Tag Archives: philip k dick

Book Review: “A Scanner Darkly” (1977) by Philip K. Dick

scanner darkly

© James Pyles

Philip K. Dick’s 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly is about drug addition and the physical, mental, and legal consequences it brings about. The character Bob Arctor/Fred is prey, predator, and victim.

The book is also autobiographical since it (through fiction) chronicles Dick’s own experiences with addiction and the drug culture in the 1970s.

I’m not much of a fan of Dick’s writing. Oh, I’ve read his “big hits” including The Man in The High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but I felt the stories didn’t live up to the hype. I know I’m probably in the minority with that opinion, but so be it.

For my money, “Scanner” is Dick’s best novel. It’s not just the writing or the story. It’s how Dick took a destroyed part of his life and turned it into something, not only useful, but reorganized and creative. I really admire him for that. I think most of us wish we could do that with the parts of our lives we see as “damaged” or (Heaven help us) “destroyed.”

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Book Review: “The Man in the High Castle

high castle

Cover image for the novel “The Man in the High Castle” by Philip K. Dick

My son Michael and I were talking about the television series The Man in the High Castle, which is based on the 1962 novel of the same name authored by the late Philip K. Dick. I’ve never seen the television show (and probably never will), but I did recall reading the novel sometime back in the 1970s.

Unfortunately, that’s all I remembered about it. Curious, I decided to check a copy of the book out of my local public library and re-read it.

The novel is set in the year it was published and postulates what the United States would have been like if the Axis powers had won World War Two thanks to the Nazis having developed the atomic bomb first.

The US is divided into three zones, with the Nazis in control of the East, the Japanese in control of the West, and a sort of DMZ existing across the Rocky Mountain States.

The “Man in the High Castle” refers to the author of a controversial novel called “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy” written by the mysterious Hawthorne Abendsen. It postulates what the world would have been like if the Allies had won the war. The book is tolerated in the West, but the Nazis have made it illegal in the East and there are rumors that there’s an ongoing attempt to assassinate the book’s writer. Thus Abendsen is said to live in a fortress (“High Castle”) in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

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