - **Free full text:** none that I could find, and I would not expect one. The book was published in 1981, and under the [Cornell copyright chart](https://guides.library.cornell.edu/ld.php?content_id=83345575) a work created after 1977 (Wikipedia says the published version was completed late in 1978) and published with notice is protected for 70 years after the author's death, so in the United States it is protected to the end of 2052 (Dick died in 1982). Countries using life plus 70 years reach the same date: public domain from 1 January 2053. [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=valis) has no copy; its catalog carries 13 of his short stories but none of his novels. ## 3. Author biography **Philip K. Dick** (1928–1982), American science-fiction novelist and short-story writer ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick)): - Born 16 December 1928 in Chicago, six weeks premature, with a twin sister, Jane, who died on 26 January 1929. Wikipedia says her death shaped the "phantom twin" motif in his books. He grew up mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area with his mother and attended UC Berkeley briefly in 1949. - Sold his first story ("Roog") in 1951 and wrote full-time from then on; his first novel, *Solar Lottery*, appeared in 1955. Wikipedia counts 45 novels and about 121 short stories. *The Man in the High Castle* (1962) won the 1963 Hugo Award for Best Novel. *Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said* won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. In 2007 he became the first science-fiction writer in the Library of America series. - Money was tight for most of his career. Wikipedia reports amphetamine abuse through the 1960s, the break-up of his fourth marriage in 1971, a suicide attempt in Vancouver on 23 March 1972 (a potassium bromide overdose), and a stay in the X-Kalay recovery programme. He married five times. Wikipedia quotes his own letter describing "dreadful violent fights" with his third wife, and says that in 1963 he had her involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution for two weeks after telling neighbours she was trying to kill him. - Beginning on 20 February 1974 he reported a series of visions ("2-3-74"), which he later interpreted as contact with a "transcendentally rational mind" he called VALIS. He wrote about it in his private "Exegesis" and in the novels *Radio Free Albemuth*, *VALIS*, *The Divine Invasion* and *The Transmigration of Timothy Archer*. In letters to the FBI in 1972 and 1974 he accused named people of being enemy agents. - He was found unconscious after a stroke on 18 February 1982 and died on 2 March 1982, aged 53, four months before *Blade Runner* (adapted from *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?*) was released. Sources: [Wikipedia, Philip K. Dick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick); [Wikipedia, VALIS (novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valis_(novel)); [Wikipedia, VALIS trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VALIS_trilogy). Wikipedia is the only biography I opened. ## 4. Author interviews and talks - [Horselover Fat and The New Messiah](https://philipdick.com/literary-criticism/interviews/horselover-fat-and-the-new-messiah/), John Boonstra, *Hartford Advocate*, 22 April 1981, p. 24 (transcript on philipdick.com; read). Dick explains the delay in publication, the two versions of the book, why he chose a picaresque form, and his sequel *The Divine Invasion*. - [Philip K. Dick's Final Interview](https://philipdick.com/literary-criticism/frank-views-archive/philip-k-dicks-final-interview/), John Boonstra, *The Twilight Zone Magazine*, vol. 2 no. 3, June 1982, pp. 47-52 (transcript on philipdick.com; read). Dick calls *VALIS* "a picaresque novel, experimental science fiction" and says the three trilogy books "constellating around a basic theme". Several of his answers repeat the Hartford interview almost word for word. - [Philip K. Dick: The Last Testament](https://books.google.com/books/about/Philip_K_Dick_the_Last_Testament.html?id=_sAgAQAAIAAJ) (Dick and Gregg Rickman, 1985): a book of interviews, listed on Google Books; I did not read it. - [Metz speech, 1977](https://singjupost.com/transcript-philip-k-dick-speech-at-metz-france-1977/): transcript read. It predates *VALIS*, but the video draws on it for the 1974 experience that the novel fictionalises. It does not mention the title. ## 5. Summary **Thesis.** *VALIS* is Dick's fictional account of his own 1974 "2-3-74" experiences. Wikipedia describes it as heavily autobiographical. The narrator is Phil, a science-fiction writer, who writes about his friend Horselover Fat as a separate person; Wikipedia identifies Fat as a "schizophrenic modality of Phil himself", and the book mixes a gnostic account of the world with a rationalist account of it as hallucination. Wikipedia notes the novel offers a "rationalist explanation of his apparent theophany", acknowledging it might have been hallucinations from schizophrenia or drug addiction sequelae. Dick told Boonstra he wrote it as a picaresque novel with a "loose plot" and "rogues" as characters. **Chapter-by-chapter outline.** I could not verify the book's chapter titles or divisions against the printed text, so this follows the plot in order, from Wikipedia's synopsis: 1. **Fat's visions.** In March 1974, Horselover Fat sees a pink beam of light he calls Zebra, and takes it as a revelation about reality. A group of friends joins his research. One theory: an alien space probe in orbit is helping them, and also helped expose Watergate and bring about Nixon's resignation in August 1974. 2. **The film.** The friend Kevin turns the group on to a film, *Valis*, that matches Fat's revelations. The film is a fictional account of an alternative-universe Nixon (Ferris F. Fremount) brought down by a satellite called VALIS. (Its plot is that of Dick's earlier, then-unpublished novel *Radio Free Albemuth*.) 3. **The Rhipidon Society.** Kevin, Phil, Fat and David, calling themselves the Rhipidon Society (motto: "Fish cannot carry guns"), go to the estate of rock musician Eric Lampton and his wife Linda, who made the film. 4. **Sophia.** They decide their goal is the Lamptons' two-year-old daughter Sophia, taken to be the incarnation of Holy Wisdom (Pistis Sophia) expected in some forms of Gnostic Christianity. She heals Phil's split personality and says their conclusions about VALIS are right and that humanity, not gods, should be worshipped. She dies two days later in a laser accident caused by Brent Mini. 5. **After Sophia.