A Scanner Darkly

nyarlothothep

Has anyone read this? I recently completed it and maybe I'm just coming down from the awesomeness of this book but wow...I haven't read something this good in a long time. It was refreshing to read from the standpoint that it wasn't a big epic battle for the universe saga spanning 20 books yet it was just as epic, (even if that word is overused) in terms of delivering a philosphically deep story with an excellent use of twists, 3 dimensional characters and a very poignant bittersweet ending, probably one of the best endings I've read in a while. And what makes it better in that respect is that it didn't need 10,000 pages plus to do this. The psychedelic imagery is inspirational, this was imagery that was actually interesting to read. I bought this initally thinking hey-ho-hum, this is a stop gap book before I read Game of Thrones, but I must say that this is a masterpiece. And I normally don't regard any book in that category. Then again my viewpoint might change in a month as a temporary lapse into hipsterdom but still this book was great.

Trojan

Great book. I think it's been made into a film too - haven't seen it, hope it hasn't been butchered.

daithieoghan

It wasn't butchered as a movie. Not as good as the book but a good way to kill an hour and a half none the less

nua domhan

i think its a great film though i havent read the book. The cartoony effects are awesome and i find it soothes many a hangover,

Supermensch

Philip K. Dick is great full stop. If you liked the book that much, you should read some of his other stuff. My personal favourite is Ubik.

nyarlothothep

I wonder, do you think

Bob Arctor eventually recovered enough or was his mind just fcked permanently. What I got from the book was that everyone perceived him to be a zombie but inside his own mind he seemed reasonably articulate and aware of what was going on around him, for example he could narrate the story to the girl, that would infer that he had a sense of past, present and future, that he could make sense of the most basic blocks of reality. The only problem is that his mind was bifurcated at the end but that the impairment could be functional rather than physical. So did he recover. Oh yeah was his real name behind all the pseudo names Pete? The bad guy at the end was brilliant for the short part of the novel he was in, just incredible through that New Path turns out to be linked to the Substance D farms.

PKD knows how to write a twist right, the novel had good twists as opposed to Prometheus twists.

Dades

Oi! Spoilers!

It's one of a bunch of PKD's I've yet to read. :pac:

5uspect

Both the book and the Film are very good. The rotoscoping they've applied to the live action is pretty unique and makes it worth checking out for that alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXpGaOqb2Z8

Johnny Storm

Great book. Great author.
'there's one of those new Porches with two engines' :-P