Generally, when I finish a book, I take some time after reading the last words to assess my opinion of it. I think to myself, "Hey, this book was good because of this and that," or, "Hey, this book absolutely SUCKED because of bla bla bla," but no, with this book, after I finished that last word (I can't recall exactly what it was), I thought "Hmm," and put the book down, ceasing all thought of it. And I haven't really thought of it up until this point, so now, I do have to assess.

Really, I'm walking off with a negative attitude towards it. I enjoyed the style of Dick's writing; it was definitely good enough to make me purchase/borrow his book of short stories (our damn library's collection is way too small), but the ending, to me, just seemed inappropriate. The book started off optimistically, and it took about 100 out of 210 or so pages for a plot to be established, and once it was, the novel's sunny side of looking at things generally just got darker and darker, up until the end. Yes, the ending... that certainly changed my opinion for the worst.

See, if a book's not going to exactly have a happy ending, I prefer it have a "sad ending but some optimism ending." Here, that would definitely have worked, and it would at least have worked better than what we are handed, which is a "sad ending with FAKE optimistic ending; the reader knowing we shouldn't be optimistic." Bah.

Philip K. Dick, whose short stories provided us with the films "Bladerunner," "Minority Report," and the upcoming "Paycheck," here has his last story, listed on my 1984 edition as a "newly discovered novel." I would assume, judging by the ending, which to me seems unsure (though I cannot confirm this, since all of his endings may be the same way), that this book may not have been completely... decided on.

Radio Free Albemuth, a well-written novel, is one that switches perspectives... twice. After a very brief prologue (half the page, persay), that really seems to have very little connection the plot, and makes less sense of the plot (at least, that's what I came to find), we go to the perspective of a character, a science-fiction writer, named Philip K. Dick. I seriously mean that. His character was his own name. Once more, not being a Dick reader, I don't know whether or not this is a regular thing, but it appears here. Stephen King, for example, often mentions his books in his own books. Maybe Dick names his characters after himself. I guess that eliminates the purpose of the disclaimer in the beginning.

Anyway, the CHARACTER Phil, uncannily a science-fiction writer, for the first 100 pages or so, tells us about his friend Nick. Nick is an incredibly liberal Stanford graduate or whatever who works for Progressive Records... a record company. One day, Nick starts having visions, and as time... "progresses" (no pun intended), he says these visions, sights, messages are from an intergalactic messager named Valis, and "Valis" is actually an anagram, but that's besides the points. Nick, after establishing that Valis is a very important figure, starts receiving orders from Valis, and he follows them.

While in the midst of being told all this by Phil, we're informed, in a way far more minor than it should be, that the country is being ruled by this guy Ferris F. Fremont. While Fremont eventually becomes the main part of plot, he's told about so insignificantly, that you would never have guessed it, and I was really scratching my head when I was informed of him. Here, we come to realize that the book takes place in an alternate 1960's America, with 'Nam still going on, and Fremont having started it... I think. And here, Dick also gets idiotically liberal, and that is just kinda annoying.

Not there's anything wrong with being liberal, its just liberal idiocy that annoys me, as does conservative idiocy. Dick pretty much shoves it in our face that he's a liberal, by explaining that Fremont, who very much has Hitler-esque qualities, started his rise with Republicans supporting him. This, in a 1960's era, makes absolutely no sense, because, although Dick would clearly not like to admit it, we had Democratic presidents creating problems in the 1960's. However, since Dick probably likes to learn towards the possibility that Republicans always support the evil, he says that they start Fremont's rise to power, seeing as the guy, in the book, is a Republican. Then Fremont kills a bunch of Dems, so they HAVE to like him, and once everyone realizes that you have to like him or DEATH, the guy gets elected. I guess his main way of rising to power was killing all of his possible opponents or something.

Yeah. Sorry for that political rant, I just hate seeing people blamed for things when it doesn't make sense. Anyway, yeah, where was I... Fremont rises to power, and Phil makes it sound as if we're not supposed to care, but we have to later. After a bunch of mish-mash on Nick's experiences or something, around page 100, we transide to Nick's point of view. This is when Fremont's part in the plot starts coming in.

And, I think I'll leave it off from there, with the plot. About Dick's writing... I liked it, though it definitely came off as something strange to me. Dick writes very passively... he doesn't focus in on much, and when he does, its through conversation between characters, not through description. And the conversation itself is weird. Most conversation goes something like...

"Yo!" said Dog.
"Yo!" said Cat.

Dick makes it more confusing, just making it...

"Yo!"
"Yo!"

And that's it. And then, in a "supernatural" part of the book, Dick tries to get creative with the overused not-really-creative technique of making characters talk without quotations...

Yo.
Yo.

You can tell, when reading it, that he's trying to be SUPER-AWESOME HIGH-TECHNO 3-D ZERO GRAVITY COOOOOL, but being a King reader, he fails, and I'm sure even before this book, that technique was used a billion times before... and it just doesn't work.

But, even though his writing was strange, and a bit unoriginal during that one part, I really, really liked it, and it felt like it was getting to the point faster, when really, since the 2/3 of the book doesn't have a plot, it wasn't...

Unfortunately, because most of Radio Free Albemuth does not have a plot, and has a mostly unsatisfying ending... I cannot recommend this book to you. While it was not a waste of my time... it wasn't worth my time. If that makes sense. Pick up some of his short stories instead, which promise to get to the plot faster.

Recommended: No