The novel “Radio Free Albemuth” by Philip K. Dick was published for the first time in 1985.
Nicholas Brady left the University of Berkeley and started working in a record store in the city. His life changes radically when he starts having strange experiences, in particular when he believes that an alien entity he calls VALISystem A or simply VALIS has started communicating with him from orbit. Among the messages received there’s one that tells him to move to Orange County.
In his new city of residence, Nicholas Brady sees the beginning of the political rise of Ferris F. Fremont, who after a few years is elected president of the USA. Populist politics based on paranoia and hatred for his adversaries, accused of being communist and subversive, leads to a progressive descent of the nation into a dictatorship. Nicholas and his friend Phil end up under scrutiny by the movement created by Fremont.
During the 1970s, Philip K. Dick’s interest in religion and in particular Gnostic Christianity increased considerably after some events in his life were interpreted in a mystical / religious way. He explains it in his article “How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later”.
In the following years, the mystical / religious themes became increasingly important in his works, including a novel entitled “VALISystem A”. His publisher asked him to heavily modify the story and Dick ended up restructuring it ending up with “VALIS“. The author donated the “VALISystem A” typescript to his friend Tim Powers and it was published posthumously with the title “Radio Free Albemuth”.
Anyone who knows a bit about Philip K. Dick’s biography easily recognizes the events in the beginning of Nicholas Brady’s story. This protagonist is a true alter-ego of the author, who is also one of the characters of “Radio Free Albemuth”, Nicholas’s friend and narrator of some parts of the novel. Dick’s mystical / religious experiences are lived in the novel by Nicholas.
In “Radio Free Albemuth” the history of the 1970s is developed in a way alternative to that experienced by Philip K. Dick. The author got inspired by Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon to create Ferris F. Fremont, whose initials indicate the number of the beast 666 because the letter F is the sixth of the alphabet. The story of the rise to power and especially of the Fremont presidency shows all of Dick’s paranoia with various conspiracies and the organized resistance against the regime established by the new president.
The plot of “Radio Free Albemuth” was inserted as a movie in the novel “VALIS”, which turned out to be very different after the rewriting by Philip K. Dick. This first version is more focused on the author’s life, though split into two characters, so it allows to get to know him more easily if you’re starting with his works.
“Radio Free Albemuth” is also more linear – by Philip K. Dick’s standards, of course – and simples in mixing science fiction and religion than “VALIS”, which includes a complex cosmogony. Mind you, the simplicity of this novel is very relative, in the sense that it focuses on the Dick’s two alter-egos points of view, which are used to explicitly express his reflections about religion and his mystical experiences. The result can still be difficult if you don’t know this author but contains all the elements you need to understand his ideas. For this reason, even if it’s a first draft that was abandoned, I recommend reading it to people who want to get to know this author.
