A Scanner Darkly is a 1977 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. The semi-autobiographical story was set in a dystopian Orange County, California in the then-future of June 1994. The book includes an extensive portrayal of drug culture and drug use. Synopsis The protagonist is Bob Arctor, member of a household of drop-out drug-users, but he is also living a parallel life as Agent Fred, an undercover police agent assigned to spy on Arctor's household. Arctor/Fred shields his true identity from those in the drug subculture and, ironically, from the police themselves. (The requirement that narcotics agents remain anonymous, to avoid collusion and other forms of corruption, becomes a critical plot point late in the book.) While supposedly only posing as a drug user, Arctor becomes addicted to Substance D (also referred to as Slow Death, Death or D), a powerful psychoactive drug. An ongoing

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