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Review
‘An engrossing, non-stop excursion into a believable vision of hell’
Publishers Weekly
‘The most brilliant sci-fi mind on any planet’
Rolling Stone
Product Description
A preliminary to Dick’s masterwork, Valis, in which Phil appears as an explicitly named autobiographical character for the first time. Soon to be a major new film.
As America gasps in the stranglehold of a skull-crushing totalitarian regime, a supernatural intelligence speaks from the stars…
ARAMCHEK… the word scratched in the sidewalk of the President’s childhood home.
ARAMCHEK… the name of the subversive society ‘with no official membership’ whose sole purpose is to overthrow the American government.
ARAMCHEK… the word printed on a book which contains the President’s signature – a book in the hands of a Communist Party organiser.
ARAMCHEK… the name of a woman who may hold the key – and who has only weeks to live.
Will the agents of the omniscient Valis succeed in their mission of liberation? Or will the seek-and-destroy tactics of President Ferris F. Freemont extend the mind-numbing grip of the Antagonist across the parameters of the free world?
In Radio Free Albemuth, his last novel, Philip K. Dick morphed and recombined themes that had informed his fiction from A Scanner Darkly to VALIS and produced a wild, impassioned work that reads like a visionary alternate history of the United States. Agonizingly suspenseful, darkly hilarious, and filled with enough conspiracy theories to thrill the most hardened paranoid, Radio Free Albemuth is proof of Dick's stature as our century's greatest science fiction writer.
This prophetic novel of social control and political oppression is now to be turned into a major new movie starring Alanis Morrissette, which promises a provocative and edgy antidote to the summer blockbusters.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
People who know something about PKD's life will understand this novel as partly an autobiographic novel: the main character resembles the writer himself (Phil) selling records having visions about transcendental phenomena and so on. The novel combines almost all the more important elements of his novels: similarly to The Scanner Darkly the story and the characters not too much sci-fi-like, similarly to The Man in the High Castle, the sci-fi is an alternative history of the US, the ET thing which transmits messages is from the novel Valis and the whole paranoid scizophrenic athmosphere is well known from all the PKD novels. However, the message of the novel is very positive and the whole story is told in a somewhat nostalgic and touching manner. I hardly can decide whether this feeling is related to the "last novel" biographical fact and influenced by it or truly emanates from the novel. My best idea to let you decide this: if you like others from PKD you will certainly love this novel.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
To echo what other reviewers have already said a knowledge of PKD and his other works would greatly enhance your reading of this book. I have been a great fan of his for as long as I can remember and have read many of his books - certainly unique I would say. As the title of my review would suggest I would recommend this book to an already fan but I am not sure a PKD virgin would get the most out of this book. Its a book I go back to time and again
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Philip K Dick's Radio Free Albemuth is in many ways an autobiography in novel form. PKD himself appears as the narrator in the first and third sections (and a key character in the second section), with the events of the book mirroring his own personal experiences in 1974.
In that year he experienced a series of strange visions, initially the likely result of medication but increasingly less likely. In the book, one of the main characters similar has visions and tries to work out what they mean and what is causing them, cycling through options such as religious experiences and aliens as new visions come to him.
As in many of Philip K Dick's books, the science fiction is gently in the background, occasionally playing a key role in the plot but never really what the book is about. The same applies to the authoritarian government and plots to overthrow it. This part of the book features heavily on the cover of many editions, making the book sound far more like an action thriller than the reality. However, the book is about paranoia and trust - how do you react to apparently impossible events in your life and how do your friendships cope when put under strain by an authoritarian government?
The label "science fiction" has probably deprived the book of the plaudits from literary circles it would have otherwise won, for the playful self-referential role of author as narrator is written in a way that rivals much lauded authors such as Primo Levi. At one point the narrator (a thinly disguised version of the author) talks about a book he has written (using the genuine title of a PKD novel), which in turn is about an imaginary alternative history, and a second book (again a genuine PKD novel) that is about a hallucinating character similar to the narrator's best friend in this novel. At another point the narrator is criticised by his best friend in words that could just as well be addressed to the real Philip K Dick,
"Sorry, Phil, but - well, why can't you write about normal people, the way other authors do? Normal people with normal interests who do normal things. Instead, when your books open, there is this misfit holding some miserable low job, and he takes drugs and his girlfriend is in a mental institution but he still loves her..."
The book itself did not get published during PKD's lifetime as requests for major changes from the publishers saw Dick sideline the text and instead use it as a basis for the first part of his three-volume Valis trilogy. The text was published after his death. Unlike many books which are not published during an author's lifetime because they simply were not very good, this one is an enjoyable read - as long as you aren't expecting a fast moving science fiction thriller.
In that year he experienced a series of strange visions, initially the likely result of medication but increasingly less likely. In the book, one of the main characters similar has visions and tries to work out what they mean and what is causing them, cycling through options such as religious experiences and aliens as new visions come to him.
As in many of Philip K Dick's books, the science fiction is gently in the background, occasionally playing a key role in the plot but never really what the book is about. The same applies to the authoritarian government and plots to overthrow it. This part of the book features heavily on the cover of many editions, making the book sound far more like an action thriller than the reality. However, the book is about paranoia and trust - how do you react to apparently impossible events in your life and how do your friendships cope when put under strain by an authoritarian government?
The label "science fiction" has probably deprived the book of the plaudits from literary circles it would have otherwise won, for the playful self-referential role of author as narrator is written in a way that rivals much lauded authors such as Primo Levi. At one point the narrator (a thinly disguised version of the author) talks about a book he has written (using the genuine title of a PKD novel), which in turn is about an imaginary alternative history, and a second book (again a genuine PKD novel) that is about a hallucinating character similar to the narrator's best friend in this novel. At another point the narrator is criticised by his best friend in words that could just as well be addressed to the real Philip K Dick,
"Sorry, Phil, but - well, why can't you write about normal people, the way other authors do? Normal people with normal interests who do normal things. Instead, when your books open, there is this misfit holding some miserable low job, and he takes drugs and his girlfriend is in a mental institution but he still loves her..."
The book itself did not get published during PKD's lifetime as requests for major changes from the publishers saw Dick sideline the text and instead use it as a basis for the first part of his three-volume Valis trilogy. The text was published after his death. Unlike many books which are not published during an author's lifetime because they simply were not very good, this one is an enjoyable read - as long as you aren't expecting a fast moving science fiction thriller.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
even more dick!
i read this book with trepidation, because with p.k.d. books concerning drugs, religion etc,he sometimes got a little bogged down with detail,but i survived and realised, that ,it... Read more
Published 13 days ago by bravo2 zero
PKD's Visionary Experience dissected
Phillip K. Dick's "Radio Free Albemuth" is a brilliant summary of everything he went through during and after his visionary period. Read more
Published 6 months ago by B. Armstrong
One just for the die-hard fans
Now there's a strong element of paranoia in much of Dick's writing, especially the later novels, but in this one it really does reach epic proportions. Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2002 by Paul Welsh (paul.welsh@iname.com)
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