Radio Free Albemuth

by Philip K. Dick

Paperback, 1987

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

Science Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

English paperback sf

Publication

New York: Avon Books, 1987.

Description

Philip K. Dick's impassioned final novel is a wild and visionary alternate history of the United States. It is 1969, and a paranoid president has convulsed America in a vicious war against imaginary internal enemies. As the country slides into fascism, a struggling science fiction writer named Philip K. Dick is trying to keep from becoming one of that war's casualties ...

Media reviews

The New York Times Book Review

It is hard to criticize as a finished work what may have been merely a first draft (and an abandoned first draft at that), but this book is not Dick at his best.

User reviews

LibraryThing member railarson

In 1974, science fiction writer Philip K. Dick had what he would come to understand as a religious experience, or more specifically, a Platonic anamnesis—a loss of forgetfulness. Triggered by exposure to an ichthys, what is commonly known as a “Jesus fish,” he had a flash of the continued

existence of Rome circa 70 AD and felt the certainty of the early Christians that their messiah had just left and would be right back. This experience was followed by several nighttime visions where a beam of pink light beamed information into his head from an alien satellite.

Dick struggled to understand what had happened to him and wrestled with these themes, most comprehensively in the writing of his exegesis, the VALIS trilogy, and, in 1976, the creation of Radio Free Ablemuth. Those that have read VALIS will recognize this novel as a tentative first crack at the material that would define and consume Dick until his death in 1982. This is not to say that this book doesn’t stand on its own, in many ways it is the more down-to-earth take on a very complex and singular cosmology, however, the VALIS mythos did become richer as a result of the extra effort. Too much of the underlying schema in this early draft is pitched in the form of manic exposition.

Dick would later recast himself as Horselover Fat/Phil and kept the gist of Radio Free Ablemuth intact as the experimental film that forms the centerpiece of VALIS. Some characters, however, lose something in the translation. Cancer survivor Sadassa Silvia Aramchek comes across as a better-realized and motivated person than her later incarnation, Sherri Solvig.

The thinly disguised Richard M. Nixon stand-in, Ferris F. Fremont, is a delightfully evil antagonist, doubly chilling as the portrait rings true in hindsight. All in all, Ablemuth is not the place to start exploring later-period PKD, but it is a worthwhile read as well as a fascinating example of what a rewrite/re-imagining can do.

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LibraryThing member omphalos02

Dick's last book, and unusual as he himself is a character in it, and not a small one. He narrates the first and third sections of the book. Some wonderful stuff, and some inconsistant plotting with the "theories" that Phil and Nick Brady are constantly revising.

LibraryThing member figre

This is not one of Philip K. Dick’s best. First problem - Dick has made himself one of the main characters in the story. Many authors have inserted themselves in their own stories. The absolute best instance of this is Orson Scott Card’s “Lost Boys”, a short story so riveting and realistic

(Card makes the story about himself so real you aren’t completely sure it is fiction) and so wrenching that I have never forgotten it, never read it again, and never read the novel based on the short story. Dick does not accomplish this. Rather, it feels like he just wanted something to hang the story on – and he came up with himself. Second problem – the book spends too much time delving too deeply into introspection and dialogue about the meaning of things.

The first part of the book starts out okay and a good story eventually emerges. In an alternate US, the president effectively becomes a dictator – getting there by building on the paranoia of McCarthyism and the systematic destruction of every other person who could be president. He strengthens his hold with a phantom Communist menace and a Nazi-like citizen brigade turning in everyone who questions the state. In the meantime, Dick’s friend Nicholas is being visited by voices that eventually lead both of them from Berkley to Southern California and to the discovery that aliens are speaking to him. And those aliens are going to save the world.

Then, the focus of the book changes – it is no longer being told by Dick, but by Nicholas. This is where the quasi-religious self-discovery comes in and, while the plot is not completely mired, it does have to struggle through the tar lake of its own importance.

The ending works nicely and puts the story (and even the introspection) into a decent context, but the side-track (the part that probably reflects Dick coming to grips with many of the issues and concerns he had addressed in previous books) derails the story and is just too long and involved to be engrossing or insightful.

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LibraryThing member CliffBurns

Some folks found RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH a rehashing of the VALIS novels but I disagree. This is one of the more humane and intelligible of PKD's later novels and I would place it among his finest efforts. A good intro to his odd oeuvre...

LibraryThing member endersreads

I'm ashamed to say that this was my first Phil Dick novel. This book, published after Philip's death, was allegedly semi-autobiographical. It dealt with his personal "experiences" in 1974. From this book, I can only conclude that Phil came to Jesus Christ. His President F.F.F. (666) is a carbon

copy of today's Presidents. FAPers are now, in our time--our reality--called Homeland Security. Aramchek indeed. VALIS help us all. I was deeply impressed by his notion of a perpetuated Imperial Rome--the Empire lives, as you can tell from our adaptions of Lady Liberty, the Eagle, Capitol Hill, our Bohemian Grove Caesars... Each day we see the Republic die, before our very eyes--Dick was disturbingly accurate. I can see much of Orwell in this novel as well--especially in the FAPer Vivian Kaplan. In Heinlein's words, "What a slitch!". I don't want to present the wrong picture here--there is much schizo-paranoia-mind-f'n-theorization in this book. It is beautifully genius. Go my brothers and sisters, grow the egg within your head so that you may live eternally. Pinky made me very sad, and appreciatively mindful of all life. Where the hell is Dick's android? Misplaced, my ass.

