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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
A Dark Scan of the mind at the height of drugged confusion!, 20 Mar 2002
By A Customer
A Scanner Darkly was recommended to me by a real sci fi nut of a friend and so when he proclaimed it "The best book I've read in years" I wasn't expecting much as his copy rested neatly beside various Star Wars novels and a Starship Enterprise bookend. What I didn't expect was one of the darkest, most interesting thrillers I've read in years! This book has a unique visual style and whilst Dick quickly forgets his ramblings of how commercialism has encapsulated the near future you are still aware of the edgy neon wasteland right through to the end. The Science Fiction in this novel is subtly intertwined in the life of the agent sent to investigate himself as he lives one life behind an identity destroying "scramble" suit as a Narcotics agent "Fred" and the other as an openly addicted Substance D doper "Bob Arctor". The fiction comes from this suit the 3d holoscanning equipment set up in the investigation and the Drug he's hooked on; Substance D or "Death" which has the clearly defind side affect of seperating the brains hemispheres leading to total loss of spatial awareness and personality segregation which isn't exactly helped by Freds double life. This book deals with the moral issues of drug taking from both sides of the fence and shows, through the entertaining dialogue between doper Bob and his circle of equally spaced friends that drug taking is fun but that you lose a part of yourself with every hit. The resultant consequences of these situations are for the most part predictable but its the scenes in which cop "Fred" watches doper "Bob" that keep you enthralled as Fred at first evaluates the actions of him and his friends living their lives through addiction to the tragic mental downward spiral as he becomes more and more suspicious of Bob Arctor. There are enough twists at the end to keep things at the right level of intrigue and the final chapter in which Bob Arctor reaches the end of his career is both tragic and satisfying. This is a book easily read in a few days but it will certainly stick in your memory for much longer and make you think twice about sparking that last joint you promised yourself. Even if you're no Sci Fi fan, which I may now be after reading this, you're in for one hell of a "Trip"
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Sorry to lower that 5 star average, but..., 16 Dec 2002
Dick, for me, encapsulates all that is wonderful about SF: the ability to entirely bend the rules of physics, yet work within them simultaneously. In Do Androids Dream... he presented a lucid hallucination of Earth gone horribly wrong; The Man in the High Castle remains the most potent of alternative histories; and Ubik is simply the greatest journey into madness I could possibly imagine. A Scanner Darkly was the 6th book of Dick's I read, and whilst superb, it was let down with one major flaw...It tells two parallel stories, yet both are drawn from the same person; on one hand is Arctor, the undercover cop drawn into the world of Substance D (see all the other reviews) and Fred, the same undercover cop watching Arctor. Within these parallel lines are intense bouts of humour (to match Fear & Loathing) and even more intense bouts of paranoia (to match Ubik...well, not quite, but that would be a feat). As the book draws to its satisfying and yet ambiguous ending, it gathers pace and energy, and loses many of the musings of Dick on drugs and consumerism... Well, in reality it doesn't, it just places these concepts in an altogether more subtle way. I will not endeavor to tell you how, since the joy of Dick is unravelling his plots, sub-plots, underlying themes and underlying-underlying themes. So, by the end of the book, you are simply boogled at what is presented: a typically Dickian dystopian near-reality. However, just as this book is a parallel of itself, it is also a book of two halves, from start to finish. Unfortunately, the start reduces much of the impact of the book, in my eyes. Whilst amusing and hip, the first half is Dick the Polemic. Despite what he concludes in his epilogue/footnote, he is making radical assumptions with far reaching implications. For example, the notion of the junkie, which he was himself, and yet completly strips bear of humanity. When reading this, I was amazed that this was written by a drug addict, since the pedestal feel was so degrading to drug abusers. Much is the same for his blatant consumerist critique, which he has SUBTELY portrayed in other books with much more vehemance and power. Ironically, all of the problems of the initial third of the book are swept away under the torrent of pure Dickian amazement; from the point on which Fred begins to watch Arctor, the book shifts into more classic Dick territory and leaves you bewildered an amazed and confused within his typical claustrophobic and hallucinatory power. So, what is to be said? Well, I have tried to forget the polemics of this book, and take it with a pinch of salt. With this in mind, again Philip K Dick proved himself to be one of the greatest talents in literature. Nevertheless, I have forever been hounded by the fact that I read Ubik before this. Ubik is his opus, and all other SF pales in comparison. So, there you go...read this first and then read the sublime Ubik...thats my little piece of advice!
