Available Formats
A Scanner Darkly
By (Author) Philip K Dick
Orion Publishing Co
Gollancz
1st January 2000
14th October 1999
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Science fiction
813.54
Winner of British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel 1979 (UK)
Paperback
224
Width 131mm, Height 196mm, Spine 17mm
205g
Substance D -- otherwise known as Death -- is the most dangerous drug ever to find its way on to the black market. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, leading first to disorentation and then to complete and irreversible brain damage. Bob Arctor, undercover narcotics agent, is trying to find a lead to the source of supply, but to pass as an addict he must become a user, and soon, without knowing what is happening to him, he is as dependent as any of the addicts he is monitoring.
One of the most original practitioners writing any kind of fiction, Dick made most of the European avant-garde seem like navel-gazers in a cul-de-sac * Sunday Times *
My literary hero * Fay Weldon *
For everyone lost in the endlessly multiplicating realities of the modern world, remember: Philip K. Dick got there first * Terry Gilliam *
Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) was born in Chicago but lived in California for most of his life. He went to college at Berkeley for a year, ran a record store and had his own classical-music show on a local radio station. He published his first short story, 'Beyond Lies the Wub' in 1952. Among his many fine novels are The Man in the High Castle, Time Out of Joint, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.