A Scanner Darkly - Softcover

On the streets of Los Angeles, undercover narcotics agent Bob Arctor helps to convict dealers in the sinister drug known as Substance D – D for Death. To protect his cover as a dope addict, Arctor is officially titled S.A. Fred and reports to police headquarters wearing a scramble suit. The suit turns all of him into a vague blur. Only the low-life dopers and dealers he moves amongst know his name and his face and an identity crisis is about to overtake him. Not only is he in love with one foxy dealer named Donna, he has a new assignment, his toughest yet. The name of the target user is known to him. The name of the target user is Bob Arctor.

Philip K. Dick, like William Burroughs, knew first-hand the attraction – and pitfalls – of drug abuse. In this immensely compassionate, funny and thoughtful novel set in the near future, the founding father of modern science fiction threads the maze of an addled mind to confront the quailing human remnant of a user of Substance D.

“If it is ideas that you want then Philip K. Dick is the author to read”
VECTOR

“One of the most original practitioners writing any kind of fiction”
SUNDAY TIMES

Philip K Dick was born in Chicago in 1928 and lived most of his life in California. He attended college for a year at Berkeley. Apart from writing, his main interest was music. He won the Hugo Award for his classic novel of alternative history, ‘The Man in the High Castle’ (1962). He was married five times and had three children. He died in March 1982.