Henry Foster, one of Lenina's many lovers, he is a perfectly conventional Alpha male, casually discussing Lenina's body with his coworkers. His success with Lenina, and his casual attitude about it, infuriate the jealous Bernard. Henry ultimately proves himself every bit the ideal World State citizen, finding no courage to defend Lenina from John's assaults despite having maintained an uncommonly longstanding sexual relationship with her.


Benito Hoover, another of Lenina's lovers. She remembers that he is particularly hairy when he takes his clothes off.


The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning (DHC), also known as Thomas "Tomakin" Grahambell, he is the administrator of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where he is a threatening figure who intends to exile Bernard to Iceland. His plans take an unexpected turn, however, when Bernard returns from the Reservation with Linda (see below) and John, a child they both realize is actually his. This fact, scandalous and obscene in the World State not because it was extramarital (which all sexual acts are) but because it was procreative, leads the Director to resign his post in shame.


The Arch-Community-Songster, the secular equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the World State society. He takes personal offense when John refuses to attend Bernard's party.


The Director of Crematoria and Phosphorus Reclamation, one of the many disappointed, important figures to attend Bernard's party.


The Warden, an Alpha-Minus, the talkative chief administrator for the New Mexico Savage Reservation. He is blond, short, broad-shouldered, and has a booming voice.


Darwin Bonaparte, a "big game photographer" (i.e. filmmaker) who films John flogging himself. Darwin Bonaparte is known for two other works: "feely of the gorillas' wedding", and "Sperm Whale's Love-life". He has already made a name for himself but still seeks more. He renews his fame by filming the savage, John, in his newest release "The Savage of Surrey". His name alludes to Charles Darwin and Napoleon Bonaparte.


Dr. Shaw, Bernard Marx's physician who consequently becomes the physician of both Linda and John. He prescribes a lethal dose of soma to Linda, which will stop her respiratory system from functioning in a span of one to two months, at her own behest but not without protest from John. Ultimately, they all agree that it is for the best, since denying her this request would cause more trouble for Society and Linda herself.


Dr. Gaffney, Provost of Eton, an Upper School for high-caste individuals. He shows Bernard and John around the classrooms, and the Hypnopaedic Control Room (used for behavioural conditioning through sleep learning). John asks if the students read Shakespeare but the Provost says the library contains only reference books because solitary activities, such as reading, are discouraged.


Miss Keate, Head Mistress of Eton Upper School. Bernard fancies her, and arranges an assignation with her.


These are non-fictional and factual characters who lived before the events in this book, but are of note in the novel:


The limited number of names that the World State assigned to its bottle-grown citizens can be traced to political and cultural figures who contributed to the bureaucratic, economic, and technological systems of Huxley's age, and presumably those systems in "Brave New World".


Upon publication, Rebecca West praised "Brave New World" as "The most accomplished novel Huxley has yet written", Joseph Needham lauded it as "Mr. Huxley's remarkable book", and Bertrand Russell also praised it, stating, "Mr. Aldous Huxley has shown his usual masterly skill in "Brave New World.""


However, "Brave New World" also received negative responses from other contemporary critics, although his work was later embraced.


In an article in the 4 May 1935 issue of the "Illustrated London News", G. K. Chesterton explained that Huxley was revolting against the "Age of Utopias". Much of the discourse on man's future before 1914 was based on the thesis that humanity would solve all economic and social issues. In the decade following the war the discourse shifted to an examination of the causes of the catastrophe. The works of H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw on the promises of socialism and a World State were then viewed as the ideas of naive optimists. Chesterton wrote:


Similarly, in 1944 economist Ludwig von Mises described "Brave New World" as a satire of utopian predictions of socialism: "Aldous Huxley was even courageous enough to make socialism's dreamed paradise the target of his sardonic irony."


From birth, members of every class are indoctrinated by recorded voices repeating slogans while they sleep (called "hypnopædia" in the book) to believe their own class is superior, but that the other classes perform needed functions. Any residual unhappiness is resolved by an antidepressant and hallucinogenic drug called soma.


Comparisons with George Orwell's " Nineteen Eighty-Four ".


In a letter to George Orwell about "Nineteen Eighty-Four", Huxley wrote "Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World." He went on to write "Within the next generation I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience."


Social critic Neil Postman contrasted the worlds of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Brave New World" in the foreword of his 1985 book "Amusing Ourselves to Death". He writes:


Journalist Christopher Hitchens, who himself published several articles on Huxley and a book on Orwell, noted the difference between the two texts in the introduction to his 1999 article "Why Americans Are Not Taught History":


Martin Kreutzberg, in his essay on the development of "Sexual Fantasies and Fantasies About Sex" during the 19th and 20th Centuries, noted that


Brave New World Revisited (Harper & Brothers, US, 1958; Chatto & Windus, UK, 1959), written by Huxley almost thirty years after "Brave New World", is a non-fiction work in which Huxley considered whether the world had moved toward or away from his vision of the future from the 1930s. He believed when he wrote the original novel that it was a reasonable guess as to where the world might go in the future. In "Brave New World Revisited", he concluded that the world was becoming like "Brave New World" much faster than he originally thought.


Huxley analysed the causes of this, such as overpopulation, as well as all the means by which populations can be controlled. He was particularly interested in the effects of drugs and subliminal suggestion. "Brave New World Revisited" is different in tone because of Huxley's evolving thought, as well as his conversion to Hindu Vedanta in the interim between the two books.


The last chapter of the book aims to propose action which could be taken to prevent a democracy from turning into the totalitarian world described in "Brave New World". In Huxley's last novel, "Island", he again expounds similar ideas to describe a utopian nation, which is generally viewed as a counterpart to "Brave New World".


The American Library Association ranks "Brave New World" as No. 34 on their list of most challenged books. The following list includes some incidents in which it has been censored, banned, or challenged:


The English writer Rose Macaulay published "What Not: A Prophetic Comedy" in 1918. "What Not" depicts a dystopian future where people are ranked by intelligence, the government mandates mind training for all citizens, and procreation is regulated by the state. Macaulay and Huxley shared the same literary circles and he attended her weekly literary salons.


George Orwell believed that "Brave New World" must have been partly derived from the 1921 novel "We" by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin. However, in a 1962 letter to Christopher Collins, Huxley says that he wrote "Brave New World" long before he had heard of "We". According to "We" translator Natasha Randall, Orwell believed that Huxley was lying.


Kurt Vonnegut said that in writing "Player Piano" (1952), he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of "Brave New World", whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We"".


In 1982, Polish author Antoni Smuszkiewicz, in his analysis of Polish science-fiction "Zaczarowana gra" ("The Magic Game"), presented accusations of plagiarism against Huxley. Smuszkiewicz showed similarities between "Brave New World" and two science fiction novels written earlier by Polish author Mieczysław Smolarski, namely "Miasto światłości" ("The City of Light", 1924) and "Podróż poślubna pana Hamiltona" ("Mr Hamilton's Honeymoon Trip", 1928). Smuszkiewicz wrote in his open letter to Huxley: "This work of a great author, both in the general depiction of the world as well as countless details, is so similar to two of my novels that in my opinion there is no possibility of accidental analogy."


Kate Lohnes, writing for "Encyclopædia Britannica", notes similarities between "Brave New World" and other novels of the era could be seen as expressing "common fears surrounding the rapid advancement of technology and of the shared feelings of many tech-skeptics during the early 20th century". Other dystopian novels followed Huxley's work, including Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949).


In 1999, the Modern Library ranked "Brave New World" fifth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003, Robert McCrum writing for "The Observer" included "Brave New World" chronologically at number 53 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time", and the novel was listed at number 87 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.


On 5 November 2019, the "BBC News" listed "Brave New World" on its list of the 100 most influential novels.


In May 2015, "The Hollywood Reporter" reported that Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television would bring "Brave New World" to Syfy network as a scripted series, written (adapted) by Les Bohem. The adaptation was eventually written by David Wiener with Grant Morrison and Brian Taylor, with the series ordered to air on USA Network in February 2019. The series eventually moved to the Peacock streaming service and premiered on 15 July 2020.


Quichotte ( , ) is a 2019 novel by Salman Rushdie. It is his fourteenth novel, published on 29 August 2019 by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom and Penguin Books India in India. It was published in the United States on 3 September 2019 by Random House. Inspired by Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel "Don Quixote", "Quichotte" is a metafiction that tells the story of an addled Indian American man who travels across America in pursuit of a celebrity television host with whom he has become obsessed.


The novel received favourable reviews and was shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize.


"Quichotte" was published on 29 August 2019 by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom and Penguin Books India in India. It was published in the United States on 3 September 2019 by Random House.


The novel debuted at number fifteen on "The New York Times" Hardcover Fiction best-sellers list on September 29, 2019.


"Kirkus Reviews" called the novel "humane and humorous," adding that "Rushdie is in top form, serving up a fine piece of literary satire."


"Publishers Weekly" called the novel "a brilliant rendition of the cheesy, sleazy, scary pandemonium of life in modern times."


Claire Lowdon of "The Sunday Times" gave the novel a rave review, saying, ""Quichotte" is one of the cleverest, most enjoyable metafictional capers this side of postmodernism" and that "we are still watching a master at work."


In her review for "The New York Times Book Review", author Jeanette Winterson said, "The lovely, unsentimental, heart-affirming ending of Quichotte, that "sane man," is the aslant answer to the question of what is real and what is unreal. A remembrance of what holds our human lives in some equilibrium — a way of feeling and a way of telling. Love and language."


Writing for "Booklist", Donna Seaman said, "Rushdie's dazzling and provocative improvisation on an essential classic has powerful resonance in this time of weaponized lies and denials."


Nicholas Mancusi, writing for "Time", praised the novel, saying, "As he weaves the journeys of the two men nearer and nearer, sweeping up a full accounting of all the tragicomic horrors of modern American life in the process, these energies begin to collapse beautifully inward, like a dying star."


