A preliminary to Dick`s masterwork, Valis, in which Phil appears as an explicitly named autobiographical character for the first time. As America gasps in the stranglehold of a skull-crushing totalitarian regime, a supernatural intelligence speaks from the word scratched in the sidewalk of the President`s childhood home. name of the subversive society `with no official membership` whose sole purpose is to overthrow the American government. word printed on a book which contains the President`s signature - a book in the hands of a Communist Party organiser. name of a woman who may hold the key - and who has only weeks to live. Will the agents of the omniscient Valis succeed in their mission of liberation? Or will the seek-and-destroy tactics of President Ferris F. Freemont extend the mind-numbing grip of the Antagonist across the parameters of the free world?