Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

by Philip K. Dick

4.01 · rating details · 77,504 ratings · 2,956 reviews

A final, apocalyptic, world war has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending the majority of mankind off-planet. Those who remain, venerate all remaining examples of life, and owning an animal of your own is both a symbol of status and a necessity. For those who can't afford an authentic animal, companies build incredibly realistic simulacrae: ho...more

Paperback, 244 pages

Published May 28th 1996 by Del Rey (first published 1968)

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Dec 29, 2010

Scott Sheaffer rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

I Love Dick. There I've said it. No, not a “Mood Organ” or blood filled skin sack made to facilitate reproduction but Philip K. Dick.

Is it really possible for androids to acquire human traits like empathy and the desire to understand the meaning of life and avoid death at all costs? What would the role of socialism play in an android world? Would self aware androids seek out to destroy anything that threatened their existence or tried to control their thoughts (ie programming)?

A Google search r...more

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Dec 17, 2012

Morgan rated it

Recommends it for: people looking for science fiction with an edge

Shelves: scifi, noiresque, pulp

I've seen "BladeRunner" so many times I could puke and watch it again (hell, I even wrote a 15 page critical analysis of it as a neo noir film). And it's an amazing, beautiful film.

I read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" when I was a junior in highschool, after having grown up with "BladeRunner." And it was fabulous.

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and "BladeRunner" are not the same thing. At all. Which is conceptually really, really intriguing. And I love that about the two.

By the tim...more

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Oct 20, 2011

notgettingenough rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, modern-lit, pairs

Over the last few weeks I’ve read The Luzhin Defense, followed by Bluebeard and then Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Originally I was going to write some stuff here about the central characters and compare them with the original Outsider. I was going to say things like this:

Maybe it is a contradiction in terms, to put 3 books about outsiders in the same review, but I can’t stop myself.

We have here a chess player, a doctor who might or might not have murdered a wife and a chickenhead. They al...more Over the last few weeks I’ve read The Luzhin Defense, followed by Bluebeard and then Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Originally I was going to write some stuff here about the central characters and compare them with the original Outsider. I was going to say things like this:

Maybe it is a contradiction in terms, to put 3 books about outsiders in the same review, but I can’t stop myself.

We have here a chess player, a doctor who might or might not have murdered a wife and a chickenhead. They all share a trait lacking in the original Outsider: they are all able to induce a sympathetic response from the reader. I don’t believe we have any capacity to understand Camus’s Outsider and without that, how can we have sympathy? It is easy to empathise with the others, however apart they may be from our own lives. It is impossible for Camus to put us in the shoes of his Outsider. It IS possible to become the crazy chess player, the murderous doctor, the mentally deficient chickenhead. Indeed it is Dick’s great strength that his characters slip into you; no matter that they are hypothetical consequences of a hypothetical world.

I can’t help wondering how I would have felt about Nabokov if I’d read him last instead of first. I thought he was getting away with being clever and ornate at the time. But to read the spare prose of Frisch next made me question this. And sharing with Dick the suffering of his characters meant I started wondering if Nabokov really had a clue what he was writing about. He says things that hit the mark for sure and his general thesis that chess saves the hero’s life until his dogooder wife-to-be starts interfering is completely faithful to the real world. I would scarcely be the only chess player to associate with Luzhin’s discovery of the game, a discovery that means life is suddenly tolerable. But something makes me distrust Nabokov’s portrayal of the Outsider, and I’m tired of trying to figure out what it is.

That’s the sort of thing I was going to say.

But I’d rather read. Consider me a goodreads outsider. (less)

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May 19, 2008

Don Rea rated it

Since "Blade Runner" has been one of my favorite movies my entire adult life, it's odd I never read this until now. I expected it to be pretty different from the film, but still, it's not like I don't read SF by the metric ton anyway. I think I just never happened across a copy until recently.