Writing for "The Times", Robert Douglas-Fairhurst praised the novel, calling it a "welcome return to form. More than just another postmodern box of tricks, this is a novel that feeds the heart while it fills the mind."


Jude Cook of "i" called the novel a "wildly entertaining return to form" and said of Rushdie: "Now in his eighth decade, it is clear he still possesses the linguistic energy, resourcefulness and sheer amplitude of a writer half his age."


Ron Charles, a book critic at "The Washington Post", gave the novel a mixed review and wrote, "Rushdie's style once unfurled with hypnotic elegance, but here it's become a fire hose of brainy gags and literary allusions — tremendously clever but frequently tedious."


Writing for the "New Statesman", lead fiction writer Leo Robson panned the novel, calling it "draining" and saying, "We're simply stuck with an author prone to lapses in tact and taste, and a lack of respect for the reader's time or powers of concentration."


Insatiability () is a speculative fiction novel by the Polish writer, dramatist, philosopher, painter and photographer, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy). "Nienasycenie" was written in 1927 and was first published in 1930. It is Witkiewicz's third novel, considered by many to be his best. The novel consists of two parts: Przebudzenie (Awakening) and Obłęd (The madness).


The novel takes place in the future, circa 2000. Following a battle, modeled after the Bolshevik revolution, Poland is overrun by the army of the last and final Mongol conquest. The nation becomes enslaved to the Chinese leader Murti Bing. His emissaries give everyone a special pill called "DAVAMESK B 2" which takes away their abilities to think and to mentally resist. East and West become one, in faceless misery fueled by sexual instincts.


Witkiewicz's "Insatiability" combines chaotic action with deep philosophical and political discussion, and predicts many of the events and political outcomes of the subsequent years, specifically, the invasion of Poland, the postwar foreign domination as well as the totalitarian mind control exerted, first by the Germans, and then by the Soviet Union on Polish life and art.


Czesław Miłosz frames the first chapter of his book "The Captive Mind" around a discussion of "Insatiability", specifically the "Murti-Bing pill," which allows artists to contentedly conform to the demands of the equivalent of Socialist Realism.


The novel was translated into English in 1977 by University of Toronto professor of Polish and Russian literature Louis Iribarne and published by Northwestern University Press.


Go Ask Alice is a 1971 diary about a teenage girl who develops a drug addiction at age 15 and runs away from home on a journey of self-destructive escapism. Attributed to "Anonymous", the book is in diary form, and was originally presented as being the edited "real diary" of the unnamed teenage protagonist. Questions about the book's authenticity and true authorship began to arise in the late 1970s, and it is now generally viewed as a found manuscript-styled fictional work written by Beatrice Sparks, a therapist and author who went on to write numerous other books purporting to be real diaries of troubled teenagers. Some sources have also named Linda Glovach as a co-author of the book.


Intended for a young adult audience, "Go Ask Alice" became a widely popular bestseller. It was initially praised for conveying a powerful message about the dangers of drug abuse, but more recently has been criticized as poorly written anti-drug propaganda and also as a literary hoax. Nevertheless, its popularity has endured, and as of 2014 it had remained continuously in print since its publication over four decades earlier. "Go Ask Alice" has also ranked among the most frequently challenged books for several decades due to its use of profanity and explicit references to sex and rape, as well as drugs.


The book was adapted into the 1973 television film "Go Ask Alice", starring Jamie Smith-Jackson and William Shatner. In 1976, a stage play of the same name, written by Frank Shiras and based on the book, was also published.


The title was taken from a line in the 1967 Grace Slick-penned Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit" ("go ask Alice/ when she's ten feet tall"); the lyrics in turn reference scenes in Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland", in which the title character Alice eats and drinks various substances, including a mushroom, that make her grow larger or smaller. Slick's song is understood as using Carroll's story as a metaphor for a drug experience.


In 1968, a 15-year-old girl begins keeping a diary, in which she records her thoughts and concerns about issues such as crushes, weight loss, sexuality, social acceptance, and relating to her parents. The dates and locations mentioned in the book place its events as occurring between 1968 and 1970 in California, Colorado, Oregon, and New York City. The two towns in which the diarist's family reside during the story are not identified, and are only described as being college towns.


Released from the hospital, the diarist returns home, finally free of drugs. She now gets along better with her family, makes new friends, and is romantically involved with Joel, a responsible student from her father's college. She is worried about starting school again, but feels stronger with the support of her new friends and Joel. In an optimistic mood, the diarist decides to stop keeping a diary and instead discuss her problems and thoughts with other people.


The epilogue states that the subject of the book died three weeks after the final entry. The diarist was found dead in her home by her parents when they returned from a movie. She died from a drug overdose, either accidental or premeditated.


The anonymous diarist's name is never revealed in the book. In an episode where the diarist describes having sex with a drug dealer, she quotes an onlooker's remark indicating that her name may be Carla. Although a girl named Alice appears very briefly in the book, she is not the diarist, but a fellow runaway whom the diarist meets on the street in Coos Bay, Oregon.


Despite the lack of any evidence in the book that the diarist's name is Alice, the covers of various editions have suggested that her name is Alice by including blurb text such as "This is Alice's true story" and "You can't ask Alice anything anymore. But you can do something—read her diary." Reviewers and commentators have also frequently referred to the anonymous diarist as "Alice", sometimes for convenience.


In the 1973 television film based on the book, the protagonist played by Jamie Smith-Jackson is named "Alice". The protagonist is also named "Alice Aberdeen" in the 1976 stage play adaptation.


The manuscript that later became "Go Ask Alice" was initially prepared for publication by Beatrice Sparks, a Mormon therapist and youth counselor then in her early 50s, who had previously done various forms of writing. Sparks had reportedly noted that the general public at that time lacked knowledge about youth drug abuse, and she likely had both educational and moral motives for publishing the book. Sparks later claimed that the book was based on a real diary she received from a real teenage girl, although this claim was never substantiated and the girl has never been identified (see Authorship and veracity controversies).


With the help of Art Linkletter, a popular talk show host for whom Sparks had worked as a ghostwriter, the manuscript was passed on to Linkletter's literary agent, who sold it to Prentice Hall. Linkletter, who had become a prominent anti-drug crusader after the 1969 suicide of his daughter Diane, also helped publicize the book. Even before its publication, "Go Ask Alice" had racked up large advance orders of 18,000 copies.


Upon its 1971 publication, "Go Ask Alice" quickly became a publishing sensation and an international bestseller, being translated into 16 languages. Its success has been attributed to the timing of its publication at the height of the psychedelic era, when the negative effects of drug use were becoming a public concern. Alleen Pace Nilsen has called it "the book that came closest to being a YA phenomenon" of its time, although saying it was "never as famous as [the later] "Harry Potter", "Twilight", and "Hunger Games" series". In addition to being very popular with its intended young adult audience, "Go Ask Alice" also attracted a significant number of adult readers.


Libraries had difficulty obtaining and keeping enough copies of the book on the shelves to meet demand. The 1973 television film based on the book heightened reader interest, and librarians reported having to order additional copies of the book each time the film was broadcast.


By 1975, more than three million copies of the book had reportedly been sold, and by 1979 the paperback edition had been reprinted 43 times. The book remained continuously in print over the ensuing decades, with reported sales of over four million copies by 1998, and over five million copies by 2009. The actual number of readers probably surpassed the sales figures, as library copies and even personal copies were likely circulated to more than one reader. "Go Ask Alice" has been cited as establishing both the commercial potential of young adult fiction in general, and the genre of young adult anti-drug novels, and has been called "one of the most famous anti-drug books ever published."


Years after its publication, "Go Ask Alice" continued to receive some good reviews, often in the context of defending the book against censors (see Censorship). In a 1995 "Village Voice" column for Banned Books Week, Nat Hentoff described it as "an extraordinarily powerful account of what it's actually like to get hooked on drugs" that "doesn't preach".


Although school boards and committees reached varying conclusions about whether "Go Ask Alice" had literary value, educators generally viewed it as a strong cautionary warning against drug use. It was recommended to parents and assigned or distributed in some schools as an anti-drug teaching tool. However, some adults who read the book as teens or pre-teens have written that they paid little attention to the anti-drug message and instead related to the diarist's thoughts and emotions, or vicariously experienced the thrills of her rebellious behavior. Reading the book for such vicarious experience has been suggested as a positive alternative to actually doing drugs. "Go Ask Alice" has also been used in curricula dealing with mood swings and death.


Although "Go Ask Alice" has been credited to an anonymous author since its publication, and was originally promoted as the real, albeit edited, diary of a real teenage girl, over time the book has come to be regarded by researchers as a fake memoir written by Beatrice Sparks, possibly with the help of one or more co-authors. Despite significant evidence of Sparks' authorship, a percentage of readers and educators have continued to believe that the book is a true-life account of a teenage girl.


"Go Ask Alice" was originally published by Prentice Hall in 1971 as the work of an unnamed author "Anonymous". The original edition contained a note signed by "The Editors" that included the statements, ""Go Ask Alice" is based on the actual diary of a fifteen-year-old drug user...Names, dates, places and certain events have been changed in accordance with the wishes of those concerned." The paperback edition first published in 1972 by Avon Books contained the words "A Real Diary" on the front cover just above the title, and the same words were included on the front covers of some later editions.


Not long after "Go Ask Alice"s publication, Beatrice Sparks began making public appearances presenting herself as the book's editor. (Ellen Roberts, who in the early 1970s was an editor at Prentice Hall, was also credited at that time with having edited the book; a later source refers to Roberts as having "consulted" on the book.) According to Caitlin White, when Sparks' name became public, some researchers discovered that copyright records listed Sparks as the sole author—not editor—of the book, raising questions about whether she had written it herself. Suspicions were heightened in 1979 after two newly published books about troubled teenagers ("Voices" and "Jay's Journal") advertised Sparks' involvement by calling her "the author who brought you "Go Ask Alice"".