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LibraryThing member danconsiglio

One of Dick's "Look at me!!! I'm freakin' crazyyyyyyy!!!!!!" books. Conspiracy theories make me happy.

LibraryThing member TheCrow2

Everything you can expect from a PK Dick book is here. Paralell universes, paranoia, Valis... Not his best by far, but if you like PKD you HAVE TO read his last co-starring the writer himself.

LibraryThing member ehines

Dick as he begins to slip into his religion-fueled paranoia, or is it paranoia-fueled religion? Not very interesting either way.

LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind

Technically, Radio Free Albemuth was PKD's last published novel. But instead it reads like a different version of the sprawling gnostic treatise of paranoia and salvation that was VALIS.

The two protagonists are Philip K. Dick himself, and not-Philip K. Dick, who is a cipher for the author's own

experiences, and the visions of 2-3-74. Again we see the motif of the 'twinless twin'.

The plot is steeped in the conspiracy and fear and despair which characterized the mid-to-late 1970s, and the president, Ferris F. Freemont, (6-6-6), is a cipher for Richard Nixon, Joseph McCarthy, and the Anti-Christ. We see the raw grasping for power, the unfettered rebellions against this unknowable alien power, a secret message from Al-bemuth, and subliminal thought and mind-programming.

Perhaps aside from the VALIS trilogy proper, this is one of PKD's most autobiographic writings, and the one which most dispenses with the idea of the linear story. It is confusing, and perhaps redundant, but still interesting. If one wants to try and glimpse the later PKD without delving too deep, Radio Free Albemuth is a good place to start.

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LibraryThing member rmagahiz

Underground politics and theology and superior aliens, the music industry and secret police, hallucinations and science fiction writers - this posthumous book had the strange sort of mix that would be hard to imagine coming from another author. In the end it turns both dystopian and hopeful at the

same time.

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LibraryThing member leo_depart

To be honest it took me the whole first chapter (one third of the book) to get used to the bland, colloquial and seemingly unpolished form. I could only accept it due to the semi-autobiographical first person narration and knowing that PKD will as always deliver on one level or another. And sure

enough there were strong ideas, paranoid conspiracy theories as well a fanatic hot-wiring of religion, science and history and all of this based on his own, personal experiences and hallucinations.
This is not his best book but definitely has a special place in the whole PKD Universe. Read if you love PKD already, not necessarily if you want to get a glimpse...

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LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV

I feel like I must've missed something - but my friend read it too and didn't get anything out of it either. Otoh, it's Dick - so if you're a fan of his work ya gotta check it out, eh?

LibraryThing member delta351

PKD parallel universes

I have read so many PKD books that I am not sure where this fits in, though it is clearly at the tail end of his career. The basic premise is that an alien satellite (God?) is broadcasting info to select people on earth, in an effort to depose a US President. These days could

be interpreted as either R Nixon or could be D Trump. I believe it was Nixon at the time it was written. PKD would be equally suspicious of Trump.

I will have to reread VALIS, or try to get through the 1000 page Exogesis. There is so much going on here philosophically that it bears further reading. Then there is the whole subliminal message concept, which is under appreciated. Lots of interesting stuff here, unfortunately I believe the characters are not at all interesting.

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LibraryThing member richardderus

Rating: 3.5* of five

What a damned miracle it is to find this book again. In the Year of Our Suffering 2018, the weird way of PKD's imaginary travels has become our reality. Yuck! The fact that this wasn't published until after PKD's death suggests to me it wasn't fully baked yet. That is pretty

much how I felt about the writing. He just didn't have a chance to get down into the working parts of the book before he died.

But damn, it's really really really scary how the imaginarium in his head led PKD to predict our present.

Then there's a 2014 movie that makes my hair stand on end. A good and faithful adaptation of the novel, a low-budget proof that the passion of a filmmaker makes for a good watch. I like this story because of how much it scares me. I think I should re-read the VALIS trilogy now!

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LibraryThing member DanielSTJ

This was a great Philip K. Dick novel! I was astounded that this was not published, in some form, during his lifetime. All of Dick's idiosyncrasies and the best aspects of his fiction are here: the paranoia, the sci-fi, the drugs-- everything. The ideas that he infuses through his writing serve to

guide the story and the writing is surprisingly lucid and appealing. After a series of only satisfactory reads of Dick's novels, this one brings my interest in Philip K. Dick back around and makes me even more interested in the rest of his oeuvre.

Definitely recommended for Philip K. Dick enthusiasts or those interested in sci-fi.

4 stars!

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LibraryThing member anonyth

His last, full of extra paranoia, and some authorial self-insertion to boot.

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