A Scanner Darkly cover art

A Scanner Darkly

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

A Scanner Darkly

By: Philip K Dick
Narrated by: Paul Giamatti
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

About this listen

 Substance D - otherwise known as Death - is the most dangerous drug ever to find its way on to the black market. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, leading first to disorentation and then to complete and irreversible brain damage.

Bob Arctor, undercover narcotics agent, is trying to find a lead to the source of supply, but to pass as an addict he must become a user and soon, without knowing what is happening to him, he is as dependent as any of the addicts he is monitoring.

Read by Paul Giamatti

(p) 2006 Penguin Random House LLC©1977 Philip K Dick Classics Fantasy Fiction Mystery Private Investigators Science Fiction Detective Human Brain

Critic Reviews

The best book of the year - extraordinary (BrianAldiss)
One of the most original practitioners writing any kind of fiction, Dick made most of the European avant-garde seem like navel-gazers in a cul-de-sac
My literary hero
The most brilliant SF mind on any planet
For everyone lost in the endlessly multiplicating realities of the modern world, remember: Philip K. Dick got there first
The most consistently brilliant SF writer in the world (John Brunner)
Dick is Thoreau plus the death of the American dream (Roberto Bolaño)
Dick quietly produced serious fiction in a popular form and there can be no greater praise (Michael Moorcock)
In all his work he was astonishingly intimate, self exposed, and very dangerous. He was the funniest SF writer of his time, and perhaps the most terrifying. His dreads were our own, spoken as we could not have spoken them
All stars
Most relevant
Such a haunting novel with predictably brilliant narration by Paul Giamatti. Would recommend to anyone who wants a slightly twistedperspective on the aftermath of the 60's counterculture.

Brilliant and harrowing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I can’t believe this was written before the meth epidemic. Substance D, the true villain of this story, is what meth is today- guaranteed death by way of madness 1st.

This is written by someone who has been there, there is no doubt about that.

Reading this book is like taking a one way trip into the mind of a strung out junkie wired & insane but trucking along anyway, embracing the delusion fully until it consumes you.

Buy it. Buy it now!

Death & madness

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The author's note in the last chapter really drives home the damage that is done to the addicted. So sad to lose this amazing author at the young age of 53.

An insightful view into the mind of the adict

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator does an amazing job on voices to enact all emotions! The reference to The Fountainhead really was surprising but very delightfully done.

Wild Ride

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Definitely give this a go. Very hard to find another book like it. Excellent narration too.

Unbelievably good

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.