Urban folklore expert Barbara Mikkelson of snopes.com has written that even before the authorship revelations, ample evidence indicated that "Go Ask Alice" was not an actual diary. According to Mikkelson, the writing style and content—including a lengthy description of an LSD trip but relatively little about "the loss of [the diarist's] one true love", school, gossip or ordinary "chit-chat"— seems uncharacteristic of a teenage girl's diary. The sophisticated vocabulary of the diary suggested that it had been written by an adult rather than a teen. Mikkelson also noted that in the decades since the book's publication, no one who knew the diarist had ever been tracked down by a reporter or otherwise spoken about or identified the diarist.


In hindsight, commentators have suggested various motivations for the publishers to present "Go Ask Alice" as the work of an anonymous deceased teenager, such as avoiding literary criticism, lending validity to an otherwise improbable story, and stimulating young readers' interest by having the book's anti-drug advice come from a teenager rather than an adult. Sparks said that while there were "many reasons" for publishing the book anonymously, her main reason was to make it more credible to young readers. Although the book has been classified as fiction (see Treatment of book as fiction and non-fiction), the publisher has continued to list its author as "Anonymous".


In a 1998 "New York Times" book review, Mark Oppenheimer suggested that "Go Ask Alice" had at least one author besides Sparks. He identified Linda Glovach, an author of young-adult novels, as "one of the 'preparers'—let's call them forgers—of "Go Ask Alice"", although he did not give his source for this claim. "Publishers Weekly", in a review of Glovach's 1998 novel "Beauty Queen" (which told the story, in diary form, of a 19-year-old girl addicted to heroin), also stated that Glovach was "a co-author of "Go Ask Alice"".


Treatment of book as fiction and non-fiction.


Following Sparks' statements that she had added fictional elements to "Go Ask Alice", the book was classified by its publishers as fiction (and remains so classified as of 2016) and a disclaimer was added to the copyright page: "This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental."


Despite the classification and the disclaimer, "Go Ask Alice" has frequently been taught as non-fiction in schools and sold as non-fiction in bookstores. The publishers also continued to suggest that the book was true by including the "Editors' Note" stating that the book was based on an actual diary, and listing the author as "Anonymous", with no mention of Sparks. As of 2011, a UK paperback edition published and marketed by Arrow Books contained the statement "This Is Alice's True Story" on the front cover.


"Go Ask Alice" has been a frequent target of censorship challenges due to its inclusion of profanity and references to runaways, drugs, sex and rape. Alleen Pace Nilsen wrote that in 1973, "Go Ask Alice" was ""the" book that teens wanted to read and that adults wanted to censor" and that the censors "felt the book did more to glorify sex and drugs than to frighten kids away from them." Challenges began in the early 1970s following the initial publication of the book, and continued at a high rate through the ensuing decades.


Some challenges resulted in the removal of the book from libraries, or in parental permission being required for a student to check the book out of a library. According to "The New York Times", in the 1970s it became common practice for school libraries to keep "Go Ask Alice" off library shelves and make it available to students only upon request, a practice which was criticized as being a form of censorship. A 1982 survey of school librarians across the United States, co-sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, found that "Go Ask Alice" was the most frequently censored book in high school libraries.


Decades after its original publication, "Go Ask Alice" became one of the most challenged books of the 1990s and 2000s. On the American Library Association (ALA) list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 1990s, "Go Ask Alice" was ranked at number 25; on the ALA list compiled for the 2000s, it rose to position 18.


The likely authoring of the book by one or more adults rather than by an unnamed teenage girl has not been an issue in censorship disputes. Nilsen and others have criticized this on the basis that the dishonesty of presenting a probable fake memoir to young readers as real should raise greater concerns than the content.


The ABC television network broadcast a made-for-television movie, "Go Ask Alice", based on the book. It starred Jamie Smith-Jackson, William Shatner, Ruth Roman, Wendell Burton, Julie Adams, and Andy Griffith. Also among the cast were Robert Carradine, Mackenzie Phillips, and Charles Martin Smith. The film was promoted as an anti-drug film based on a true story.


The film was first aired as the "ABC Movie of the Week" on January 24, 1973. It was subsequently rebroadcast on October 24, 1973 and the network also made screening copies available to school, church and civic groups upon request. The film drew generally good reviews (with one critic calling it "the finest anti-drug drama ever presented by TV"), but was also criticized for lacking the complexity of the book and for not offering any solutions to the problem of teen drug addiction. The adaptation by Ellen Violett was nominated for an Emmy Award.


In 1976, a stage play version of the book, adapted by Frank Shiras, was published by The Dramatic Publishing Company. The play has been produced by various high school and community theatre groups.


Stand-up comedian Paul F. Tompkins' 2009 comedy album "Freak Wharf" contains a track titled "Go Ask Alice" in which he derides the book as "the phoniest of balonies" and jokingly suggests it was authored by the writing staff of the police drama series "Dragnet". The album title comes from a passage in the book in which the diarist refers to a mental hospital as a "freak wharf".


The Midnight Line is a novel by British writer Lee Child. This is the twenty-second book in the Jack Reacher series. The book was released on 7 November 2017. The plot finds Reacher once again in the Midwest, this time being thrust into an investigation involving the illegal opioid trade, the pharmaceutical companies that often turn a blind eye in the name of profits, and the people dependent on them.


After spending the night with a woman named Michelle Chang (from "Make Me"), Jack Reacher is traveling through Wisconsin when he happens to stop at a pawnshop selling an unusual item: a 2005 West Point class ring. Unwilling to accept that such a priceless thing would be willingly sold, Jack suspects it to be stolen and decides against leaving town. He questions the pawnbroker and learns that the ring was sold to him by a biker named Jimmy Rat. Reacher beats up Rat's gang and learns that the ring originally belonged to a fence named Arthur Scorpio, who runs a laundromat in Rapid City, South Dakota. Reacher leaves town, aware that Rat has already warned Scorpio of his plans.


In Rapid City, Reacher encounters two other people with an interest in Scorpio: Gloria Nakamura, a detective who has tried and failed for years to find incriminating evidence of Scorpio's criminal enterprise, and Terrence Bramall, a private investigator hired by Tiffany Jane Mackenzie, a woman searching for her missing twin sister Serena Rose Sanderson, who Reacher learns, through a sympathetic general at West Point, is the owner of the ring. Reacher allows himself to be picked up by Scorpio's men and then subdues them in less than three seconds. In turn, Scorpio provides him with the name of Seymour Porterfield, the man who originally gave him the ring, but secretly instructs an associate of his, Billy, to kill Reacher before he finds Seymour.


Reacher travels to Mule Crossing, a rural town in Wyoming, where Porterfield last lived. A local shopkeep reveals that Sy has been dead for well over a year, supposedly killed by a wild bear. Bramall runs into Reacher at Billy's house, and the two agree to partner up, at least temporarily. They search Sy's house, and find evidence that a woman was living with him. Mackenzie shows up, having grown impatient with Bramall's lack of results, and Reacher reveals his growing suspicion that both Rose and Sy were involved with the illegal opioid trade, which is subsequently confirmed by Kirk Noble, a DEA agent who asks Reacher to keep him informed if he finds Rose or Billy.


As Rose will likely die without a new supply of opioids, Reacher, Bramall, and Mackenzie steal what she needs from Stackley's suppliers, and Reacher cuts a deal with Noble to protect Rose from having to testify against the dealers on the DEA's behalf. Nakamura attempts to arrest Scorpio, who she realizes is the head of the operation, but he chains her to a table. Reacher then confronts Scorpio and stuffs him in a mechanical dryer, while the DEA receives sufficient information to arrest a Col. Bateman, a corrupt Marine officer who had framed Seymour (driving him to commit suicide) for trying to expose his theft of military opioid supplies for resale to Scorpio.


Reacher returns Rose's ring to her, and she promises to get clean before she, Bramall, and Mackenzie drive off. Reacher then hitches another ride out of South Dakota, heading towards Kansas.


Cherry is a 2018 debut novel by American author Nico Walker. It concerns an unnamed narrator's time in college, as a soldier during the War in Iraq, and life as a drug addict and bank robber after returning from the war during the midst of the American opioid epidemic. It was published by Alfred A. Knopf on August 14, 2018.


The book is an example of autofiction, as the author was a military veteran who struggled with drug addiction and robbed banks, but there are several differences between Walker's real-life actions and the book's contents.


The unnamed narrator, a young man from Cleveland, drops out of college and enlists in the United States Army as a medic during the Iraq War. Suffering from PTSD, the narrator starts self-medicating with opiates while deployed and continues once back home. His opioid use quickly becomes a devastating addiction that hurts his attempts at furthering his education and his personal relationships. After entering into a relationship with a woman who enables his opioid abuse, the narrator begins to run out of money, and decides to start robbing banks to pay for his habit.


Walker had been in a federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky, for bank robbery since 2013, and wrote the book on a typewriter over the course of several years. He was released from prison early, in October 2019.


Janet Hansen, a designer at Alfred Knopf, created the book cover, which features a skull originally by Swedish graphic designer Daniel Bjugård. Walker’s literary agent dismissed an earlier version as it "[looked] like it should be sold in Hot Topic".


The book was published to positive reviews and "near-universal praise" as per the review aggregator website Book Marks and Vulture.com, respectively. Book Marks reported that 54% of critics gave the book a "rave" review, whilst 31% of the critics expressed "positive" impressions, based on a sample of 13 reviews.


"Cherry" debuted at number 14 on "The New York Times" bestseller list.


The book and the film adaptation have been criticized for presenting the bank robber sympathetically, while overlooking the innocent victims of the crime, such as the Black bank teller.


Porno is a novel published in 2002 by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh, the sequel to "Trainspotting".


The book describes the characters of "Trainspotting" ten years after the events of the earlier book, as their paths cross again, this time with the pornography business as the backdrop rather than heroin use (although numerous drugs, particularly cocaine are mentioned throughout). A number of characters from "Glue" make an appearance as well.


