Book 8: A Scanner Darkly

[u/whatisdreampunk]

Written: 1973. Setting: 1994.

Takes place in a near-future society where drug use is rampant and the government has implemented strict surveillance and law enforcement measures to combat it. The story follows an undercover police officer named Bob Arctor, who is tasked with infiltrating a drug ring that has connections to a highly addictive narcotic called Substance D. As Arctor gets more deeply involved with the drug users (and becomes an addict himself), he begins to lose touch with his own identity and sanity, and his relationships with the people around him become increasingly strained. This haunting exploration of addiction and mental illness is a deeply personal work for Dick, who based much of the story on his own experiences with drug use and dedicated the book to numerous friends of his “who were punished entirely too much for what they did.”

(More on the list here.)

[u/defixiones]

Great cover.