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A Scanner Darkly

Written by: Philip K. Dick
Narrated by: Paul Giamatti
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Publisher's Summary

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.

©1977 Philip K. Dick (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
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What listeners say about A Scanner Darkly

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Exquisite Paranoia

Best druggie sci-fi novel ever. Captures a particular vibe and delivers fascinatingly bleak vision of the future while posing deep questions about the nature of addiction, identity and surveillance. Amazing reading from Paul Giamatti, who uses his acting talent to great effect and imbues each character with a distinct voice. One of my favorite audiobooks.

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Great performance!

Best narration that I have found so far. Giamatti is worth the price of admission.

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  • Overall
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bad trip

listening to this right after quitting my affair with drugs alcohol and self destruction was extremely painful. and maybe not the best thing for me, but I found it very powerful and certainly strengthened my resolve to stay quit.

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just as relevant today

thinking about all the friends I've lost to addictions. the book is dark, but it captures the internal logic of that world so beautifully, so humanly. definitely more dark than the movie, but also more realistic.

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Bizarre and Wonderful

PKD explores reality and human-ness in a disjointed and fascinating way. He explores addiction and recovery especially well. I'm going to listen to it again and see what else I can get from it.

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good idea, bad story telling

really disappointing. A great idea, but lame characters and tedious development. I wouldn't recommend

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Just not for me.

Sort of hard to follow even before inexplicably switching to German here and there. Semi autobiographical.

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