This sequel picks up ideas of the film adaptation of "Trainspotting". One example is the fact that "Spud" has received his share of the drug money, which is shown in the film, but only alluded to in the book.


The novel is divided into three sections, each of which comprises chapters with different narrators. Unlike "Trainspotting" which had more narrational diversity, "Porno" is reduced to just five narrators: Sick Boy, Renton, Spud, Begbie and Nikki. Another difference from the format of "Trainspotting" is that each character has a defined chapter heading depending on what chapter it is. For instance, Sick Boy's chapters all begin with "Scam..." and then a number in front of a "#". Renton's all begin with "Whores of Amsterdam Pt..." Spud's chapters are just narrative, Begbie's are in capitals, and Nikki's are quotes from the chapter, for example "...A SIMON DAVID WILLIAMSON PRODUCTION...".


Each narrator is associated with a distinctive prose style. Renton, Sick Boy, and Nikki's chapters are written almost entirely in "standard" English while Begbie and Spud's chapters are in Scots. For example, in Chapter 25, Spud narrates, "So ah'm downcast git intae the library, thinkin tae masel" ("So I'm downcast when I get into the library thinking to myself"). He also repeats certain words when talking such as "catboy" or "cat", "likes" or "likesay", and "ken?" Begbie often swears a lot during his chapters. Sick Boy's returning grandiose nature is featured in imagined interviews with John Gibson of the "Evening News" and Alex McLeish.


Welsh picks up upon ways in which Edinburgh has changed.


Danny Boyle stated his wish to make a sequel to "Trainspotting" based on "Porno" which takes place nine years later. He was reportedly waiting until the original actors themselves age visibly enough to portray the same characters, ravaged by time; Boyle joked that the natural vanity of actors would make it a long wait.


On 10 September 2009, Robert Carlyle revealed that Boyle was "edging closer" to making "Porno". Carlyle, who played Begbie in the film, said he would "jump through hoops of fire backwards" for the filmmaker and would "do "Porno" tomorrow for nothing." Ewan McGregor, who played anti-hero Renton, expressed his reluctance to do a sequel saying it would be a "terrible shame". Boyle and McGregor had not worked together since 1997's "A Life Less Ordinary", when McGregor was passed over in favour of Leonardo DiCaprio for the lead role in Boyle's big screen adaptation of Alex Garland's novel, "The Beach". In 2013, McGregor noted that he was "ready to work" on the film with Boyle after reconciling.


In 2013 Boyle said that any sequel to "Trainspotting" would be loosely based on "Porno". On 6 May 2014, Welsh confirmed that he had spent a week with Boyle, Andrew Macdonald and the creative team behind "Trainspotting" to discuss the sequel. Welsh stated that the meeting was in order to "explore the story and script ideas. We're not interested in doing something that will trash the legacy of "Trainspotting"... we want to do something that's very fresh and contemporary."


On 17 November 2014, Welsh revealed that McGregor and Boyle had resolved their differences and had held meetings about the film, saying "I know Danny and Ewan are back in touch with each other again. There are others in the cast who’ve had a rocky road, but now also reconciled. With the "Trainspotting" sequel the attention is going to be even more intense this time round because the first was such a great movie - and Danny’s such a colossus now. We’re all protective of the Trainspotting legacy and we want to make a film that adds to that legacy and doesn’t take away from it."


Filming on a sequel to "Trainspotting" began in May 2016, with all the major cast members reprising their roles and Danny Boyle directing. It was released on 27 January 2017.


Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is a novel by Marguerite Young. She has described it as "an exploration of the illusions, hallucinations, errors of judgment in individual lives, the central scene of the novel being an opium addict's paradise."


The novel is one of the longest ever written.


Young began writing the novel in 1947, expecting it would take two years. She worked on it daily, and did not finish until 1964. Young has said that had she known it would have taken her so long she would never have started.


Young had been encouraged by Maxwell Perkins, when she submitted a 40-page initial manuscript for the novel, then named "Worm in the Wheat". Over the years, staff at Scribner's had read portions of the work-in-progress. Nevertheless, the full manuscript was something of a surprise when delivered in February 1964:


The book was typeset by computer and consumed "38 miles of computer tape".


In a 1993 interview, Young confirmed the story. During the interview, Young stated that Miss MacIntosh was the only invented character in the novel, the rest having all been based on real people. She also said that she had thought that What Cheer, Iowa was a fictional place.


The following brief summaries refer to the "core" descriptions, which are frequently questioned and contradicted. Some are inconsistent, as in dreams.


Minna K. Weissenbach, a rich patron of Edna St. Vincent Millay, also known as the opium lady of Hyde Park, was the inspiration for Catherine Cartwheel.


Harriet Monroe, the founding editor of "Poetry", was the inspiration for Hannah Freemount-Snowden.


Howard Mitcham, a deaf Greenwich Village artist and bohemian, was the inspiration for the stone-deaf man.


As she worked on "The Accidental Tourist", Anne Tyler cured spells of writer's block by reading pages from "Miss MacIntosh" at random. "Whatever page I turned to, it seemed, a glorious wealth of words swooped out at me." Tyler made Young's novel a traveling companion for her main character Macon Leary. A hardcover edition of the book was used as a prop in William Hurt's suitcase in the film adaptation.


Anaïs Nin, a friend and neighbor of Young, apparently the novel's first reader, wrote a review for the "Los Angeles Times". This review also appeared in the sixth volume of her diaries after their publication It served as an introduction to the 1979 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich paperback edition.


A number of writers have given the work high praise.


Wakeman, John (ed.) "World Authors 1950-1970", H. W. Wilson, New York (1975).


Fuchs, Miriam (ed) "Marguerite Young, Our Darling" (Dalkey Archive Press, 1994)


A Million Little Pieces is a book by James Frey, originally sold as a memoir and later marketed as a semi-fictional novel following accusations of literary forgery. It tells the story of a 23-year-old alcoholic and abuser of other drugs and how he copes with rehabilitation in a twelve steps-oriented treatment center. While initially promoted as a memoir, it later emerged that many of the events described in the book never happened.


A badly tattered James wakes up on a commercial flight to Chicago, with injuries that he has no recollection of having sustained or of how he ended up on the plane. He is met by his parents at the airport, who take him to a rehabilitation clinic. It is revealed that James is 23 years old, and has been an alcoholic for ten years, and a crack addict for three. He is also wanted by the police in three states on several charges.


As he checks into the rehab clinic, he is forced to quit his substance abuse, a transition that later probably saves his life, whilst also an agonizing process. As part of this, he is forced to undergo a series of painful root canals, without any anesthesia because of possible negative reactions to the drugs. He copes with the pain by squeezing tennis balls until his nails crack.


The book follows Frey through the painful experiences that lead up to his eventual release from the center, including his participation in the clinic's family program with his parents, despite his strong desire not to. Throughout the novel, Frey speaks of the "Fury" he is fighting, which he sees as the cause of his desire to drink alcohol and use other drugs. The "Fury" could be seen as the antagonist of the novel, because he believes that he will not be able to recover until he learns to ignore it or "kill" it.


Frey meets many interesting people in the clinic, with whom he forms relationships and who play an important role in his life both during and after his time in the clinic. These people include a mafia boss who plays a vital role in his recovery (subject of Frey's subsequent book "My Friend Leonard"), and a female drug addict with whom he falls in love, despite strict rules forbidding contact between men and women at the clinic. James finally recovers and never relapses.


A notable feature of "Pieces" is its lack of quotation marks to indicate direct quotes or dialogue. Instead, a new line is started each time someone speaks. The fact that the author uses this same style to indicate his internal thoughts, often interspersed between direct dialogue from himself and others, gives the book a unique and sometimes confusing writing style, purportedly reflecting the nature of his experience in the treatment center. Frey makes frequent use of this stream of consciousness writing technique, which is intended to allow the reader to better understand his version of the events. Frey's unique writing style also involves capitalizing nouns throughout the book for unclear reasons. Frey also uses heavy repetition of words throughout the text.


The book was released on April 15, 2003, by Doubleday Books, a division of Random House, and received mixed feedback. While some critics, such as Pat Conroy, praised the book, calling it "the "War and Peace" of addiction", others were not as impressed by the gruesome nature of the book and Frey's overall attitude that sets the tone for the book. For example, critic Julian Keeling, a recovering addict, stated that "Frey's stylistic tactics are irritating...none of this makes the reader feel well-disposed towards him". Also, author Heather King said that ""A Million Little Pieces" rings false".


Poet and author John Dolan roundly criticized the book, saying:


He was also scathing about the writing style, which he described as a "childish impersonation of the laconic Hemingway style", and referred to it as a "novel" several times.


In September 2005, the book was picked as an Oprah's Book Club selection, and shortly thereafter became the number one paperback non-fiction book on Amazon.com, and topped The New York Times Best Seller list for fifteen straight weeks. By January 28, 2006, it had fallen to number four on the Amazon.com list with Winfrey's following selection, "Night" by Elie Wiesel, taking over the top position.


The book garnered international attention in January 2006 after it was reported that it contained fabrications and was not, as originally represented by the author and publisher, a completely factual memoir.


In October 2017, it was announced that director Sam Taylor-Johnson and actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson were working on a film adaptation of the novel.


After a six-week investigation, "The Smoking Gun" published an article on January 8, 2006, called "A Million Little Lies". The article described fabrications in Frey's account of his drug abuse experiences, life, and criminal record. According to CNN, "The Smoking Gun"'s editor, William Bastone, said "the probe was prompted after the Oprah show aired". He further stated, "We initially set off to just find a mug shot of him... It basically set off a chain of events that started with us having a difficult time finding a booking photo of this guy".


The Minneapolis "Star Tribune" had questioned James Frey's claims as early as 2003. Frey responded at that time by saying, "I've never denied I've altered small details."


