A Scanner Darkly - Phillip K. Dick

Another fabulous book.  The depiction of the entire drug world and the people in it is so rare in it's accuracy. Obviously the authour's experience helped with that.  Interestingly, in his authour's note he refers to it (all the drug activity) as 'playing' and includes a list of dedications - his friends' names and a brief description (ie. permanent massive brain damage, permanent psychosis, deceased, etc.).  I feel like parts of his life were probably very, very sad, but he's definitely given us some amazing work that will carry on.

Some themes: the relationship between cops and criminals, specifically drug addicts (though I don't know if you can just throw all drug addicts into a 'criminals' category, so we'll use that broadly), relationships between addicts and their drugs, addicts and other addicts, addicts and the world, drugs and capitalism, the right and left brain, identity, knowing/unknowing.

A vision of an alternate present that really isn't all that alternate.  I especially liked the ending, though the pace does taper off a bit, but the lines drawn (or circle drawn, you might say) between capitalism/greed/profit and drug addiction are ballsy and disturbingly clear.