:book: A Scanner Darkly by Phillip K. Dick ( Ballantine books, 1979 ) > If you don't know who Philip K. Dick is you don't deserve to live! Sorry, about that! After all, he was only the world's greatest mentally disturbed science-fiction writer! Just Read... the Divine Invasion, the Penultimate Truth, Ubik or Valis and see for yourself! > L.A. area, narc R.A. Fred has a problem. His superior has just given him a new assignment; holographic surveillance on suspected dope dealer and definite Slow Death ( the drug of the future! ) addict R. Arctor - who just happens to be R.A. Ferd when he's out of his scramble suit, a future-narc disguise made of a mini-computer that projects millions of constantly shifting genetic human information onto a skin he wears on duty, thus giving him a perpetually changing disguise. > The scramble suit is but one of several thought-provoking science fantasies that add spice to A Scanner Darkly, a depressing but powerfully prophetic novel of the near future. Another is Slow Death - it's a great high, but eventually it causes the disintegration of the connections that harmonize the functions of the two separate cerebral cortices, resulting in total-breakdown schizophrenia! > The shadowy world where narcs mingle with future victims, who are also their present friends and connections, is the stage for this novel. Dick is familiar with the dope scene, and he has moved it into the fictional space of his novel most convincingly. This pathetic, helpless narc, strung-out on the drug whose source he set out long before to find - and whose mental collapse we witness - is a sad, powerful character. > And Dick's eventual unraveling of the conspiracy behind Slow Death, or substance D, brings strongly to mind speculations about CIA dope pushing and brain experiments. > Aside from all this paranoid action, Dick is a stoned jokester, and his sense of humor never fails him, even at times of total madness; in the first chapter a character on substance D succumbs to the cumulative effects and becomes convinced that giant aphids from outer space have come to take him away. It sounds pathetic but is a crack-up to read! > Dick has made his reputation as a science-fiction writer, and while there is an element of that in this novel, it is more a work of warning and prophecy; he suggests that dopers are too often reckless victims of themselves and/or those out to control them. > the list of friends and loved ones, himself included, who suffered permanent damage or death by irresponsible doping that closes the book attests to the sources of his fear - and adds to the power of the picture he has created. > He is not anti-drug - a bit of caution is all he suggests, and many dopers could probably use it! Morality or no, it's a good read and, I hope, a false prophecy! eace:
Phillip K Dick is a wonderful author. I wasn't aware that he had written this book, but the movie that followed was interesting enough that I will have to search for the paperback. Thanks for the summary!
One secret to understanding and enjoying pkd is that if you read his books in order you can pretty much follow the drug scene in Berzerkly during the 60s/7os.
A Scanner Darkly was my most favourite book of his until I read Ubik, which I place above ASD, sorry. But they are both great (not to mention other books like Do Androids Dream about Electric Sheep? or Man from the High Castle).
'UBIK' is probably well worth a read - as is 'Flow my Tears the Policeman Said' - in fact most of PKD's later works.
