If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Who am I? : "A Scanner Darkly" by Philip K. DickI'm a big Pynchon fan, too, so don't get me wrong here, but it seems to me like the main difference between Dick's writing style and Pynchon's--or at least, the difference that mostly accounts for Dick being treated as a "pulp" author with some interesting ideas whereas Pynchon is considered a major "literary" figure--is simply that Dick tends to write in crisp, straightforward sentences

3.5 stars rounded to 4 after the epilogue.One day I figure out all of a Philip K. Dick novel. Ah, who am I kidding, lol. Truthfully, I like the challenge. Love the ideas. The guy was brilliant. But let me tell you, some of the situations and conversations I experienced in this book could possibly be the wildest I’ve come across – since reading my last Dick novel. In an epilogue, he offers his reason for writing A Scanner Darkly. It is poignant to say the least. He adds that there is no moral to

“I have seen myself backward.”― Philip K. Dick, A Scanner DarklyA Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick's searing, hyperrealist tale of a specific time (late 1960s), a specific place (California), and a specific mentality (seek maximum happiness now since tomorrow you might die) set in 1994, enough in the near future for the author to inject massive doses of his signature wild imagination into the mix. As most readers will know, director Richard Linklater employed distinctive digital technology and an...

In 1971, Philip K Dick's fourth wife, Nancy, left him and took their little daughter with her. Dick was left alone in a four-bedroom house in Santa Venetia, ‘in a state of complete desolation and despair, and suicidally depressed’, as he later put it. In an attempt to surround himself with life and activity, he turned the property into a kind of open house for what he called ‘street people’ – drug-users that he knew through his amphetamine habit, although many of them were on much harder drugs t...

This is exactly what living with addiction feels like. Unwell delusion at odds with unstoppable consequences. Sick thinking that comforts as it kills. Beyond that gritty and discomforting topic, which already makes it well worth reading, it's a damn good science fiction story. Entangled in paranoia, PKD delves into the seemingly hardwired "Us vs Them" dynamic while featuring strange technology that extends real social ills out to their most striking metaphorical forms. 5 stars. Raw, intense, eng...

I had a whole lot of fun reviewing this... http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...But there is a serious side:In the novel, Fred’s mind and brain are regularly tested by police department psychologists, owing to the stress of both maintaining a dual identity, and taking drugs as part of his undercover life. Dick avoids the off-the-shelf cliché’s of ink-blots and electric shocks, as the author describes realistic test scenarios and recognisable neuropsychological tests. Worryingly for Fred, the

There are other books dealing with drug addiction that tell a whole story and not just the introspection of the protagonist balancing next to the cliffs on insanity by using Dicks´ stylistic trademarks consciousness, parallel realities, illusion, perception, madness,…Like most of Dicks´ novels, it is focused on one character and his mental problems, combined with the description of highs, illusions, and hallucinations with a sudden ending and many whats? and whys? while reading. It´s difficult t...

Be happy NOW, for tomorrow I will be writing. Take the cash and let the credit GOI'll write MY review tomorrow. Let US all be happy. And play AGAIN.ToMORROW.****So, I wrote a review I was really proud of today during lunch. Four or five paragraphs. I liked it a lot. So, I was rather disheartened when my computer froze and I had to do a hard-boot to unfreeze it. Lost everything but the vague outlines of what I wrote. Even those vague outlines seem difficult to grasp right now. I'm kinda demoraliz...

A Scanner Darkly can be described as follows: begin with Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, mix in a pinch of The Big Lebowski, a dollop of A Beautiful Mind, a scene from Crime and Punishment, the shadows and penumbra of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, whispered apprehension of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a hint of thirty year in advance anticipation of reality TV, stir in a portion of dystopian science fiction and mix it all together with Philip K. Dick’s weird genius. Th...