Stories surfaced about Random House, publisher of "A Million Little Pieces", deciding to give full refunds to anyone who had purchased the book directly through it. According to a Gawker.com report, customers could have a claim to money if they truly felt deceived by Frey.


David Carr of "The New York Times" wrote, "Both Mr. Frey and Ms. Talese were snapped in two like dry winter twigs." "Oprah annihilates Frey", proclaimed Larry King. "The New York Times" columnist Maureen Dowd wrote, "It was a huge relief, after our long national slide into untruth and no consequences, into swiftboating and swift bucks, into W.'s delusion and denial, to see the Empress of Empathy icily hold someone accountable for lying", and "The Washington Post"'s Richard Cohen was so impressed by the confrontation that he crowned Winfrey "Mensch of the Year".


All of Winfrey's reactions, as well as video clips of her interview with Frey, are found within her book club's website.


In Frey's note to readers, which will be included in future editions of the book, he apologized for fabricating portions of his book and for having made himself seem "tougher and more daring and more aggressive than in reality I was, or I am." He added,


Frey admitted that he had literary reasons for his fabrications, as well:


Nevertheless, he defended the right of memoirists to draw upon their memories, not simply upon documented facts, in creating their memoirs. Additionally, Frey has discussed the controversy and stated his side of the argument on his blog.


Shortly after Frey's return to the Oprah Winfrey show, the Brooklyn Public Library went as far as recataloging Frey's book as fiction, although it appears most other libraries have not followed suit. The New York Times Best Seller list still includes it on the Paperback Nonfiction List as of September 2006.


Regardless of this controversy, the book has been published in twenty-nine languages worldwide and has sold over 5 million copies. The majority of these sales occurred after Oprah announced it as the new Oprah's Book Club book.


On January 18, 2006, Marty Angelo, prison minister and author of the book "Once Life Matters: A New Beginning", came to the defense of James Frey in a press release. While Angelo did not condone the inclusion of fictional elements in a book marketed as non-fiction, he stated, "The controversy surrounding the recent accusations that Frey embellished some of his statements in his book is relatively minor compared to the fact this man claims he cleared one of the biggest hurdles in his life—his substance abuse. That's the bottom line issue."


"Right now the media seems to be negatively attacking the messenger instead of concentrating on promoting the positive message of redemption..." Angelo added. "In terms of the benefit to readers as a self-help book, the message is the key issue, not the minor story details. One needs to stay focused on what the real message is—overcoming addiction."


A film version directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson premiered in 2018, with general release in 2019, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson starring.


The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer is a 1990 spin-off novel from the television series "Twin Peaks" by Jennifer Lynch. Lynch, then aged 22, is the daughter of series co-creator David Lynch. It was published between the airing of the first and second season.


The novel is said to be "As seen by Jennifer Lynch," and is written in a matter-of-fact tone from the point of view of Laura Palmer, a small-town teenager —a "good girl gone bad"— who is abused and terrorized by the demonic entity BOB. Lynch says she was told by her father and Mark Frost, co-creator of the series, to "be Laura Palmer," and that she "knew Laura so well it was like automatic writing."


The book begins on Laura's 12th birthday in 1984, and steadily matures in writing style and vocabulary. It recounts standard teenage concerns of her first period, her first kiss, and her relationship with her parents, alongside experiences of sexual abuse, promiscuity, cocaine addiction, and her obsession with death. Laura's poetry foreshadows her murder.


Later, she starts working two jobs for local hotelier Benjamin Horne - babysitting his mentally handicapped son Johnnie and apprenticing in Horne's boutique. In her spare time, she volunteers for Meals on Wheels. She soon falls back into her drug and sex addictions, however, and starts working as a prostitute at One-Eyed Jacks. While at Horne's mansion, she meets therapist Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, who agrees to take her on as a patient. Eventually, they become lovers.


Her slow realisation of BOB's identity is described, although pages are 'missing' from the end of the diary (i.e. the text is lacunose), which ends with an undated entry in late 1989, leaving the reader unable to reach a firm conclusion. Lynch said that "the careful reader will know the clues and who the killer is." (Laura's father Leland is revealed to be the killer in the show's second season, as well as the spinoff film "".)


The book reached number four on "The New York Times" paperback fiction best seller list in October 1990, though some US book stores refused to stock it due to the graphic content. It was published in the UK by Penguin Books in November 1990. "Entertainment Weekly" called it "gratifyingly faithful to the spirit of "Peaks"."


On June 10, 2011, "Twin Peaks" co-creator Mark Frost announced that a new edition of the diary would be published in the fall of 2011, featuring a new foreword by himself and David Lynch.


An audiobook was released in May 2017. It is narrated by Sheryl Lee, who played Laura in the TV series.


Acidity is a dystopian, cyber novelette written by Pakistani journalist and writer, Nadeem F. Paracha. Written exclusively for the website Chowk.com in 2003, it has gone on to become a controversial cult favorite among many young Pakistanis and Indians.


While recovering from his addictions, Paracha spent time rearranging these notes using the cut-up method and surrealist automatism.


He then turned it all into a work of fiction in which a heroin addict narrates his story set in future Pakistan and India that have turned into capitalist and theistic dystopias.


He is a traveler who is always moving up and down both the countries looking for drugs and in the process having hallucinatory dialogues with a Pakistani cleric/Islamic extremist (called in the book as "The Mufti"), a group of Hindu fundamentalists (called "The pundits"), a group of young neoliberals (referred to as "the fun young people" and the "polite voids"), and an aging Indian Christian (called the "Holy Father").


There are also many other characters, but much of the story revolves around these main characters as Paracha constructs his dystopia in which capitalism and organized religion have been fused together as a new totalitarian system.


"Acidity" makes a clear comment this way on the rapid economic, political and social changes taking place in India and Pakistan, especially after the end of the Cold War.


Third Girl is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1966 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at eighteen shillings (18/-) and the US edition at $4.50.


It features her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and the recurring character Ariadne Oliver. The novel is notable for being the first in many years in which Poirot is present from beginning to end. It is uncommon in that the investigation includes discovering the first crime, which happens comparatively late in the novel.


Mrs Oliver learns that a woman in the apartment building had recently died by falling from her window. A week passes before she tells Poirot, who feels this is what bothers Norma. The woman was Louise Charpentier. Norma says that her father ran off with Louise Birell. Later, Mrs Oliver finds a piece of paper linking Louise Charpentier to Andrew. Mary Restarick has been ill from poison in her food. Sir Roderick engages Poirot to find documents missing from his files which encounter brings young Sonia under suspicion.


"Residing at Sir Roderick's home at Long Basing:"


Unusually for this period, "The Guardian" did not carry a review of the novel.


Maurice Richardson in "The Observer" of 13 November 1966 concluded, "There is the usual double-take surprise solution centring round a perhaps rather artificial identity problem; but the suspense holds up all the way. Dialogue and characters are lively as flies. After this, I shan't be a bit surprised to see A.C. wearing a mini-skirt."


Robert Barnard: "One of Christie's more embarrassing attempts to haul herself abreast of the swinging 'sixties. Mrs Oliver plays a large part, detection a small one."


The novel reintroduces Stillingfleet, a character from the short story "The Dream" and first published in book form in the UK in "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding" in 1960, and Mr Goby, whose previous appearance had been in "After the Funeral" in 1953.


In Chapter 4, while Poirot is pretending he shares a military history with Sir Roderick, he makes reference to Colonel Race from novels such as Death on the Nile and Cards on the Table, as well as Inspector Giraud from Murder on the Links.


A television adaptation by Peter Flannery for the series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" starring David Suchet as Poirot and Zoë Wanamaker as Ariadne Oliver was filmed in April and May 2008. It aired on 28 September 2008 on ITV. The adaptation took major liberties with the novel, including the following changes:


The novel was also adapted as a 2017 episode of the French television series "Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie".


In the US a condensed version of the novel appeared in the April 1967 (Volume 128, Number 6) issue of "Redbook" magazine with a photographic montage by Mike Cuesta.


This novel has been translated to various languages other than its original English. Over 20 are listed here. This is in keeping with the author's reputation for being the most translated author.


Naked Lunch (sometimes The Naked Lunch) is a 1959 novel by American writer William S. Burroughs. The book is structured as a series of loosely connected vignettes. Burroughs stated that the chapters are intended to be read in any order. The reader follows the narration of junkie William Lee, who takes on various aliases, from the U.S. to Mexico, eventually to Tangier and the dreamlike Interzone.


The vignettes (which Burroughs called "routines") are drawn from Burroughs' own experiences in these places and his addiction to drugs: heroin, morphine and, while in Tangier, majoun (a strong hashish confection), as well as a German opioid with the brand name Eukodol (oxycodone), of which he wrote frequently.


The novel was included in "Time"'s "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005". In 1991, David Cronenberg directed a film of the same name based on the novel and other Burroughs writings.


The book was originally published with the title "The Naked Lunch" in Paris in July 1959 by Olympia Press. Because of US obscenity laws, a complete American edition (by Grove Press) did not follow until 1962. It was titled "Naked Lunch" and was substantially different from the Olympia Press edition because it was based on an earlier 1958 manuscript in Allen Ginsberg's possession. The article "the" in the title was never intended by the author, but added by the editors of the Olympia Press 1959 edition. Nonetheless "The Naked Lunch" remained the title used for the 1968 and 1974 Corgi Books editions, and the novel is often known by the alternative name, especially in the UK where these editions circulated.


Burroughs states in his introduction that Jack Kerouac suggested the title. "The title means exactly what the words say: "naked" lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork."


Upon publication, Grove Press added to the book supplementary material regarding the censorship battle as well as an article written by Burroughs on the topic of drug addiction. In 2001, a "restored text" edition of "Naked Lunch" was published with some new and previously suppressed material added.


"Naked Lunch" is a non-linear narrative without a clear plot. The following is a summary of some of the events in the book that could be considered the most relevant.


