I hereby move to replace "like herding cats" with "like a squirrel attempting to stash nuts in the fur of a Bernese mountain dog" as the go-to metaphor for life's most futile undertakings.

Apparently he considers this his magnum opus. I have yet to read it but I did like Aye, and Gomorrah. Oh and this, which I have also yet to read.

All the fictional works of Robert Anton Wilson: especially this one...

Totally disagree about PKD. The books that most clearly captured his philosophy were VALIS, The Divine Invasion and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Elderich, as they more or less tell his autobiographical descent into madness.

KSR pretty much puts it all on the table here. Probably one of the biggest "grand statements" to emerge in science fiction in the last 25 years.

As for PKD, these two encapsulate far more about his beliefs, philosophies, and experiences:

Gaius Baltar, went from annoying narcissist to weathered survivor, and learned so much on the way. By somewhere in the middle, I was rooting for the guy to weasel his way through and survive the series.

"Oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?"

The idea that it was a supernova is explored in this short story, which always makes me cry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_…

What do you get when you put a spaceman helmet on a gorilla suit? Why, a robot monster, silly, what did you think?