Radio Free Albemuth

Author - Philip K. Dick ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Vintage was reviewed on 19-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:0679781374 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Radio Free Albemuth Reference Book. Classifications : General AAS United States World Literature Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Dick, Philip K. ( D ) Authors, A-Z Science Fiction & Fantasy Subjects Books General Science Fiction Science Fiction & Fan . Click the following link to view the cover of Radio Free Albemuth.

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1) Paperback Book Radio Free Albemuth by Vintage. I´m getting a bit tired of all these totalitarian regime stories, though admittedly there are some very frightening similarities with today´s America and the world as a whole. However, the story is very loose, all these techno-theological references seem very naive now, and it totally lacks any nerve, leaving you wondering whether you should stop reading it or go on till the end. I don´t know what it must have been like reading 20 years ago, but now it just doesn´t make it for a good read.¤

2) Paperback Book Radio Free Albemuth by Vintage. I´ve been an avid PKD fan for years, but I´ve never been able to work my way through his VALIS trilogy. Not sure why. Radio Free Albemuth is a good alternative, in my opinion, to VALIS. It´s classic PKD but more accessible than VALIS. The idea behind Radio Free Albemuth, similar to all of PKD´s stories, is brilliant: there was once a link between humans and a higher intelligence, helping humans to advance. The link has become tenuous and is about to be lost forever, thanks to the fear and stupidity of some humans. Unlike some PKD novels, Radio Free Albemuth remains a satisfying read to the very end -- it is highly recommended.¤

3) Paperback Book Radio Free Albemuth by Vintage. Essentially, this is another version of VALIS. I recommend VALIS often, especially to readers who tell me they´ve read a book or two of his (usually Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and haven´t been all that impressed, or people who are looking for something totally out of joint. VALIS, if you´re even considering this book, should be read first. Radio Free Albemuth is actually an earlier version of VALIS. It´s bland, by comparison, though more firmly delineated in its themes. So if you´ve read VALIS and are having trouble grappling its web, pick this up and chisel. Many don´t realize that Dick, though hardly a great prose stylist, is a formidable literary mind that speaks in very complex ways to many of the themes studied in his more respected contemporaries.¤

4) Paperback Book Radio Free Albemuth by Vintage. RFA combines concepts from VALIS, The Divine Invasion, A Scanner Darkly, The Man in the High Castle, and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. This is the rejected original version of VALIS, althouth I find that hard to understand after reading it since it´s so brilliant and unique. It´s arguably better than VALIS for the fact that it contains all of the same themes in the context of a better story. One of the strong points of this novel is the dialogue - there are some unforgettable conversations here between Phil and Nicholas, the two main characters. Two other memorable characters are a mysterious cancer patient named Sadassa Silva and an ex-preacher named Leon at the very end. This book gives you the perfect combination of Dick´s religious cosmology and his political philosophy. In most of his books, one of these is prominent over the other, but RFA gives you the perfect blend. I also felt that this completed and complemented VALIS. In an amazing way (fitting of one theme in the book itself), it´s a good thing that RFA was rejected by Dick´s editors 30 years ago. It caused him to write two masterpieces about the same things, and now we get to read them both.

This was one of the most satisfying and important reads of my life. Everyone should experience it - especially those with an affection for metaphysics - but even if you don´t, this will open up your mind.¤

5) Paperback Book Radio Free Albemuth by Vintage. Book five of my 39 book PKD odyssey. Radio Free Albemuth is Dick´s last book. So far it´s my favorite of the lot. Radio Free Albemuth has two main characters, one of which is Philip K. Dick - who watches his friend receive information from mysterious extra-planetary sources. The other is that friend. Taking place is a typically PDK police state in the US and amusingly self-referential (if you´re the main character how can you not be), Nicholas receives incomprehensible information that slowly forms into a coherent message. A very controlled book without much of the frenetic pace of his earlier works.¤

6) Paperback Book Radio Free Albemuth by Vintage. 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.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 16-Nov-2008, 06797813749780679781370, 490-570-650-510-780-740-8

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