A Scanner Darkly concerns a few months in the life of Bob Arctor, a drug addict and police informant. It’s set in Southern California in 1994. The story was published in 1977, and it reads very 1970s. Scanner isn’t long, but it drags a bit, mostly with the tedious drug-addled doings of Bob and his similarly drug-using and drug-dealing friends. An author’s note at the end provides some context, which caused me to rate Scanner a little higher. Though Scanner is tagged as science fiction, there’s little SF there. Dystopian, yes. The current meth and fentanyl crisis in the US makes the drug use in Scanner tame in comparison. I think many readers will find some of the plot elements dated; still worth reading.