I've started and restarted this review a number of times. With that in mind, I'm going to take a page from mark monday (http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/13...) and share a multi-perspective review.The .gif summation:Recipe for A Scanner Darkly:1. Take moderate amounts of the drug of your choice (recommend one with highly hallucinogenic and paranoiac qualities)2. Allow to simmer while reading Less Than Zero3. Stir in a random amount of a second drug (preferably one with potential for permanent

Philip K. Dick's work has had a tremendous influence on me. Although I don't read much sci-fi these days, any time I go back to one of Dick's books, I feel as if I retreat into an enclosed space deep inside me - a space that I recognise and cherish, yet sometimes lose or forget. Finding oneself - losing onself...A Scanner Darkly is probably not the best known of Dick's works. It lacks the brilliance of Do Androids or the depressive atmosphere of Three Stigmata. Yet, it offers a sneak peek in Dic...

My favorite PKD books tend to be those published in the 60s when he was writing wacky fun reality warping sci-fi like Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep etc. Of his 70s books that I have read Flow My Tears the Policeman Said is my favorite, whereas VALIS I could not (as yet) finish. I think the later PKD novels tend to be more serious and introspective though the weirdness is always present.A Scanner Darkly is one of his early 70s books and I find it...

I've made it. I have finally reached the summit of the second Library of America collection of Philip K. Dick books, Five Novels of the 1960s & 70s. With my flag firmly planted atop the snow-capped peak of this book I can look back upon two weeks of paranoia, time travel, authoritarian governments and more experimental drugs than you can find outside of a Merck testing lab, with the self-satisfied air of a man who has plumbed the depths of speed-induced psychosis and made it through the other si...

I used to wonder how Phillip K. Dick came up with all the trippy concepts in his stories until I read A Scanner Darkly. That’s when I realized that the drugs probably had a lot to do with it.Originally published in 1977 and set in the mid ‘90s, the book tells the story of Bob Arctor. Arctor appears to be just another burned out druggie who lives with a couple of other dopers, and they spend most of their time getting high on Substance D and assorted other drugs. Bob is actually an undercover nar...

Re-read 5/15/19:I'm continually surprised, now with my third read, how much fun I have with this novel. How much fun I have with the bugs. Or how much fun I have with the missing gears on the bike. Or how much fun I have with Bob, Fred, or whoever the hell the main character is. :) By the end, he is entirely nameless. Freaky cool.I think, more than anything, I love the philosophy that is snuck in at random moments or explored in long stretches without a direct reference. PKD's afterward is very

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/Not even February and I’m already behind on 2018’s reviews. Good thing I didn’t tell myself I’d lose weight! The one thing I have always told myself is I need to read a Philip K. Dick story. Imagine my surprise when I cued this one up on the ol’ Fiat’s Bluetooth and heard that it was written by Philip K. Dick. I’m not sure one book can be a quantifier for his entire set of works, but in the immortal words of Larry David, this was . . ....

This was a fascinating story (if somewhat terrifying) about LA in the 90s (seen from the 70s) and the future is grim. In a lot of ways, PKD's predictions have not bourne out: we don't have scattersuits and no one was using cassette tapes anymore because of the CD. However, the long-term effects of hard drug use are not that off mark. I suspect that Substance D (or "death" as it is known on the street) would today be some kind of crystal meth like Heisenberg's on Breaking Bad, but ingestible with...

God, how dark it is here, and totally silent. Nothing but me lives in this vacuum…Philip K. Dick’s darkly atmospheric novel about drug culture and how drugs affect society is a well written, impactful story. It’s a realistic view of how drugs affect the mind and relationships. The story follows the character of Bob and his friends, who are both using and selling a mind-bending drug called Substance D. We also follow Fred, a cop who works for a form of drug bust squad. The hook is that Bob and Fr...

We are exchanging too much passive life for the reality outside us.There were a couple of times when I felt that A Scanner Darkly, a story about an undercover narc agent who narcs on himself before being sent to rehab, should have been one of PK Dick's short stories. However, just when I thought PKD had played out his hand, the scene would change and we would return to one of Dick's central tenets in a new way: how do we know what is real. That is followed by characters trying both to figure out...

The weird and trippy 1970s drug scene in California ala PKDOriginally posted at Fantasy LiteratureIf you were choosing any Hollywood actor to narrate an audiobook of PKD about dope users in Southern California in the early 1970s, who would you choose? Random House Audio got Paul Giamatti to read A Scanner Darkly, and who could better? I tried to distill the vibe of the book in the following passage I assembled on my own. Imagine him reading it if you will:Hey man, it’s not easy for a doper tryin...