Dec 10, 2018 3:26:41 GMT -5 the Scribe said:
Soon after completing "The Exit Door Leads In" Dick wrote another short story, "Chains of Air, Web of Aethyr."
With the manuscript title "The Man Who Knew How To Lose" this story reached the SMLA on July 9, 1979, a month after receipt of "The Exit Door Leads In." How it found a home at Stellar #5 as "Chains Of Air, Web Of Aethyr" in 1980 I’m not sure. PKD had established good relations with Judy-Lyn Del Rey, editor at Ballantine, and perhaps the Agency sent it directly to her.
The story was used by PKD as the first part of his novel to follow VALIS. Originally called VALIS REGAINED, this novel was eventually titled THE DIVINE INVASION on publication by Simon & Schuster in 1981.
This story tells of isolated communications technicians living in domes on the planets of far-flung stars. Leo McVane’s job is to transmit weather reports and the music of Linda Fox to other galactic outposts. He likes being alone. But his nearest neighbor , Rybus Rommey, is sick and wasting away in her dome. McVane reluctantly visits her out of a minimum of human compassion and helps her get well. But, once involved with Rybus, McVane is stuck with her -- and her destructive personality.
Linda Fox is based on one of PKD’s favorite singers: Linda Ronstadt. The character of Rybus Rommey, in slightly altered form as Rybus Romney, is reprised by Dick in THE DIVINE INVASION, the novel that he would write in 1980.
www.philipkdickfans.com/mirror/websites/pkdweb/short_stories/Chains%20Of%20Air,%20Web%20Of%20Aether.htm
Posted on June 4, 2016
The Divine Invasion (1981) by Philip K. Dick
“When has the government ever told anyone the truth?” (p.76)
divine-invasion-dick-philip-k-paperback-cover-artThe Divine Invasion was published in the same year as VALIS.
It is the second book in the VALIS Trilogy, although there is only a brief mention of VALIS in the story. Like VALIS it addresses religion and philosophy, but it’s not as tightly structured or plotted as the first book. In fact, some parts of The Divine Invasion feel like they belong to a completely different story. According to Jonathan Lethem, one of the editors of Dick’s Exegesis, this book was written in only four weeks. It would be easy to say it shows.
The Divine Invasion tells the story of two distant-planet colonists, Herb Asher and Rybys Romney. We follow them on their journey back to Earth as Rybys is due to give birth to a son, Emmanuel. The book goes on to chronicle a battle between the forces of good and evil in which Emmanuel will play a major role. He is joined by a young girl called Zina, an old man, Elias, who acts as his guardian, and a kid goat. I kid you not.
“The goat leaped from their arms and ran off; Zina and Emmanuel watched it go. And as it ran it grew.” (p.230)
Dick fills the book with his religious philosophizing, questioning reality, divinity and our place in it all. He attempts, yet again, to make sense of his “mystical” experience(s) of February and March 1974 that led him to write VALIS as well as his mammoth Exegesis. This can make it feel a bit chaotic and random at times, yet it is bursting with ideas. I had a lot of fun reading it. Where else but in a PKD story can you discover that the name of Earth’s vast Artificial Intelligence System is “Big Noodle”?
Also funny, in a slightly uncomfortable way, is Dick’s inclusion and depiction of a character based on his unrequited object of obsession at the time, the singer Linda Ronstadt. This leads to some memorable lines:
“And yet-his ultimate move had fallen through because Linda Fox . . . it had been the wrong time. Her menstrual cycle, he thought. Linda Fox has periods and cramps? he asked himself. I don’t believe it. But I guess it’s true.” (p.209)
*
Bizarre! I enjoyed The Divine Invasion more than VALIS, despite VALIS being the tighter written and better structured book. I guess it’s because I like the eccentric side(s) of PKD. I like it when he is a bit bonkers and you’re not quite sure what the heck is going on. I like it when he messes with your head and leaves you wondering if this or that character is really experiencing the craziness or just dreaming it. I like big noodles, too.
biginjapangrayman.wordpress.com/2016/06/04/the-divine-invasion-1981-by-philip-k-dick/ The Divine Invasion is 1981 science fiction novel by American writer 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. The novel, originally titled Valis Regained, was nominated to the BSFA Award[1].
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.
Writing
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.[2] 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.[2] The opening chapters were based on Dick's short story "Chains of Air, Web of Aethyr" that had been written between VALIS and The Divine Invasion, and published before either in 1980 in Stellar Science-Fiction Stories #5.[2]
Plot summary
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.
Things do not go as planned. "Big Noodle", Earth's A.I. system, warns the ecclesiastical authorities in the Christian-Islamic church and Scientific Legate about the divine "invasion" and countermeasures are prepared. A number of failed attempts are made to destroy the unborn child, all of them thwarted by Elijah and Yah. After successfully making the interstellar journey back to Earth and narrowly avoiding a forced abortion, Rybys and Herb escape in the nick of time, only to be involved in a fatal taxi crash, probably due to the machinations of Belial. Rybys dies from her injuries sustained in the crash, and her unborn son Emmanuel (Yah in human form) suffers brain damage from the trauma but survives. Herb is critically injured and put into cryonic suspension until a spleen replacement can be found. Baby Emmanuel is placed into a synthetic womb, but Elias Tate manages to sneak Emmanuel out of the hospital before the church is able to kill him.
Six years pass. In a school for special children, Emmanuel meets Zina, a girl who also seems to have similar skills and talents, but acts as a surrogate teacher to Emmanuel. For four years, Zina helps Emmanuel regain his memory (the brain damage caused amnesia) and discover his true identity as Yah, creator of the universe.
When he's ready, Zina shows Emmanuel her own parallel universe. In this peaceful world, organized religion has little influence, Rybys Rommey is still alive and married to Herb Asher, and Belial is only a kid goat living in a petting zoo.
In an act of kindness, Zina and Emmanuel liberate the goat-creature from his cage, momentarily forgetting that the animal is Belial. The goat-creature finds Herb Asher and attempts to retain control of the world by possessing him and convincing him that Yahweh's creation is an ugly thing that should be shown for what it really is. Eventually Herb is saved by Linda Fox, a young singer whom he loves and who is his own personal Savior; she and the goat-creature meet and she kills it, defeating Belial. He finally discovers that this meeting happens over again for everyone in the world, and whether they choose Belial or their Savior decides if they find salvation.
Characters
Herb Asher: audio engineer
Rybys Rommey: mother of Emmanuel, sick with MS
Yah: Yahweh
Elias Tate: Incarnation of Elijah
Emmanuel (Manny): Yah incarnated in human form
Zina Pallas: Shekhinah
Linda Fox: singer, songwriter, Yetzer Hatov
Belial: Yetzer Hara
Fulton Statler Harms: Chief prelate of the Christian-Islamic Church (C.I.C), Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Nicholas Bulkowsky: Communist Party Chairman, Procurator maximus of the Scientific Legate
VALIS: agent of Yahweh, disinhibiting stimulus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Divine_Invasion