The book begins with the adventures of William Lee (also known as "Lee the Agent"), who is Burroughs' alter ego in the novel. His journey starts in the U.S. where he is fleeing the police in search of his next fix. There are short chapters describing the different characters he travels with and meets along the way.


Eventually he gets to Mexico where he is assigned to Dr. Benway; for what, he is not told. Benway appears and he tells about his previous doings in Annexia as a "Total Demoralizator." The story then moves to a state called Freeland, a form of limbo, where we learn of Islam Inc. Here, some new characters are introduced, such as Clem, Carl, and Joselito.


A short section then jumps in space and time to a marketplace. The Black Meat is sold here and compared to "junk", i.e. heroin. The action then moves back to the hospital where Benway is fully revealed as a manipulative sadist.


Time and space again shift the narrative to a location known as Interzone. Hassan, one of the notable characters of the book and "a notorious liquefactionist", is throwing a violent orgy. AJ crashes the party and wreaks havoc, decapitating people and imitating a pirate. Hassan is enraged and tells AJ never to return, calling him a "factualist bitch," a term which is enlarged much later when the apparently "clashing" political factions within Interzone are described. These include the Liquefactionists, the Senders, the Factualists, and the Divisionists (who occupy "a midway position"). A short descriptive section tells of Interzone University, where a professor and his students are ridiculed; the book moves on to an orgy that AJ throws.


The book then shifts back to the market place and a description of the totalitarian government of Annexia. Characters including the County Clerk, Benway, Dr. Berger, Clem and Jody are sketched through heavy dialogue and their own sub-stories.


After the description of the four parties of Interzone, we are told more stories about AJ. After briefly describing Interzone, the novel breaks into sub-stories and heavily cut-up influenced passages.


In a sudden return to what seems to be Lee's reality, two police officers, Hauser and O'Brien, catch up with Lee, who kills both of them. Lee then goes out to a street phone booth and calls the Narcotics Squad, saying he wants to speak to O'Brien. A Lieutenant Gonzales on the other end of the line claims there's no one in their records called O'Brien. When Lee asks for Hauser instead, the reply is identical; Lee hangs up, and goes on the run once again. The book then becomes increasingly disjointed and impressionistic, and finally simply stops.


"Naked Lunch" is considered Burroughs' seminal work. Extremely controversial in both its subject matter and its use of obscene language (something Burroughs recognized and intended), the book was banned in Boston and Los Angeles in the United States, and several European publishers were harassed. It was one of the more recent American books over which an obscenity trial has been held.


The book was banned in Boston in 1962 due to obscenity (notably child murder and acts of pedophilia), making it among the last works to be banned in that city, but that decision was reversed in 1966 by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The Appeals Court found the book did not violate obscenity statutes, as it was found to have some social value. The hearing included testimony in support of the work by Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer.


On a more specific level, "Naked Lunch" also protests the death penalty. In Burroughs's "Deposition: A Testimony Concerning A Sickness", "The Blue Movies" (appearing in the vignette "A.J.'s Annual Party") is deemed "a tract against capital punishment."


Fans of Beat Generation literature, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker named their band Steely Dan after a "revolutionary" steam-powered dildo mentioned in the novel.


From the 1960s, numerous film-makers considered adapting "Naked Lunch" for the screen. Antony Balch, who worked with Burroughs on a number of short film projects in 1960s, considered making a musical with Mick Jagger in the lead role, but the project fell through when relationships soured between Balch and Jagger. Burroughs himself adapted his book for the never-made film; after Jagger dropped out, Dennis Hopper was considered for the lead role, and at one point game-show producer Chuck Barris was considered a possible financier of the project.


In May 1991, rather than attempting a straight adaptation, Canadian director David Cronenberg took a few elements from the book and combined them with elements of Burroughs' life, creating a hybrid film about the writing of the book rather than the book itself. Peter Weller starred as William Lee, the pseudonym Burroughs used when he wrote "Junkie".


Italian comics artist Gianluca Lerici, better known under his artistic pseudonym Professor Bad Trip, adapted the novel into a graphic novel titled "Il Pasto Nudo" (1992), published by Shake Edizioni.


Fiddle City is a novel by Julian Barnes writing under the pseudonym of Dan Kavanagh. It is the second of a four-novel series featuring Duffy, a bisexual private detective with a 'phobia of ticking watches and a penchant for Tupperware'. Originally published by Jonathan Cape in 1981, it was republished by Orion books in 2014.


Heathrow Airport has the nickname of Fiddle City, but for Roy Kendrick who runs a transport business out of the airport, petty thievery has got out of hand as a number of shipments have gone astray and he employs Duffy to investigate. Conveniently McKay, one of Kendrick's employees has recently had a near-fatal car crash on the M4 and Duffy steps into his shoes and works undercover in Kendrick's warehouse. Duffy feels himself being watched by Mrs Boseley the dour HR manager as he uncovers evidence of cocaine smuggling.


David Montrose found the novel less impressive than "Duffy", though interesting in some ways. Richard Brown praised the way in which "Fiddle City" provides 'vivid low-life detail'.


Nоva (1968) is a science fiction novel by American writer Samuel R. Delany. Nominally space opera, it explores the politics and culture of a future where cyborg technology is universal (the novel is one of the precursors to cyberpunk), yet making major decisions can involve using tarot cards. It has strong mythological overtones, relating to both the Grail Quest and Jason's "Argonautica" for the golden fleece. "Nova" was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1969. In 1984, David Pringle listed it as one of the written since 1949.


After Delany completed "Nova" at the age of 25, his published output stopped for several years, although his writing continued. Delany completed the first draft of "Tides of Lust" (author's title, "Equinox") in September 1968 (it appeared in 1973). He first completed "Hogg" in June 1969 (though the novel itself would not appear until 1995). With the publication of his next major novel, "Dhalgren" (1975), however, his style had moved on in experimental directions notably different from that of his earlier work.


By the year 3172, political power in the galaxy is split between two factions: the older Earth-based Draco and the historically younger Pleiades Federation. Both have interests in the even newer Outer Colonies, where mines produce trace amounts of the prized power source Illyrion, the superheavy material essential to starship travel and terraforming planets.


Caught in a feud between aristocratic and economically powerful families, a scarred and obsessed captain from the Pleiades, Lorq Von Ray, recruits a disparate crew of misfits to aid him in the race with his arch-enemy, Prince Red from Draco's Red Shift Ltd., to gain economic leadership by securing a vastly greater amount of Illyrion directly from the heart of a stellar nova. In doing so, Von Ray will shift the balance of power of the existing galactic order, which will bring about the downfall of the Red family as well as end Earth's dominance over interstellar politics.


As the title indicates, the central metaphor for the novel is a nova: the destructive implosion/explosion of an entire sun, which, paradoxically, while it destroys most of a solar system, also creates new elements. In the book, at the eruption of a nova, not only do the laws of physics break down, but so do the laws of politics and psychology. This idea permeates the entire plot and storyline.


The characters follow a quest plot line, in which they visit several worlds to gain information necessary to achieve their goal, all the while pursued by the Red family.


Although the novel does not indulge the literary experimentation found in Delany's later books, it maintains a high level of innovation. Some chapters end or begin in mid-sentence. Also, the point of view regularly shifts between Lorq, Katin, and the Mouse. Each page in the book carries a header that gives the year and location of the scene on the page itself (e.g., "Draco, Earth, Paris, 3162"). This is useful because of the flashbacks in the long journey around the galaxy.


Algis Budrys, describing Delany as "the best science-fiction writer in the world," praised "Nova" as "highly entertaining to read" and commended Delany's integration of his sociopolitical extrapolation into his story, his accomplished characterization, and his "virtuosity" in presenting the novel's "classically posed scientific puzzle."


The book's third chapter (of seven) is basically a long flashback that shows Lorq and Prince's childhoods and the political background against which the story takes place. Lorq first meets Prince and Ruby when they are all youngsters, during an attempt by their parents to end the feud between the families. The meeting ends, however, in disaster and embarrassment, and the fundamentally cruel natures of both Prince and his father Aaron—as well as the senior Von Ray's innate love of violence—become clear.


Nova has a number of character motifs in common with Delany's later literary and literary-pornographic works: the Mouse, a damaged artist who wears one shoe as does the Kid in the later "Dhalgren"; Katin, an intellectual and writer who attempts to record the events around him; the twins Lynceos and Idas, one black, the other albino; and Dan, a barefoot derelict, with a rope holding up his pants.


The novel, storyline, and themes of "Nova" are multilayered and complex, and lend themselves to numerous interpretations. As the critic Judith Merrill wrote at the book's publication:


"Nova" takes place in a standard space opera setting with many of the features and tropes peculiar to the genre. Conscientiously the novel emulates many earlier and popular science fiction works.


Delany makes an offhand reference to Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy (a random planet is named "Trantor"). Additionally, in one scene, a character has a false tooth with poison hidden in it, a classical trope from many espionage stories, which Frank Herbert's "Dune" had employed three years before. (Unlike in "Dune", in "Nova" it doesn't work.)


There is also a strong similarity in names between the scientist, Ashton Clark, who, in "Nova", has invented the cyborg plugs and sockets centuries before, which pervade the novel, and the name of the fantasy and science fiction writer from the 'thirties and 'forties, Clark Ashton Smith.


Prince's ability to squeeze sand into glass and quartz fragments strongly parallels the power of many action heroes (most notably Superman), and the idea of aristocratic families feuding in space is found in numerous other space opera novels. The character of Katin is partially written to resemble the classic "bore" in science fiction literature—a character who constantly gives lectures and explanations to describe the universe of the book. In "Nova", however, Katin is constantly ridiculed for filling this role and on occasion is used for comic relief.