If you've read a lot of SF from the 60s and 70s, you'd know this was written in the late 60s by the end of the first chapter. It has the smell of that period all over it - everyone "official" in any way has...more Since "Blade Runner" has been one of my favorite movies my entire adult life, it's odd I never read this until now. I expected it to be pretty different from the film, but still, it's not like I don't read SF by the metric ton anyway. I think I just never happened across a copy until recently.

If you've read a lot of SF from the 60s and 70s, you'd know this was written in the late 60s by the end of the first chapter. It has the smell of that period all over it - everyone "official" in any way has two or three layers of hidden agenda and an impressive repertoire of manipulation technique, there's a whole religious/mystical dimension to the story that's never really explored, and of course everyone's speech includes invented slang (though the film's "skin jobs" has a great deal more reverberance than Dick's more believable but less colorful "andys").

And the concerns of the story are also very much of that time. Rick Deckard, the protagonist, is a bounty hunter, a de facto freelance killer of rogue androids who is de jure attached to what passes for a police department in a San Francisco depopulated by nuclear war and off-planet emigration. He inherits an assignment to "retire" a group of androids who have illegally returned to Earth from the colonies. This group were made with a new type of brain unit that makes them almost indistinguishable from born humans, except for a lack of empathy. In one view, the whole book is about empathy, what it is, whether anyone actually has it, and how it is experienced and expressed. Deckard experiences a serious crisis of conscience when he begins to question his own ability to empathize, and then his ability to avoid empathizing with the andys he must kill. That leads to his over-empathizing with, and confusing himself with, Wilbur Mercer, the possibly invented central figure of Mercerism, a quasi religion that seems to be about empathy and nothing else. Ah, the age of LSD and MDA!

Despite its obvious datedness, many of the questions considered are still interesting (and relevant). PKD handles them with genuine concern though he delivers little satisfaction, having no answers himself.(less)

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Dec 15, 2011

Emanuela rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: e-book, sci-fi, narrativa-straniera

Philip K. Dick costringe a fare letture geometriche. In "La svastica sul sole" per piani paralleli, invece, in "Ma gli androidi sognano pecore elettriche?" si deve procedere in orizzontale, poi in verticale e se non bastasse anche in diagonale.

Orizzontale: ci sono uomini e i loro animali che rappresentano solo uno status symbol, per loro gli umani non provano nessun sentimento affettuoso. Poi ci sono gli androidi e gli animali meccanici, questi ultimi sostituiscono quelli vivi ma non bisogna far...more

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Jul 18, 2007

Colleen Venable rated it

Shelves: fiction-adult, 2007-read

It takes five full pages for a character to buy a goat and ONE FRIGGIN' SENTENCE for a character to "fall in love". This book was so amazing in the beginning...and then suddenly everything plummeted downhill. It was almost as if Dick got 150 pages in and then said "awwww screw it...uh, sentence, sentence, sentence, THE END!" Why did there need to be any sort of "love" storyline anyway?

Along with being the only geek who made it through puberty without reading Phillip K. Dick books, I also am one...more

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Jan 09, 2012

Sath rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, utopia-dystopia, classics, sfx-100-writers, sfx-book-club, sf-masterworks, reviewed, on-my-bookshelf, charity-shop-bought, bought-new

The last nuclear world war has left the world changed, the population is only a fraction of what it once was, so many rooms lie empty and deserted just cluttered with the junk that people left behind. Many animal species are exctinct or close to exctinction, and every household is morally obliged to keep an animal. Many people emmigrated to mars, where android companions and servants are popular. Androids are outlawed on earth, but they sneak in anyway and try to pose as human, until they're dis...more The last nuclear world war has left the world changed, the population is only a fraction of what it once was, so many rooms lie empty and deserted just cluttered with the junk that people left behind. Many animal species are exctinct or close to exctinction, and every household is morally obliged to keep an animal. Many people emmigrated to mars, where android companions and servants are popular. Androids are outlawed on earth, but they sneak in anyway and try to pose as human, until they're discovered and 'retired'.

Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter for the police who hunts down and retires illegal androids. When the local top bounty hunter gets hospitalised by a rogue android, Rick gets passed his current job, 6 androids with the latest AI tech that makes them near impossible to spot under the testing system. Meanwhile Rick also has a depressed wife at home, and a broken electric sheep that is his greatest shame, what Rick wants most of all is a real live animal.

The question of how to tell androids and humans apart was probably the most defining point of this book. The test that Rick used checked for signs like blushing and hesitation when being asked about morally questionable subjects like promiscuity or the killing of animals. But then there are certain humans with abnormal morals, or a deficiency of empathy, that can fail a test where an android might pass.

Theres a definate mechanical creepyness in the android characters that makes it hard to sympathise with them, so it was never in question in my mind, whose side we were on. I mean in the end it's team Rick all the way. Possibly helped by the fact that I remember seeing the movie, and no one could possibly side against Harrison Ford.. really..

Having said that there were a lot of differences to the movie, the movie doesn't have the issue with animals and electric animals at all, which I think is a bit of a loss, it certainly gave something more empathic to Rick Deckard's character. All he wants is a real live animal, it's a deep moral craving to do his human duty, and it really sets the foundation for his whole personality. But then I think the movie set out to do something completely different with Rick.

The 'religion' of mercerism, was the one point that I never truly grasped in the novel. It's a strange thing where everyone sort of mentally hooks in to a virtual reality where you get to be this guy called mercer, who is walking up a hill and having stones thrown at him. And at the same time you feel the emotions of everyone else in the world who is 'being' mercer. It was all a bit too surreal for me, and I couldn't really get into. Which meant that I probably missed out on some of the effect, and probably didn't get the ending as well as I should have.. but I think this is my failing probably, for not being able to 'connect' with what the author intended. It's a shame, I think I must be an android.(less)

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Jul 05, 2008

Shannon rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, 2008, apocalyptic-or-post-apocalyptic, psychological-thriller

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It's hard to know where to start with this book. On the one hand, I want to say it was amazing and highly original and extremely thought-provoking. On the other I want to say it was often confused, contradictory and obscure. Well, I guess I just did :)

After wars and then radioactive dust obliterated much of the planet, the majority of the human population fled to colonies on Mars and elsewhere, taking their own personal android servant. Some stayed behind, either because they had been contaminat...more

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Jul 04, 2007

Brittany rated it

· review of another edition

the k. in philip K. dick definitely stands for kicked ass. but not philip kick ass dick. i dont know what that means.

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Feb 07, 2012

Silletta rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, sci-fi, narrativa-nordamericana

Dick mi mette in difficoltà. Innanzitutto perché è stato un genietto prolifico, accidenti a lui, e dopo un certo numero di suoi romanzi letti comincia quasi ad essere ridondante notare le sue qualità. E poi, cosa mai posso dire che non sia già stato detto?
Potrei dire solo che è assolutamente da leggere.
Potrei citare solo il fascino che i suoi romanzi emanano.
Potrei essere così sintetica?
Potrei, sì, ma invece penso che ammorberò tutti con la descrizione del mio personalissimo punto di vista.
(luc...more Dick mi mette in difficoltà. Innanzitutto perché è stato un genietto prolifico, accidenti a lui, e dopo un certo numero di suoi romanzi letti comincia quasi ad essere ridondante notare le sue qualità. E poi, cosa mai posso dire che non sia già stato detto?
Potrei dire solo che è assolutamente da leggere.
Potrei citare solo il fascino che i suoi romanzi emanano.
Potrei essere così sintetica?
Potrei, sì, ma invece penso che ammorberò tutti con la descrizione del mio personalissimo punto di vista.
(lucky you all!)

