The first book in Philip K. Dick's defining trilogy (followed by The Divine Invasionand The Transmigration of Timothy Archer), VALISis a disorienting and bleakly funny novel about a schizophrenic man named Horselover Fat (who just might also be known as Philip Dick); the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity; and reality as revealed through a pink laser. VALISis a theological detective story, in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime.Taking place in the same universe as Dick's soon-to-be-published Exegesis, VALISis a dense novel, but one that is absolutely essential to understanding the author's off-kilter worldview.