Rating
The Pequod Review:
Narrated in the first person by a female protagonist (two rarities in Philip K. Dick’s body of work), The Transmigration of Timothy Archer is a loosely-fictionalized novel that explores the spiritual and religious culture of 1970s California. The book’s narrative is one of Dick’s most ambitious, as it considers nothing less than life and death, and the moral purpose of our time on earth. (“It amazes me: the sobering power of death. It outweighs all words, all arguments; it is the ultimate force. It coerces your attention and your time. And it leaves you changed.”) Meanwhile, Dick creates one of the strongest characters in his entire body of work in Angel Archer, a spirited young woman whose down-to-earth nature honors the values of kindness and charity. The plot is too conventional to rank with Dick’s masterpieces, but this is one of his better novels.