In keeping with this sort of game-playing, in a scene that takes place in a vast museum, the Alkane, in the city of Phoenix on the planet Vorpis, at one point Lorq and Katin hurry through the "FitzGerald Salon," clearly based on the actual "Rubens Salon" in the Louvre Museum in Paris—after the "Mona Lisa" and the "Raft of the Medusa," probably the Louvre's most impressive holdings.


Within the future society, reading the Tarot is considered both scientific and accurate. The Mouse is actually ridiculed as old-fashioned and uneducated for his skepticism about such things.


Much of the story revolves around a tarot reading Tyÿ gives Lorq at the beginning of the second mission, in which she rather successfully predicts the stakes and outcome. For example, "The Tower" appears, indicating that a powerful family (presumably the Reds or Von Rays) will fall, and the large number of pentacles indicates wealth. Prince and Ruby are represented by the "King of Swords" and the "Queen of Swords", respectively. An anomaly in the reading, however, occurs when Tyÿ drops "The Sun"—which Lorq considered to represent a nova—and the Mouse pockets it, thus making it impossible for Tyÿ's reading to include this card.


Smaller Tarot readings dot the rest of the novel. As a young child, Lorq receives a reading indicating a death in his family: within a month, his Uncle Morgan is assassinated. Likewise, Lorq's Aunt Cyana (Morgan's widow) has Lorq choose a single Tarot card for insight: it is "The Hanged Man", reversed, indicating that Lorq will succeed in his quest, but at a very high price.


Delany makes it clear that the Tarot should not be used for outright prediction. As Katin tells the highly skeptical Mouse: "[T]he cards don't actually predict anything. They simply propagate an educated commentary on present situations[.]" ("Nova", 112). "[Tarot cards] only become superstitious when they are abused, employed to direct rather than guide and suggest." ("Nova", 113) But, as the plot develops, sometimes it's difficult to distinguish clearly between useful "guiding" and abusive (superstitious) "directing."


The story of scarred Captain Von Ray's obsessive quest for a nova with his crew of outcasts recalls Melville's tale of wounded Captain Ahab's search for the white whale in "Moby-Dick". (In a 1971 article about the current state of Science Fiction, "Time Magazine" writer R. Z. Shepherd wrote, "["Nova"] suggests "Moby-Dick" at a strobe-light show.") In "Nova", the events are interpreted by Katin as a quest for the Holy Grail, with Illyrion playing the part of the Grail itself. As in the Grail story, there is a failed attempt to gain it, and someone must make a major self-sacrifice (in "Nova", his sanity and senses) in order to succeed.


Katin is constantly trying to find a plot for his novel, and finally decides to use Lorq's adventures with Prince and Ruby—immediately noticing the correspondences with the Grail archetype. By the end of the novel, it becomes clear that "Nova" is the book Katin will eventually write.


Although the novel takes place in the 32nd century, the society within it is described as highly stagnant, even taking into account the spread of interstellar travel and cyborging. Often, however, the book suggests that those minor characters who repeatedly make this judgment are simply looking for symptoms of change and vitality in the wrong parts of society—a theme "Nova" shares with Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination".


Cyana Von Ray Morgan, who is Lorq's aunt and a curator at humanity's largest museum, remarks that one-fourth of the displays at her museum are devoted to the Twentieth century, much the way major museums in Europe and the United States for the last hundred or so years might seem—to some—to have devoted a disproportionate amount of their space to Greek and Roman artifacts. She justifies this by saying that, despite all the progress made by mankind, the Twentieth Century encompasses the greatest change in humanity's fundamental situation: "At the beginning of that amazing century, mankind was many societies living on one world; at its end, it was basically what we are now: an informatively unified society that lived on several worlds." ("Nova", 156)


In short, within the fictional future of "Nova", humanity began to colonize space by the end of the Twentieth Century. A few centuries later, and cyborg implants were invented. The combination of increasingly cheap Illyrion (the fuel of starships) and universally adaptable implants has created, by the time of the novel, a highly mobile and transient work force and population.


This mobile population has a drawback, however. In a pseudo-intellectual argument raised throughout the novel, characters make reference to a "lack of cultural solidarity" (a concept that vaguely resembles the idea of cultural capital). Because the population is constantly on the move, there is no shared culture, nor have there been any successful attempts to create new broad-based artistic and cultural movements since the end of the Twentieth Century.


Characters make frequent references to 20th century culture: at Prince's party in Paris (which takes place in the year 3162), a group of entertainers start performing a song by The Mamas & the Papas. Katin makes an offhand remark that indicates the board game Monopoly (which was invented during the early 20th century) is still in existence, and has even been adapted to the future society. When he needs to name a "Renaissance Man," Katin mentions Bertrand Russell, despite the passage of more than a millennium since Russell died.


In Cyana Morgan's museum, in addition to the predominance of Twentieth Century-based exhibits, within a hall of paintings, Katin notices that many of the works share the same subjects—and, in many cases, the same names—even though the tags clearly indicate the paintings were created centuries apart, and on different planets. The most famous art collection in the museum is actually a forgery of an existing set of works, and the forgeries are considered more popular and valuable than the originals.


When the Mouse's approach gets out of control, as the novel dramatizes in one climactic sequence, the instruments of art become murderous weapons. When Katin's approach gets out of hand, the result is paralysis and silence.


The novel refers repeatedly to a historic "Vega Republic," presumably among the worlds circling the star Vega, which flourished several centuries prior to the novel's beginning. At one point, apparently, the Republic staged an uprising and attempted to declare both political and cultural autonomy from Earth. During those years the Vegans created a new and different style in furniture, fabrics, and architecture. Many of their artists, musicians, and writers produced highly distinctive work that, in later years, caught the imagination of intellectuals in both Draco and the Pleiades. Before "Nova" begins, however, the Vega Republic uprising was violently suppressed, and Katin claims that the ability to identify remnants of Vegan culture has become nothing but an intellectual "parlor game."


As the quest continues, soon Lorq drops the rationalizations for the Red/Von Ray vendetta, except for the fact that his actions, for better or worse, will produce a major cultural shift in humanity, even though nobody can tell what that change will be, or if it will be a positive or negative one.


The story's main character, Lorq, is Afropean. His father is of Norwegian descent, and his Earth-born mother is Senegalese.


The residents of the Pleiades Federation (and the Outer Colonies) overall are an extremely mixed racial population. In addition to appearances, characters from the Pleiades sometimes have names that indicate a mixed racial heritage. For example, one of Lorq's childhood friends is named “Yorgos Satsumi,” which contains a clearly Japanese last name, but a first name that is decidedly Greek.


This is in sharp contrast to the Earth-centered Draco society, where the leaders tend to be uniformly Caucasian. Individuals from Earth also tend to have extremely "WASPish" names. For example, a character named "Brian" is eventually revealed (at least, in the 2002 edition) to have the full name "Brian Anthony Sanders." Moreover, according to the Mouse, Earth still has problems with racism: he recalls seeing Gypsies lynched when he was younger.


Ironically, although this racial diversity is considered one of the novel's most innovative features, at the time of its first publication (1968), the inclusion of minority characters proved to be a liability due to the racism ingrained in American culture at the time (see "Publishing Status" below).


The society of "Nova" is in a pre-revolutionary state. Economic tensions have created a feud between the "new money" Von Ray family and the "old money" Red family, both of whom have a large stake in intergalactic transportation. Shortly before the novel's events (within the lifetime of Lorq's father), the Pleiades region achieved political autonomy from Earth/Draco, and is now an independent federation. At the time of the novel, citizens of the Outer Colonies are beginning to support the idea of independence as well.


In a passage in Chapter Three, the elder Von Ray interprets the tensions in terms of social class, with each major galactic region representing one of the three traditional social classes:


One thing all characters have in common is their cyborging. Individuals who cannot or will not accept these implants are effectively removed from society. The Mouse, for instance, mentions that his people (the Gypsies) refused the implants and, as a result, were treated with intolerance and even killed on Earth.


Prince's anger over his artificial arm, while irrational on the surface, is eventually hypothesized to have been caused by its effect on his ability to cyborg. Generally, a person has a total of five implants, two of which are located in the wrists. Since Prince was born with only one arm, he cannot fully connect himself with a machine.


Although the society seems on the edge of a revolution (or some other unspecified major change), the future of the novel is optimistic. As Katin reveals in one of his expository monologues, the problem of labor alienation has been overcome through the use of technology: practically all humans have cyborg socket implants that allow them to interface directly with the machines they use. These sockets are highly adaptable. Characters plug them into everything from small vacuum cleaners to the navigational systems of starships. By directly interfacing with the machines, workers are able to identify with their work, and the result is greater psychological wellbeing and less labor alienation.


"Nova" was written prior to Delany's turn to sexuality as a major focus of his work. Nevertheless, the novel suggests several sexual subtexts. In the same way that a homoerotic current informs the relationship Melville describes between Captain Ahab and the cabin boy Pip in "Moby-Dick", a similar undercurrent vibrates through the scenes between Captain Von Ray and the Mouse.


Throughout the novel, the intelligent and beautiful Ruby remains both loyal and subservient to her brother, Prince, even to the extent of going against her own feelings. Their relationship strongly suggests an incestuous nature. Prince refuses to allow her to interact with Lorq. In turn, Ruby maintains a close emotional attachment to Prince, one that, in a suggestive scene near the novel's end, proves disastrous.


In "Nova", a culturally iconic political assassination has taken place. The advanced technology at the time allowed millions of people throughout the universe to experience the sensations and emotions of the victim (Secretary Morgan, the leader of the Pleiades Federation) as he died—and, directly afterwards, the emotions of his widow (and Lorq Von Ray's aunt), Cyana Von Ray Morgan. The murder was brutal: Morgan was publicly garroted at his second inauguration, and almost decapitated. Although the assassination was eventually revealed to be the work of a single man, ("Underwood"), for a period of time afterwards, many popular conspiracy theories were developed. To deal with her grief—and that of Pleiades citizens—Cyana Morgan adopted an extremely stoic posture and slowly retreated from the public eye.


