The Divine Invasion
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Cover of first edition (hardcover)
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| Author | Philip K. Dick |
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| Cover artist | Rowena Morrill |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | VALIS trilogy |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Timescape Books/Simon & Schuster |
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Publication date
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1981 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 239 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 7173050 |
| 813/.54 19 | |
| LC Class | PS3554.I3 D5 |
| Followed by | The Owl in Daylight or The Transmigration of Timothy Archer |
The Divine Invasion is a BSFA Award nominated 1981 science fiction book by Philip K. Dick. It is the second book in the gnostic VALIS trilogy, and takes place in the indeterminate future, perhaps a century or more after VALIS. It was originally titled, "Valis Regained".
After the fall of Masada in 74 AD, God, or "Yah" is exiled from Earth and forced to take refuge in the CY30-CY30B star system. Meanwhile, the people of Earth are ruled by Belial, the spirit of darkness, but Yah is intent on reclaiming his creation.
The book was conceived as a sequel to Dick's VALIS, though it shares no characters and virtually no plot elements with the other book. The Divine Invasion was conceived immediately after the completion of Valis, with the working title VALIS regained. Dick did not begin actually writing the novel until March 1980 (more than a year after VALIS's completion in November 1978), when he wrote it in less than a month. The opening chapters were based on the Dick short story Chains of Air, Web of Aethyr which had been written between VALIS and The Divine Invasion, and published before either in 1980 in Stellar Science-Fiction Stories #5.
After a fatal car accident on Earth, Herb Asher is placed into cryonic suspension as he waits for a spleen replacement. Clinically dead, Herb experiences lucid dreams while in suspended animation and relives the last six years of his life.
In the past, Herb lived as a recluse in an isolated dome on a remote planet in the binary star system, CY30-CY30B. Yah, a local divinity of the planet in exile from Earth, appears to Herb in a vision as a burning flame, and forces him to contact his sick female neighbor, Rybys Rommey, who happens to be terminally ill with multiple sclerosis and pregnant with Yah's child.
With the help of the immortal soul of Elijah, who takes the form of a wild beggar named Elias Tate, Herb agrees to become Rybys's legal husband and father of the unborn "savior". Together they plan to smuggle the six-month pregnant Rybys back to Earth, under the pretext of seeking help for Rybys' medical condition at a medical research facility. After being born in human form, Yah plans to confront the fallen angel Belial, who has ruled the Earth for 2000 years since the fall of Masada in the first century CE. Yah's powers, however, are limited by Belial's dominion on Earth, and the four of them must take extra precautions to avoid being detected by the forces of darkness.
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