(view spoiler)[La fantascienza di Dick mi colpisce sempre: trasuda quotidianità, quella che ti fa pensare che in qualche modo la storia potrebbe essere ambientata nel quartiere accanto al tuo; sicuramente anche per l'aspetto più sociologico dei suoi romanzi, che emerge prepotente nonostante siano presenti i più tipici aspetti sci-fi, la tecnologia, il rapporto dicotomico uomo-macchina che assottiglia i propri confini per creare altre divisioni sociali contigue, l'espansione oltreplatenaria della conquista umana.
Cosa rimane dunque? Rimane una società alla deriva in ogni luogo, sia sulla Terra sia sui pianeti d'emigrazione, una società che sembra aver perso capacità di astrazione e si fonda dunque sulla materialità e sul possesso di oggetti-simbolo: su Marte bisogna avere il proprio androide-schiavo, sulla Terra l'imperativo morale (morale, sì) è avere un animale domestico, merce rara in questo mondo, e talmente di prestigio da essere falsificati per non sfigurare. Al resto pensa la rigida gerarchia sociale, che vede in testa gli uomini quasi al pari degli animali, e in fondo gli androidi, preceduti di poco dagli uomini considerati sub-normali.

Ma un tema su tutti ha prevalso nei miei pensieri post-lettura: quello della rassegnazione. Una rassegnazione, comune ad umani ed androidi, verso quella che è considerata la morale della società, più simile invece ad un'ideologia data da codici appresi e immodificabili, diventati talmente vicini all'essere innati che qualsiasi spostamento intellettivo dal flusso comune, qualsiasi dubbio, riporta comunque al modo di essere originario. Insomma, uno può deviare quanto vuole, ma in modo naturale sarà riportato, o meglio, si auto-riporterà allo schema di vita prestabilito. Quindi gli androidi si ribellano e allo stesso tempo si rassegnano alla morte per mano dell'umano; gli umani, dal canto loro, vorrebbero cambiamenti quando si sentono inadeguati, per poi piegarsi al fine di sentirsi adeguati come gli altri. Ecco un sentimento davvero in comune tra i due diversi esseri.
Come la moglie all'inizio del romanzo, che confessa di indursi, attraverso una macchina in grado di controllare le emozioni, uno stato depressivo per vedere le cose con un'altra lucidità, anche il protagonista stesso finisce per avere momenti di dubbi, di emozioni diverse rispetto a quanto sarebbe bene avere, che lo portano a dichiararsi contrario a quello che lui stesso è e a ciò che gli viene imposto di essere. Entrambi con il loro bell'animale elettrico in giardino. (hide spoiler)](less)

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Apr 10, 2008

dead letter office rated it

chris's fish died here at work and he seems down. everyone else was mean to the fish (not to its face mostly, just made fun and tapped on the glass) but i always came to see it and i think chris appreciated that for some reason. i've never seen him look so down before. this is one of those things that makes me sad out of all proportion to the scale of the incident, like when i made katy think she was wrong about kansas bordering colorado or when my brother saved his allowance for months and boug...more chris's fish died here at work and he seems down. everyone else was mean to the fish (not to its face mostly, just made fun and tapped on the glass) but i always came to see it and i think chris appreciated that for some reason. i've never seen him look so down before. this is one of those things that makes me sad out of all proportion to the scale of the incident, like when i made katy think she was wrong about kansas bordering colorado or when my brother saved his allowance for months and bought a toy that he didn't end up liking when he was maybe ten. there is something really devastating about people wanting something small and having it denied them. it's so little to ask, and in a way it's sad on its own that such little things are so important. all he wanted was to take care of a fish.

the fact that chris brought that fish in to live on his desk at work reminds me of a book by phillip k. dick where the animals have almost all died because of nuclear fallout and people will do anything to get one to take care of. if they can't afford real animals, they buy robotic fakes and care for them just the same while feeling secretly ashamed that they don't have a real one. it's all so sad, and in the book it's this need to care for something small, even if the owner knows it's not really alive, that distinguishes humans from androids that have evolved to equal humans in everything except empathy. i usually don't like science fiction, but that book was interesting because underneath the bizarre setting and the crazy plot (it was the basis for the movie bladerunner) i think it was mostly about what he thinks it means to be human, and that seems to be the need to believe in things that aren't real, and the irrational individual desire to protect other living things from harm opposed with the compulsively cold and destructive drive of human society. it's so sad because you end up with these isolated points of warmth lost in an incredibly bleak, empty background. i think it is a very good book, even though there is nothing special about the way it is written.