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
An Extraordinary Book, 21 Jul 2004
By A Customer
Dick's novel presents a dystopic future through the eyes of Bob Arctor, who is either a nark (undercover narcotics agent) posing as a head (drug user), or a head posing as a nark. In fact he is both, but Bob's drug use gradually erodes his capacity to integrate the two into one. It doesn't help that he has a psychotic housemate named Barris (one of the creepier characters in anyone's fiction) who may or may not be on to Bob-the-nark. Dick's portrayal of Bob's disintegration is both terrifying and highly sympathetic. There is a lot of humour in this book, mostly in the dialogue between Bob and his doper buddies, but the humor becomes more and more bittersweet as the reality of their collective dilemma becomes apparent to the reader. This book can serve as a warning of the dangers of drug abuse; it serves equally well as a warning of the dangers of certain types of "rehabilitation." In fact the true demon in the novel is not Substance D (fictional future drug) at all, but something much more sinister. There are enough of Dick's patented plot-twists here to keep you guessing, and his unique descriptive talents and dead-on doper-loopy dialogue accurately recreate the surreality of the characters' world in the mind of the reader. While the term is overused, in this case it fits: this book is a true classic. Dick was a great writer and this is one of his best.
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Not a bad book, shame about the film though, 28 Nov 2006
This is a dark, depressing, nostalgic and surreal story by a man who had strange experiences on drugs, lost friends on drugs, and possessed a memory tainted by drugs. Philip K. Dick states at the end of the book, effectively in his epilogue, that he dedicated the work to those lost friends 'who were punished entirely too much for what they did'. The beauty of this book, A Scanner Darkly, is that it is very much based on the author's life and experiences. There is bitterness, there is hate, there is lost love and regret. Amongst it all there is satire and humour, but mostly dark and cruel.
I have to say that reading this book is more than just reading a story. You are getting the feelings and emotions of a man - Mr. Dick - whose life was a tangled mess. An innocent person robbed by the world and its merciless devices. The drugs and situations that lead to him forgetting his very own person cause him to forget who he really is. When this work is read in a more earnest and compassionate light, we cannot, as a reader, help feeling a deep sorrow for the outcomes and consequences we witness. Childish decisions arising from a lack of interest in life, a state of boredom and all the other emotions we know from the years we spend doing irresponsible things, without care to others, are paid for in blood. This book can invoke a feeling that ones gets when you think 'I wonder what ever became of so-and-so', and we fall into a moment of nostalgia. Perhaps idealist and exaggerated, but nevertheless craving for times and people gone by.
However, this kind of appreciation of the book may not come for some time. You need a while for it to sit in your belly, so to speak. There is a lot of sacrifice, sometimes not even made by the person themselves, but by a higher power. There are certain lessons the characters learn that we, as readers, can also learn from. The story, I am tempted to say, is not necessarily the core of this novel. The recent film adaptation, in my opinion, didn't work for this very reason: it was focused on the story and dialogue too much and not enough on the deeper aspects - the pains and trials of the characters, their moral development and understanding as individuals, their private thoughts and memories that are never revealed verbally. As far as I'm concerned, the film version was something else altogether. It just didn't work.
Anyway, one should read this as you might read the memoirs of a dying man looking back over his life. If you are mature enough to deeply appreciate the message that Dick was trying to give, then you will doubtless remember this book for years to come. What is sad about Dick's Author's Note is that is that he lists himself amongst the 'people who wanted to keep having a good time forever, and were punished for that'. It then strikes you that the other ten or so friends he includes made the basis for his characters, and that in fact what you were reading was a disguised chapter of his very own life. Or, at least, this was how he chose to express it.