This death is clearly a dramatic rewriting of the November 1963 "televised" assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, which had taken place only five years before "Nova" was published. Cyana Von Ray Morgan, the widow, strongly resembles Kennedy's wife Jacqueline Bauvier Kennedy in her responses, her appearance, and her interest in art.


Lorq, Prince, and Ruby—all heirs of wealthy clans who grew up in luxury—live what Lorq refers to as "meaningless" lives, indulging in sex, expensive hobbies (e.g. space-yacht racing), and partying. Lorq's transformation begins when, in a physical fight, Prince scars Lorq's face deeply with his artificial hand. Later in the novel, both Lorq and the Mouse attack Prince and Ruby, causing them great pain. As the novel nears completion, Ruby remarks that, prior to that event, neither she nor her brother had a true concept of what pain was really like; neither of them truly fathomed the importance of their actions and the feud until they were personally hit by it.


Practically all the socially powerful characters have violent natures, which often they try to hide or repress. Despite the elder Von Rays' attempts to end the feud, make peace with Aaron Red, and have their children become friends, the Von Rays cannot escape the fact that the family wealth and status were based on piracy and murder. Although outwardly Aaron Red appears harmless (he is described as bald, portly, and easily embarrassed) and he seems to be friends with members of the Von Ray family, events can bring out his natural violence and reveal him as an abusively indulgent father.


The novel hints at these buried emotions, when, for example, the Von Ray and Red families meet in the Outer Colonies at a reconciliatory reception. Seven-year-old Prince uses his artificial arm and its strength to kill Lorq's mother's pet bird in front of Lorq and Ruby. Later that night, the adults leave to watch the future equivalent of a cock fight, but with winged reptiles rather than roosters. The novel's violence gathers force in an unexpected eruption from Prince against Lorq at his party in Paris; much of the novel tries to explain the origins of this rage.


Both rage and pain are eventually recognized by the mature characters to have been a necessary component of their lives. Lorq realizes that, without Prince's attack to 'wake him up,' he would have gone on with a carefree life; he maintains his scar as a reminder of this. The successful completion of Lorq's quest has an extremely painful outcome for Lorq personally. As well, now that the need for Illyrion mines is gone, we know, the Outer Colonies will collapse socially and economically. The Red heirs fought for the status quo; only near the end of the novel do they experience the pain that goes along with the realization of what Lorq is trying to do.


"Nova" is considered one of the major forerunners of the cyberpunk movement. It prefigures, for instance, cyberpunk's staple trope of human interfacing with computers via implants.


While the New Wave of science fiction was concentrating on near-future science fiction stories and the highly subjective exploration of "inner space," in 1968, the year it was published, "Nova" seemed a deliberate throw-back to traditional space opera—and space opera at its grandest and most operatic.


While reviews in the American professional science fiction magazines, "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" and "Galaxy", by Judith Merril and Algis Budrys, respectively, were highly praiseful, the review in the New Wave outlet, England's "New Worlds", by M. John Harrison, while acknowledging the skill and energy with which it had been written, called the book a "waste of time and talent."


Writer William Gibson claimed to be greatly influenced by Delany, and his novel "Neuromancer" includes allusions to "Nova." While Delany's vision of the future is optimistic, however, the cyberpunk movement has a distinctly dystopic outlook. Gibson's novel includes a character, Peter Riviera, introduced (like the Mouse) in Istanbul, with the same holographic projection powers (although via implants) as the Mouse in "Nova"; but Gibson's character is a psychopath. Likewise, Gibson includes a character who awkwardly wears only one shoe; this character (Ashpool) is an insane killer.


Several episodes of "Futurama" feature the "holophoner," a musical instrument that is very difficult to play, and projects holographic imagery to accompany the music.


Despite its status, reputation, and influence on science-fiction as a genre, for a dozen years after 1990 (the date of Bantam Books' final 14th printing), "Nova" was out of print. Hardcover copies were highly prized. Not until 2002 did Vintage Books rerelease it.


Over the years before "Nova" appeared, Delany had already won the Nebula Award twice for best science fiction novel of the year: "Babel-17" had gained the award in 1967 (in a tie for best novel of 1966 with Daniel Keyes's "Flowers for Algernon", a.k.a. "Charly"). "The Einstein Intersection" won him the award the following year in 1968 (for best novel of 1967).


While awaiting publication by Doubleday, "Nova" was submitted to "Analog" editor John W. Campbell for potential serialization. Campbell rejected the novel, saying in a telephone conversation with Delany's agent that, though he'd enjoyed the book, he did not feel his magazine's readership "would be able to relate to a black main character."


The Vintage edition of the novel corrects some minor mistakes in the original version. It also adds an entire passage that does not appear in any of the older published versions.


In the Vintage edition, Delany includes a passage in which Prince Red brags about how he is responsible for the death of Brian, a character who disappears, in earlier editions, after a single chapter. In the Vintage edition, toward the end of the book Prince describes how, using his wealth and power, and with no more provocation than a careless comment Brian once made about Prince's arm, Prince systematically destroyed Brian's life, until Brian became homeless and died of exposure. Prince claims that he has killed some two dozen others in a similar manner for similar reasons.


This passage significantly alters Prince's characterization. In earlier editions, the worst that could be said of Prince is that he had been "spoiled" and had a violent temper. The new material turns him into a remorseless murderer and adds a moral component to Lorq's quest absent in the earlier versions. If Prince defeats Lorq, the most powerful man in the galaxy will be a psychopathic killer.


The above passage is in the original typescript of "Nova", however. It is also in Delany's handwritten version of the novel in his notebooks from 1967. Both are in the Delany Holdings on store in the Howard Gottlieb Archives at the Mugar Memorial Library of Boston University. Initially the writer omitted it before publication of the first edition, when a friend who had read the manuscript found that section too extreme. In later years Delany decided to return it to the novel, because he felt readers needed to know what happened to Brian, after he seems to vanish from the book.


Additionally, in the first edition of "Nova" it is unclear whether or not Lorq's parents are still alive by the time the novel ends: When Lorq begins his quest, his mother is already dying of a degenerative disorder, but at the end he makes no mention of them, nor does he try to contact them. However, in another (much briefer) passage added in the Vintage Books edition, related to the above, Lorq has a memory that implies both of his parents and Aaron Red (as did Dan and Brian) died during the past ten years. This is in neither the original typescript nor in the notebook version, and is a true addition.


A Scanner Darkly is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, published in 1977. The semi-autobiographical story is set in a dystopian Orange County, California, in the then-future of June 1994, and includes an extensive portrayal of drug culture and drug use (both recreational and abusive). The novel is one of Dick's best-known works and served as the basis for a 2006 film of the same name, directed by Richard Linklater.


The protagonist is Bob Arctor, member of a household of drug users, who is also living a double life as an undercover police agent assigned to spy on Arctor's household. Arctor shields his identity from those in the drug subculture and from the police. (The requirement that narcotics agents remain anonymous, to avoid collusion and other forms of corruption, becomes a critical plot point late in the book.) While posing as a drug user, Arctor becomes addicted to "Substance D" (also referred to as "Slow Death", "Death" or "D"), a powerful psychoactive drug. A conflict is Arctor's love for Donna, a drug dealer, through whom he intends to identify high-level dealers of Substance D.


Donna takes Arctor to "New-Path", a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games, intended to break the will of the patients.


The story ends with Bruce working at a New-Path farming commune, where he is suffering from a serious neurocognitive deficit, after withdrawing from Substance D. Although considered by his handlers to be nothing more than a walking shell of a man, "Bruce" manages to spot rows of blue flowers growing hidden among rows of corn and realizes that the blue flowers are "Mors ontologica", the source of Substance D. The book ends with Bruce hiding a flower in his shoe to give to his "friends"—undercover police agents posing as recovering addicts at the Los Angeles New-Path facility—on Thanksgiving.


"A Scanner Darkly" is a fictionalized account of real events, based on Dick's experiences in the 1970s drug culture. Dick said in an interview, "Everything in "A Scanner Darkly" I actually saw."


Between mid-1970 (when his fourth wife Nancy left him) and mid-1972, Dick lived semi-communally with a rotating group of mostly teenage drug users at his home in Marin County, described in a letter as being located at 707 Hacienda Way, Santa Venetia. Dick explained, "[M]y wife Nancy left me in 1970 ... I got mixed up with a lot of street people, just to have somebody to fill the house. She left me with a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house and nobody living in it but me. So I just filled it with street people and I got mixed up with a lot of people who were into drugs."


During this period, the author ceased writing completely and became fully dependent upon amphetamines, which he had been using intermittently for many years. "I did take amphetamines for years in order to be able to—I was able to produce 68 final pages of copy a day," Dick said.


The character of Donna was inspired by an older teenager who became associated with Dick sometime in 1970; though they never became lovers, the woman was his principal female companion until early 1972, when Dick left for Canada to deliver a speech to a Vancouver science fiction convention. This speech, "The Android and the Human", served as the basis for many of the recurring themes and motifs in the ensuing novel. Another turning point in this timeframe for Dick is the alleged burglary of his home and theft of his papers.


After delivering "The Android and the Human", Dick became a participant in X-Kalay (a Canadian Synanon-type recovery program), effortlessly convincing program caseworkers that he was nursing a heroin addiction to do so. Dick's recovery program participation was portrayed in the posthumously released book "The Dark Haired Girl" (a collection of letters and journals from this period, most of a romantic nature). It was at X-Kalay, while doing publicity for the facility, that he devised the notion of rehab centers being used to secretly harvest drugs (thus inspiring the book's New-Path clinics).


In the afterword Dick dedicates the book to those of his friends—he includes himself—who suffered debilitation or death as a result of their drug use. Mirroring the epilogue are the involuntary goodbyes that occur throughout the story—the constant turnover and burn-out of young people that lived with Dick during those years. In the afterword, he states that the novel is about "some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did", and that "drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to move out in front of a moving car".