A Scanner Darkly

Author - Philip K. Dick ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Vintage was reviewed on 18-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:1400096901 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. A Scanner Darkly Reference Book. Classifications : Movie Tie-Ins Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Contemporary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Dick, Philip K. ( D ) Authors, A-Z Science Fiction & Fantasy Subjects Books General Sci . Click the following link to view the cover of A Scanner Darkly.

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1) Paperback Book A Scanner Darkly by Vintage. I don´t think I would have ever picked up A Scanner Darkly by Phillip K. Dick but as luck would have I enrolled in a Sci-fi class and it was a required reading. The story is about a man named Bob Arctor, aka "Fred," and his mind wrecked roommates who are strung out on a drug called Substance D. I found it to be a great trip, no pun intended, through the human mind on drugs, mental illness on drugs, and the severe paranoia in a way that was at times humorous, and quite entertaining. I enjoyed the book immensely and I would recommend it to everyone, even if you are not a Sci-fi fan.¤

2) Paperback Book A Scanner Darkly by Vintage. Phillip K. Dick´s A Scanner Darkly, is an amazingly dystopic science fiction novel that everyone should read. His use language and descriptions of southern California are a real treat especially if you happen to have ever lived there. The story follows Bob Arctor, who loses himself to Substance D, a drug that is taking over the surrounding communities. The book questions reality, identity and the role substances play in our society and interactions with other people. By the end of the book you are asking yourself what your own identity is and whether or not you are doing what you truly desire. Imaginative, compelling and at times comical, A Scanner Darkly is a must read for science fiction lovers and anyone who likes to take a good look at themselves and society.¤

3) Paperback Book A Scanner Darkly by Vintage. Paul Giamatti´s reading of this book is brilliant. He captures the humor, the insanity, and the tragedy of this sad tale completely. His voice acting ability is remarkable and has spoiled the other CDs that I own of the PKDick books. It was never difficult to discern who was speaking, male or female. I highly recommend this CD for the original work and for this audio version. Mr. Giamatti please read more of PKD works for us. Please! I can also recommend the Keir Dullea readings of the short story collection, Minority Report, but Giamatti´s skills are incomparable.¤

4) Paperback Book A Scanner Darkly by Vintage. I feel there are certain books that are necessary for us to read (and I´m sure as I go on reading, I´ll find others), and I´ve just added another to the list--Philip K. Dick´s A Scanner Darkly (I like this book so much that I actually consider it tied with Fitzgerald´s Gatsby, Twain´s Huck Finn, and Kerouac´s On the Road as my favorite book). It´s a twisted, surreal tale of paranoia and deception. That´s the world of illegal drugs, and having done some of the same drugs, I recognize that world that Arctor inhabits (and that Dick once did). It´s a touching story that, like Burrough´s Junky, makes no judgements.¤

5) Paperback Book A Scanner Darkly by Vintage. I did not see the movie, "A Scanner Darkly," but it appears to me (from a review on IMDB) that images from the movie were published more or less as is to form this product. As such, the book is faithful to the film. Perhaps too faithful, since the way of narritive development on the screen is not identical to that in book form.

ASD is fairly interesting and easy to read. The USA of "seven years in the future" is suffering a devastating drug plague fomented by terrorists. The government has reponded with heavy surveillance and police tactics. Still, many citizens (and even police!) are drug users, and a sort of addle-brained resistance to the tyranny of the crackdown is emerging. Or not.

The book is fairly innocuous but should be rated R for drug humor, for the occassional (and gratuitous) female topless nudity, for a panel or two of atop-the-sheets sex and for one gory scene. It may be all you need to know that the book does NOT make me long to see the film. Between Keanu Reeves playing his usual doltish character who repeats the last word of whatever is said to him, the long stretches where nothing much happens, and the "helpful" labels ("Back in so-and-so´s house") that a true graphic novel would incorporate into the images, this "graphicization" of the movie falls far short of the satisfaction that comes from reading a quality book designed for the genre.¤

6) Paperback Book A Scanner Darkly by Vintage. Bob Arctor is a dealer of the lethally addictive drug Substance D. Fred is the police agent assigned to tail and eventually bust him. To do so, Fred takes on the identity of a drug dealer named Bob Arctor. And since Substance D--which Arctor takes in massive doses--gradually splits the user´s brain into two distinct, combative entities, Fred doesn´t realize he is narcing on himself.

Caustically funny, eerily accurate in its depiction of junkies, scam artists, and the walking brain-dead, Philip K. Dick´s industrial-grade stress test of identity is as unnerving as it is enthralling.¤

7) Paperback Book A Scanner Darkly by Vintage. Mind- and reality-bending drugs factor again and again in Philip K. Dick´s hugely influential SF stories. A Scanner Darkly cuts closest to the bone, drawing on Dick´s own experience with illicit chemicals and on his many friends who died from drug abuse. Nevertheless, it´s blackly farcical, full of comic-surreal conversations between people whose synapses are partly fried, sudden flights of paranoid logic, and bad trips like the one whose victim spends a subjective eternity having all his sins read to him, in shifts, by compound-eyed aliens. (It takes 11,000 years of this to reach the time when as a boy he discovered masturbation.) The antihero Bob Arctor is forced by his double life into warring double personalities: as futuristic narcotics agent "Fred," face blurred by a high-tech scrambler, he must spy on and entrap suspected drug dealer Bob Arctor. His disintegration under the influence of the insidious Substance D is genuine tragicomedy. For Arctor there´s no way off the addict´s downward escalator, but what awaits at the bottom is a kind of redemption--there are more wheels within wheels than we suspected, and his life is not entirely wasted. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 15-Nov-2008, 14000969019781400096909, 750-460-6X0-780-011-LWB-8

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