I don't know if this was a "good" place to start with Philip K. Dick but it was mine so there you have it. 

On its face, "A Scanner Darkly" is a detective story that progressively gets lost as the narrator, Bob Arctor (an undercover cop trying to locate the source of an addictive illegal drug named "Substance D" or "Slow Death"), loses sight of his identity, his mission, and even his personal well-being. It's... a bit of a downer (no pun intended). Seriously, it's really sad. During his mission, Bob lives with some other, similarly situated friends (minus the undercover cop gig, probably) and pursues a romantic relationship with a low-level drug dealer named Donna.

If I'm going to give someone a reason to read this, it's probably for the very neat use of unreliable narration where the writing style is purposefully disorienting to emulate the character's confusion as he wades deeper into addiction. When Bob begins to separate himself from his cop identity, the third-person limited narration stops calling him Bob and uses the name of his alter ego, whereas before he was always Bob, even while posing as someone else. A bit like if Batman were dressed up as Batman but the book started calling him Bruce. Or something. Maybe that's not a great analogy but I know that would sound strange. It reminds me a bit of "Flowers for Algeron," which is another sci-fi book (from the 50s, this time) that has a much lighter touch of sci-fi while also relying heavily on the writing style to convey changes within the main character. Not the same change, to be clear.

Interestingly, Philip K. Dick used a lot of his own life and experience with addiction as inspiration for this book. That made things even sadder, to be honest. The characters don't seem to pull through in the end, and scenes that can strike the reader as funny also hit you in the gut and bring tears to your eyes (I did actually tear up at the character Charles Freck's decision, which I won't spoil).

It's no secret that the 70s are one of my least favorite decades of the second half of the 20th century, at least as far as movies and books go. Yeah, ok, the sexism in the 70s is a particularly yucky brand, I don't like it in movies and I'm not a fan of it in books either.
That being said, I don't know if the author did this on purpose, but his portrayal of Donna makes her one of the characters with the most interesting backstory, motivations, and agency. her age is unfortunate, because she describes herself as under-age for drinking purposes, and she's based on a teenager the author dated, so... if we're setting this in California she's at most 19 (CA never lowered the drinking age to 18, unlike a few other states). I can only hope Donna is lying about her age (and given how things turn out, I wouldn't be surprised if that were true. Plus it would be a relief.).

All in all, "Scanner" is an interesting dive into the author's experience as well as an exploration of topics like duality, surveillance, public perception, societal rejection, class structure (oh boy, that bit about the mall force-field that only lets you through if you have a credit card is pretty reminiscent of some stores nowadays refusing to accept cash), plus the war on drugs... and some parts have aged better than others.

I'm excited to read more of PKD's work, if only because I can't watch Bladerunner until I get through "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep." Like him or hate him, there must be a reason he's one of the most adapted authors, and for all the unnecessary boob descriptions (god, Phil, we get it, she's not wearing a bra, her eyes are up here!) PKD writes with punch. 

Recommended to anyone interested in sci-fi cornerstones, 70s discourse on addiction (and/or the war on drugs), or a bit of an unusual police procedural.