(less)

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May 18, 2008

Werner rated it

Recommends it for: Fans of serious science fiction

Shelves: science-fiction

While Dick was always a professed Episcopalian, his writing began to take a more distinctly Christian turn only after his spiritual experience in the early 1970s. Here, his outlook is still shaped more by postmodernism, strongly suggesting that simply believing something can make it true. (Paradoxically, it also exudes the strong skepticism, which informed his writing all through his career, as to whether our ordinary human perceptions actually come anywhere close to seeing reality as it actuall...more

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Jan 03, 2008

D_Davis rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-speculative-fiction, philip-k-dick

Book/Film essay...

What is free will? If we were forced to, or programmed to have free will, would it really be “free”? What are memories? Are memories proof of our existence, our reality, or are they merely tokens of places, people, situations and things that may or may not have existed. Is an android (a synthetic human) programmed to have free will and to have memories any less human than the real thing? After all, aren’t we all to some extent created humanoids with “pre-programmed” brains and...more Book/Film essay...

What is free will? If we were forced to, or programmed to have free will, would it really be “free”? What are memories? Are memories proof of our existence, our reality, or are they merely tokens of places, people, situations and things that may or may not have existed. Is an android (a synthetic human) programmed to have free will and to have memories any less human than the real thing? After all, aren’t we all to some extent created humanoids with “pre-programmed” brains and inner workings all for the purpose of exploring our own free will and memories? These are the questions asked in Philip K. Dick's remarkable book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

...

The world envisioned in the book is dark and bleak, but not without it’s hopes and dreams. Through the technological undertakings of mankind and large corporations, the planet has become over-populated, leaving no room for expansion or, for that matter, nature itself. Animals, well real ones anyway, are extinct, and now companies like the Tyrell Corp. manufacture fake “replicants” for consumers to purchase. Along with the animals, they also create androids. The Nexus-6 model Android is completely life-like, and even has memories and free will programmed into them. They are so life-like that even they sometimes forget, or never even knew, that they are\were not human.

But what is a “true human”? What do we consider the criteria that makes a human being a human being? A soul? Can we prove a soul exists? What about memories? Can we prove that they really happened? Might we be an android programmed to think and believe that we are the real thing? Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter hired to “retire” (not “kill”), begins to ask himself these very questions. If one has the belief that he is real, well then does that not make him real? If one is programmed with the expected behaviors of society, programmed to obey and follow the norms laid down by society, then really one has just skipped the learning phase of life and already knows what is to be expected. Does this make said person any less human? And what of the values or goals? We think as humans that what separates us from the rest of the world, both natural and technological, is our ability to discern right from wrong, good from bad, desirable and undesirable behavior. But what if a machine was programmed or “taught” to learn this system of agreements - then what would separate us from the rest of the world?

If in a libertarian world, free will is the most important aspect, who would decide what constitutes free will? In D.A.D.O.E.S it is the Corporations who now play god. Through the rise of their power given to them by an unaware, uneducated society, the Corporations have dictated what is to be expected, what the beliefs should be and ultimately what is true or real. They are both conservative and socialistic in their approach. They feel that they must create and lay down the system of agreements for society, so much so that they create perfectly synthetic humans, and believe that through their actions, mankind will ultimately benefit.

