Bob Arctor is a junkie and a drug dealer, both using and selling the mind-altering Substance D. Fred is a law enforcement agent, tasked with bringing Bob down. It sounds like a standard case. The only problem is that Bob and Fred are the same person. Substance D doesn’t just alter the mind, it splits it in two, and neither side knows what the other is doing or that it even exists. Now, both sides are growing increasingly paranoid as Bob tries to evade Fred while Fred tries to evade his suspicious bosses.

In this award-winning novel, friends can become enemies, good trips can turn terrifying, and cops and criminals are two sides of the same coin. Dick is at turns caustically funny and somberly contemplative, fashioning a novel that is as unnerving as it is enthralling.

I have an admission to make before continuing this review. Until tackling A Scanner Darkly, I had never read a single Phillip K. Dick novel or short story. I really don’t even like “science fiction” that much and prefer the fantasy and horror genres any day. But, I decided I needed to give Dick a try (it was way past due), so I chose this novel because it was available online through my library and I was interested in the premise (drugs use and the effect it can have on the addict and society).

The book summary gives the main plotline of the book A Scanner Darkly, but the reality is the book touches on many different things and is somewhat hard to describe. It is partly about drug culture and it is partly about madness as the protagonist of the novel Bob Arctor descends into the clutches of Substance D, a drug extremely addictive and one that essentially leads to total splitting of the brain hemispheres (psychically) leading to split personality, insanity and pretty much total mental uselessness. The book is also partly an examination of the motives of “rehabilitation facilities” for drug addicts, something Dick is clearly skeptical of in the novel.

The novel centers on Bob Arctor. Fred is his actual name as he is really an undercover cop trying to move into the supply/dealing chain to set up a big bust. His main dealer contact is Donna, a nice, hippy-type girl who seems real laid back but seems to have frigidity issues with her sexuality. Bob is in love with her, but he is also using her to try and get bigger buys straight from her supplier.

Bob also has two roommates, James Barris and Ernie Luckman, James is a completely paranoid, self-titled genius always trying to invent stuff or explain how stuff works, more often to the clueless Ernie, who is pretty much the typical dumb high-on who follows James around like a dog on a leash, amazed at James’s “super intelligence”. In the beginning of the book there is also another friend, Charles Freck, who goes completely batshit crazy in a paranoid fit over bugs he sees all over himself and his dog. He is taken to the local rehabilitation center called New Path and instituted. I can’t remember for sure, but I don’t think he is ever seen again; his experience is mainly an introduction to the ill effects of Substance D and also adds to the question of what happens to people once they go through New Path, something that is presented as a bit of a mystery.

When Bob reports in to the police chief they both wear a kind of sci-fi suit that scrambles their identity and voice so nobody knows who is who when meeting. After kind of screwing up a talk at the local businessmen’s club on the dangers of drug use and what the police are doing about it, Fred has to check in and then is told to report to the station’s team of psychologists who put him through some rigorous training to test for the first symptoms of the split brain phenomena Substance D eventually brings on. They let him go, but he is to report in again later in the book.

We also find out later, during another check in, that somebody has fingered one Bob Arctor as possibly being a dealer of Substance D and that the police wish to bug his house with scanners (a type of bugging device that is undetectable but will record everything). Remember, the police chief that Fred interacts with doesn’t know Fred IS Bob Arctor. This interplay between the chief and Fred really adds to the complexity of the book especially later when the individual fingering Arctor is revealed in one of these interviews. A very awkward meeting between the three ensues.

Arctor does indeed decline into the split brain situation. But, it is this descent into madness and the split into two different people that is extremely fascinating. It takes place relatively spaced out, but once the split is complete it turns nasty real quick. But the book doesn’t end there. It is eventually Donna, who comes to grips with the fact that she loves Bob Arctor as he loves her that takes Bob for help at New Path. Once in New Path we get to see Arctor (here renamed Bruce by the facility) go through withdrawal and some extremely bad group therapy. He is then assigned to a farming community where we get to see the neurocognitive damage done after getting clean from Substance D. We also get to see where some of those individuals who seem to disappear at New Path after rehabilitation end up and why.

Like I said, there is one big reveal in the book when Arctor appears in the station to report in only to find out who was snitching on him the entire time. But, there are also two more big reveals Dick gives to the reader after Arctor is taken to New Path that bring some other things in the book together. Add in all of the hilarious drug-fueled experiences of Arctor, Barris, Luckman and Donna in between police station check-ins and Arctor’s descent into madness and the entire book is pretty fast moving.

If you get a chance to read it, I would recommend it. It was good enough to get me to search out more Dick to read. I ended up choosing Bladerunner (originally titled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?). That will be the review I do in My foray into Dick, Part II…