On the other hand, I may be speaking dribble. After all, doesn't every book incorporate something from the author's own life. I don't know. Maybe. You decide.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Pure Insightfull Genius!, 14 Sep 2002
Dick is renown for his dark, paranoid even delusional visions of the future. But 'A Scanner Darkly' is probably the most accomplished example of this. The story traces the ever declining life of undercover Narc. Bob Arctor, a man so beyond redemption he has given up his family to become a full-time professional police informant. As the story unfolds the lines between Arctor's lives become more and more blurred, a burned out addict on the one hand an undercover agent on the other. All seems well until the mysterious 'substance D' the 'D' being for 'Death' hits the streets and Arctor is assigned to find out what it is and where it comes from.The assured and confident prose is a sign of this being a work by an author in his prime and very much on home soil, Dick's own life was in a constant state of flux due to his own drug abuse and this gives this novel the touch of realism lacking in so many other drug culture novels. 'A Scanner Darkly' is simply a wonderful look inside addiction, insanity and paranoia. A must for any Phil Dick fan, a great start for any potential converts.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Take a "Trip", 16 Sep 2002
By A Customer
This is the only Phillip K Dick novel I have read and thoroughly enjoyed. The ideas conveyed are not particularly that of a science fiction writer but as a human being who lived a life very affected by substance abuse. Touching, imagenative with a cruel punch at the end, in my opinion the author's best book.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
More than sci-fi, and a genuinely human novel, 3 May 2002
I've gained more pleasure and (I hope) insight from this book than from many of the 'classics' of literature. Ostensibly set in the future California of 1994 (!), in a world where addicts eat substance 'D' and straights live in guarded apartment blocks, Scanner Darkly unfolds into a story about the dreams and the darkness of the drugs culture. It maps the disaffection that drives people out of 'straight' society, and the nemesis awaiting those who lived out the 60's ideal for too long. As with all of PKD's novels, the nature of reality and perception, and the desire for transcendence (in this case, in the fleeting visions of grace offered to the characters) are also explored.The protagonist, Bob Arctor / Fred, is an undercover agent addicted to the drugs he is meant to be eliminating. As Arctor goes about his daily life, Fred sits in a safe house, monitoring his alter ego on hidden cameras, his mind gradually disintegrating from the effects of the drug. Despite the sci-fi trappings, much of the novel's world is early 70's California (McDonald's, Coke, malls, American streets and broken Buicks), which was always PKD's true location. The detail of Bob's daily life and his friends, which (judging by the postscript) mirrored PKD's, provide much of the 'fun' of the novel. The warmth and humanity of his characters, the strength of the plot, and the more immediate relevance to many people put this a cut above the rest of the PKD oeuvre...
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
one of Phillip K. Dicks very best, 26 April 2003
unlike other K. Dick novels i've read, this is far more metaphoric in its relation to the things he was going through at the time of writing. although set in the future of 1994(it was written in 77') it could easily be seen as a modern day novel, symply by suplimenting the drug 'Substance D', with LSD. 'Fred' is an undercover narc working to bust a big dealer of the horrendously psychadelic drug 'Death (Substance D)'. in order to do this he has infiltrated a group of four users and started living with them. the reality of the situation is that, Fred, or Bob Arctor as they know him, is a laid back druggy who lets them live in his house, and they hang out together doing nothing much and taking wild drugs. as is mentioned in the Authers note, K. Dick was living in much the same situation at the time of writing, very cool. its just a real good laid back novel about a circle of friends goofing off and hanging out. as the story progresses, the real dangers of Substance D's side affect of spliting the users personnality becomes harder and harder on Arctor as he already is living two lives being undercover. a great lesson about the dangers of excessive drugs, but not a lecture, and a wonderful insight into 70's American drug culture and its freedom's and paranoias.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Fantastic, 20 Nov 2003
By A Customer
One of the best books ever of any genre. If you have not read this book then your literary education is incomplete.
PKD does not aspire to any academic claim, but his intense portrayal of a living nightmare juxtaposed with the amusing episodes that are part and parcel of the scene he is describing make this a masterwork. Every part of the book is finely crafted, and though the language and structure are readily accessible, the experience of this book will challenge anyone.
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5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Another masterpeice from the best, 25 Mar 2004
I adore this book, though it scared the... can i say sware words on here? just in case i will say bejessus and supress my giggles, it scared the bejessus out of me. For a short while after my drug fantasies were minimised, the ending is chilling, and ...all too real. A brillaint book by all measures. But I mean, look at who wrote it.
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