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VALIS, released by Philip K Dick in 1981, represents his last major work before his death, and sits uneasily somewhere between a vague autobiography, and signs of what long-term fans consider his 'Madness Years', the time from 1974 onwards following his 'epiphany', which has been well documented many times. The truth is, when your mental health is shaky enough that Robert Crumb turns into one of his underground comix, you probably have cause for concern. It also, fortunately, makes for a rather plot for a scifi novel.

Comparisons between this book and Radio Free Albemuth (1985) are inevitable; the latter was published after VALIS, but was Dick's first attempt to narrate his experiences in 1974. To me, Albemuth is the stronger book, but that's most likely due to me having read it first.

As mentioned, the book is semi-autobiographical, and nowhere can this be made more plain than in the central character's name, Horselover Fat; 'Horselover' translating into Greek as 'Phillipos', and 'Fat' being the english for the German word 'dick'. Despite this, the book is written in the first person style with Dick as narrator, and Fat in the third person, leading to something of a contrast, especially when the two become involved in debates with one another.

VALIS itself comes from Vast Active Living Intelligent System, and is a description of one (or more) intelligent nodes of an interstellar satellite system originating from the Sirius system. To quote from Dick's journal 'Exegesis', which he kept to explain his epiphany on religion and intelligence and life, "We appear to be memory coils (DNA carriers capable of experience) in a computer-like thinking system which, although we have correctly recorded and stored thousands of years of experiential information, and each of us possesses somewhat different deposits from all the other life forms, there is a malfunction - a failure - of memory retrieval" - VALIS' job is to try and repair the damage, the malfunction. It does this both directly and indirectly, speaking to the characters, but also by changing their perceptions of reality subliminally.

In summary, this is a very quirky, often spiritual book, which challenges the perception of what we consider to be real and what is illusion, while offering a startling insight into the author's troubled mind; it also makes for a good read, well paced and easy to plow along through.

But then, you could say all of that about any of Dick's novels.

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