** Fat resurges and goes on a worldwide search for the next incarnation. Wikipedia's character list also includes Gloria Knudson, a suicidal friend whom Fat cannot save, and Sherri Solvig, a churchgoing friend who eventually dies of lymphatic cancer. Readers should know the book includes a suicidal character, a young child's death and a death from cancer. **Appendix: the Tractates.** The novel includes an extract of Dick's unpublished gnostic writing, *Tractates Cryptica Scriptura*, which includes the "Black Iron Prison", a system of control that surrounds everyone who has ever lived without their knowing it ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valis_(novel))). Wikipedia says the UK edition also carries a chapbook of Exegesis selections, "Cosmology and Cosmogony". **Key ideas.** - Gnosis through anamnesis: Wikipedia says Dick wrote in the Exegesis that we appear to be "memory coils" in a computer-like system suffering a failure of memory retrieval. - Belief versus doubt: scholar Umberto Rossi (as summarised by Wikipedia) reads the book as keeping both belief and skepticism unresolved, "the condition of the quester is one of doubt, not certainty". - Source material: Wikipedia lists gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, the pre-Socratics, Plato, Wagner's *Parsifal*, and others as references in the text. - The book's characters are, per Wikipedia, drawn from real people (K. W. Jeter as Kevin, Tim Powers as David, and "likely" David Bowie and Brian Eno as Eric Lampton and Brent Mini). I found this only on Wikipedia. **Reception.** According to Wikipedia: Greg Costikyan (*Ares* #9) found "The plot is minor, the characterization poor, and the prose unexciting"; Thomas M. Disch said "the first half holds together wonderfully" though the whole "went off the rails sometimes"; Dave Langford (*White Dwarf* #98) praised it as a "slapstick-tightrope-dance over a bit of potential insanity". I did not open the original reviews. ## 6. Fact-check Overall verdict: **mixed**. The publication facts and the 8,000-page figure hold, but the central claims in the source video (that a beam of light gave Dick information, and that he lived in a remembered other world) rest on Dick's own account and cannot be tested, and the hernia story appears in only one secondary source I could read. | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | Published by Bantam in 1981 | Supported | [ISFDB](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?933) (1981-02); [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valis_(novel)). Wikipedia's Philip K. Dick article gives "VALIS (1980)" in one place and 1981 elsewhere, so it is inconsistent | | Delay between sale and publication; two versions of the book | Supported as Dick's account | Hartford Advocate interview, April 1981; [Wikipedia, VALIS trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VALIS_trilogy) (the first version, "VALISystem A", written 1976 and published after his death as *Radio Free Albemuth*) | | Dick wrote about 8,000 pages about the experience, the "Exegesis" | Supported, roughly | [Wikipedia, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exegesis_of_Philip_K._Dick): written by hand from 1974 until his death in 1982, "approximately 8,000 pages". The video says "last 8,000 pages"; he also wrote novels in those years | | The entity was called "Valis" | Supported | Same article: names include Zebra, God and the Vast Active Living Intelligence System. In the novel Fat first calls it Zebra | | A pink beam told him his baby son had an undetected hernia | Dick's claim; one secondary source | Wikipedia's VALIS article says that in a state of "enthousiasmos" Dick was told his infant son was in danger, insisted on tests, and doctors found an inguinal hernia; he attributed the outcome to the "intervention" of VALIS. Wikipedia does not mention a pink beam in this story, so the video's version may be a blend. I did not find an independent medical or primary source. The beam itself cannot be verified | | Dick said the experience was a transcendentally rational mind | Supported | Boonstra's question in the Hartford interview quotes the phrase and Dick answers it; the voice he identifies as "ruah" | | Eric Lampton is based on David Bowie | Unverified | Wikipedia says "a fictionalised version" in the character list and "likely" in a later section; no primary source found | | The book is a picaresque novel | Supported | Dick in both interviews | | Kurd Lasswitz Prize (1985) | Supported | ISFDB awards; Wikipedia's Philip K. Dick article | | Claim that Dick actually received information from a satellite or alien intelligence | Not testable | Dick's claim. Wikipedia reports the book itself offers a hallucination explanation, and Dick told Boonstra the voice "has spoken to me sporadically since I was in high school" | ## 7. Citations and references - John Boonstra, [interview with Philip K. Dick, *Hartford Advocate*, 22 April 1981](https://philipdick.com/literary-criticism/interviews/horselover-fat-and-the-new-messiah/); John Boonstra, [*The Twilight Zone Magazine*, June 1982](https://philipdick.com/literary-criticism/frank-views-archive/philip-k-dicks-final-interview/); Gregg Rickman, [*Philip K. Dick: The Last Testament*](https://books.google.com/books/about/Philip_K_Dick_the_Last_Testament.html?id=_sAgAQAAIAAJ) (not read); [Metz speech transcript, 1977](https://singjupost.com/transcript-philip-k-dick-speech-at-metz-france-1977/). - Wikipedia: [VALIS (novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valis_(novel)); [VALIS trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VALIS_trilogy); [The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exegesis_of_Philip_K._Dick); [Philip K. Dick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick). - ISFDB, [title record 933](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?933). - Cornell University Library, [Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States](https://guides.library.cornell.edu/ld.php?content_id=83345575). - Audiobook listings: [OverDrive](https://www.overdrive.com/media/12069549/valis); [AudiobooksNow](https://www.audiobooksnow.com/audiobook/valis/10417302/). - Video: [Philip K. Dick said we live in a programmed reality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uiFhuzPFw0), *Jim's Wormhole*.