Valis

Finally finished Philip K. Dick's VALIS, a mindtrip that explores an experience with a 'God-like' entity that Dick claimed to experience in 1974. Not unlike A Maze of Death, Gnosticism, Christianity, and other religions interact in an ecumenical melange of theological and philosophical concepts related to VALIS/Zebra/God as Dick and his alter ego, Horselover Fat, try to understand their life after experiencing a pink light and AI-like voices, beginning in '74. Fusing fiction with autobiographical aspects of his own life, such as suicide attempt, drugs, family conflicts, etc, and Dick's long-held fascination with religion, reality, and 'unreality,' provides interesting insights into his own "real" life and quotes from his Exegesis, but as such is all over the place, making it quite clear that this is either the mind of a mad man or, perhaps, a rational person who sees 'normality' as insanity because it adheres to the fake, material world of 'reality.' His alternative cosmogony, combining faiths from all over the world, is also quite impressive (Dogon people and ancient Egypt are accorded important places in this Dickian worldview, reminding one of Akhenaton's importance in Ishmael Reed's alternate history). Personally, I prefer Dick's more 'traditional' science fiction, but VALIS is certainly a great example of science fiction postmodernism creativity and intellectual food for the brain.