<b>Valis</b> is the first book in Philip K. Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being are <i>The Divine Invasion</i> and <i>The Transmigration of Timothy Archer</i>). This disorienting and bleakly funny work is about a schizophrenic hero named Horselover Fat; the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity; and reality as revealed through a pink laser. <b>Valis</b> is a theological detective story, in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime.<br><br>&quot;The fact that what Dick is entertaining us about is reality and madness, time and death, sin and salvation--this has escaped most critics. Nobody notices that we have our own homegrown Borges, and have had him for thirty years.&quot;--Ursula K. Le Guin, <i>New Republic</i>