Rick Deckard ultimately begins to question his own reality. Is anything real? Is his very life any more valid than that of an android? Is his seemingly “free will” really that “free” when it can be so easily reproduced by technology? These questions may never be answered. And so like much of his work, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ultimately asks more questions than it answers, but such is the nature of well written science fiction – to use the future and the fantastic to ask questions about present day situations.

full review @ www.genrebusters.com (less)

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Jul 26, 2010

Andy rated it

I'm worried that most people will misunderstand the intelligence behind this book. I have met a few people who have said, "that book? I read that in high school." My response is "did you understand this book in high school?"

Am I wrong in saying that first, one should read Kafka; second, one should understand how Kafka's fiction functions as a blend of anthropology, theology, and philosophy, among other things. Then, read Phillip K. Dick again, and notice the themes of paranoia, identity crisis,...more

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Aug 25, 2008

Kristjan rated it

Recommends it for: AI/Borg fans and Posthumans

Recommended to Kristjan by: GR Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club

Shelves: science-fiction, book-club-selection, reviewed

I saw Bladerunner when it came out and knowing that it was based upon this story, and not really enjoying the movie much, I didn't pick up the book until it became a Book Club selection; hearing that the book was significantly different then the movie helped. While it was not a 'fun' book, I did enjoy many of the concepts PKD started to explore in the story ... especially now given how far science has come in explaining how the human 'machine' works (and fails). Asimov's I, Robot does a better...more

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Jul 26, 2009

Yulia rated it

Shelves: criminal-intent, i-thought-i-hated-you, read-to-me-by-frank

This is a novel to be patient with: it takes 60 pages to build up its momentum, but once it really begins, it doesn't stop till the (somewhat hurried) end. I admit it took me four different attempts o get into it and finally had to have it read to me by Frank to see what it had to offer, not because it was poorly written per se, but because much of the opening dialogue is tell-y and woud be better served explained in pieces by an omniscient narrator. As it is, it often frustrated me with its, "A...more This is a novel to be patient with: it takes 60 pages to build up its momentum, but once it really begins, it doesn't stop till the (somewhat hurried) end. I admit it took me four different attempts o get into it and finally had to have it read to me by Frank to see what it had to offer, not because it was poorly written per se, but because much of the opening dialogue is tell-y and woud be better served explained in pieces by an omniscient narrator. As it is, it often frustrated me with its, "As you well know, after World War Terminus and the dust that covered the planet, all the birds died," and so on.

In this disturbingly soon-to-be future, most humans have emigrated to Mars due to the toxicity of the air on Earth and those who remain are in danger of becoming classified as "specials" or "chickenheads" due to brain damage that results from the poor air quality. Real animals are a rarity and the biggest status symbol is to have an animal to tend to--or if you can't afford one, an android animal that is made to act almost exactly like real animals (though this is little consolation to their owners).

The novelfollows Rick Deckard, a San Francisco bounty hunter who must put to rest eight disturbingly-human Nexus-6 androids who have escaped from Mars (after killing their owners), and John Isidore, a special who drives a van for an android animal repair company. Isidore's been classified as an special for not meeting IQ cutoffs. Still, he possesses what all androids lack: empathy.

The book is worth reading for the number of increasingly relevant issues it raises about articifial intelligence. (Check out this recent article on how scientists fear that machines' outsmarting humans: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/sci...)

Is it foolish for humans to empathize with artificial life? Are humans who lack empathy still different from androids who are human in other other way? Is it right to judge someone's worth due to his or her score on an IQ test (an obvious one)? Do androids have credible feelings of their own? Is it so cut and dry, the existence of empathy? What is reality if so much has changed and can be manipulated? If you can simply dial in your response to a situation, are you no longer human? Are such mood-alterers a slippery slope?

What I also found interesting was seeing how P.K. Dick had inspired some recurring themes in one of my favorite writers, Haruki Murakami. For instance, is it necessarily wrong to choose an artificial world if it's better than the real world? When does reality become so warped that its distinction from an alternate universe becomes a moot point? Are there already entirely different realities that we're simply unaware of?

