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For Tony's pick this month, we're reading A Scanner Darkly! Another one I haven't read yet, but I have really enjoyed the two Philip K. Dick books I've gotten to, so I can't wait!

Tony, what made you put this on your nomination list?

Started yesterday...

I am in!

Nice pick. It's one of PKD's hardest hitting books because it's inspired by his life (not really events in his life, but his generation's relationship with drugs and authoritarianism). Read the book, then make sure to read the author's note at the end. Gut wrenching.

So it's one of his darkest works, but at the same time not without humor ... the book's opening is one of his best. And it's chock full of classic PKD surrealism and mind-twisting.

I'm not understanding about these suits they wear. It's some sort of camo or costume or what? I go from thinking of a street gilley suite to the predator.

Lena wrote: "I'm not understanding about these suits they wear. It's some sort of camo or costume or what? I go from thinking of a street gilley suite to the predator."

Scramble suits are basically a thin covering worn over the whole body. They're designed to obfuscate the identity of the wearer by projecting shifting images of..."up to a million and a half physiognomic fraction-representations of various people..." onto the covering. Computer controlled, the images shift every nanosecond or so. The effect of this shifting is such that the wearer appears to be a vague blur.

The movie did a pretty good job of depicting the effect:

Very cool! Thank you Micah. Love buddy reads.

Hey everyone! I have to confess I only just started listening to the audiobook for this today (narrated by Paul Giamatti).

I chose it for these reasons:
1. I have enjoyed everything else I have read by PKD so far.
2. I absolutely love the film adaptation
3. I had the audiobook already, lol

I'm so behind that I actually was still thinking that Okorafor's Lagoon was the nomination that won out and was about to start on that one.

Thanks everyone for letting me nominate. Looking forward to more discussion of this title. Anyone else listening to the audiobook version?

That's the one I'm using. I'd be lying if I say I was pleased but it's getting better. The voices of the many cops and druggies don't sound that different. So far it's been Pineapple Express meets Requiem for a Dream with a little Law & Order.

Just finished!
/review/show...
Micah was completely right about the authors note. The context brings the work greater meaning. The end, plus the afterwards, makes a gripping story.

It is a very rambling narrative, even for Philip K. Dick, although I personally kind of enjoy that element. I feel like it adds to the disorientation POV of the drug addicts, etc...

Paul Giamatti is clearly not an experienced audiobook narrator, but I find his performance very enjoyable from an acting standpoint, if that makes sense. I may be biases though as I am already a fan of him as a film actor.

It didn't help that the image I have of him is Mr. X from The Nanny Diaries.

Lena wrote: "It didn't help that the image I have of him is Mr. X from The Nanny Diaries."

Haha, at least you weren't picturing him as his character from Big Fat Liar.

I'm sure all of you will be shaking your head at me, but I only just finished this book last night. For some reason it took me awhile to get back to the last half hour of the audiobook that I had left.

Here's my Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ review:

"Rather scatterbrained, even for PKD, but also very sad and rather touching. This has the most developed characters of any PKD book I have read so far, and while the setting is less "science fictiony" than most of his novels, there is just enough to effectively add to the paranoid atmosphere. It was especially interesting comparing this to the Richard Linklater film, which was incredibly faithful. It's not even until the 2nd half of the book that you get into material that was left out of the film, and the film still effectively captures the sadness and confusion of that portion of the novel."
End of Review

Have many of you seen the film? The majority of the material not included was the time the Bob/Fred spends in New Path. The movie ends not long after he gets there, with his interactions with the other patients basically dropped. The film ends the same way, with Bob/Fred taking the flower in the field, but if I remember correctly it's a little more vague/subtle in the film. Much of the content with Donna was also dropped, but enough is kept to present the gist of their relationship. Of course, I haven't seen the movie in awhile so I could be incorrect about some things. I have the DVD so will definitely be giving it a rewatch.

I've already spoken about PG as the narrator before, but one thing I'd like to add: I especially enjoyed his performance as Barris. Although Robert Downey Jr. is great in the part in the film, I think PG would have also been great playing the character on screen, and I had fun imagining that.

The wikipedia article is worth reading as well. Includes some info about the autobiographical elements of the work, which were even stronger than I'd realized.