All food for thought, making this a significant and worthy book, if not as polished as the books and movies it's inspired. (less)

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Dec 05, 2007

Justin rated it

Recommends it for: sci fi fans, those interested in bringing down the quality of Bladerunner

Shelves: taught

I've been saying for years that this book is boring. But it's more than that, it's not excusable in the way that a purely boring book can be. Instead, it's a tremendous idea told badly.

It seems that when Dick wrote this he didn't have a good grasp on translating his big ideas into an engrossing--or even active story. It's not that there's no movement in the story. Things happen, but even when they do, even in the throes of the final confrontation, when Deckard is retiring three andys in one aba...more

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Jul 27, 2008

Jessica rated it

Recommends it for: people ready to have their minds blown

Shelves: fiction, memoirs, sci-fi

I've been on a PKD kick lately, so I picked this up to keep me occupied on a recent work-related trip to Milwaukee. It didn't disappoint!

One of my co-workers kept asking me questions about how the characters and events lined up to those in Blade Runner, and the truth is: I have no idea. (But I am now very eager to find out!)

I was more fixated on a) following the story, which moves quickly, and b) comparing the androids described here to the cylons [subclass: skin job] on Battlestar Galactica. Ye...more

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Feb 20, 2009

Arlene Ang rated it

I don't read sci-fi normally, but this just rocked my boat. Wonderful surreal landscape and situations. The mood organ and the zany portrait of marriage in the first chapter is priceless. The ending is much better, or at least more realistic, than in the Bladerunner movie — which has little to do with the book.

The title took an interesting turn for me, too as the story progressed. The question wasn't about if androids dreamed of electric sheep, but if androids were able to "desire" taking care...more

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Jan 04, 2009

Madeline rated it

Shelves: science-fiction, the-movie-is-better, the-list

Meh. Still not sure about this one. I'm going to talk about the movie, because I can't review a book that's been made into a movie without comparing the two versions, but in this case it's pretty hard. (by the way, when I say the movie, I mean the final director's cut - I've never seen the original) The book, obviously, has a lot more detail about the world that Deckard lives in, including a lot more information concerning everyone's desire to own an animal - Deckard and his wife (oh, and he's m...more Meh. Still not sure about this one. I'm going to talk about the movie, because I can't review a book that's been made into a movie without comparing the two versions, but in this case it's pretty hard. (by the way, when I say the movie, I mean the final director's cut - I've never seen the original) The book, obviously, has a lot more detail about the world that Deckard lives in, including a lot more information concerning everyone's desire to own an animal - Deckard and his wife (oh, and he's married in the book. And yes, he still sleeps with Rachael) own a fake sheep, but he wants a real one so badly he carries a catalogue around with him that lists the market prices for animals. Also the book describes the religion of the time, Mercerism, which I don't have enough space to explain and didn't really understand anyway. Those details, although confusing, made the book worth reading. The last few chapters made very little sense, and if anyone were to ask me to summarize them I would be at a complete loss. The movie ending is a little less confusing, but not much.
I'm still not sure how I felt about the way androids are portrayed in the two versions. In the book, they're unfeeling, cruel, and self-centered, and even though the characters spend a lot of time talking about how hard it is to kill an android, Deckard is able to retire six of them with almost ridiculous ease. In the movie, androids are much more sympathetic characters who just want to exist on Earth and blend in. (to be fair, Dick's original android characters want this too, but they're much bigger jerks about it)
I couldn't stand Rachael in either version - she's the same level of irritating in both the book and the movie and I wanted to slap both versions at some point in the story.
Okay, now that I've waffled pointlessly enough, I'm going to call it: I prefer the movie version. Two reasons for this: first, although Harrison Ford doesn't really fit the character described in Dick's book, I could never truly hate Han Solo. If that admiration can survive The Indiana Jones Movie That We Do Not Speak Of, it can certainly survive Blade Runner. The second reason is the ending line, "It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?"
There you go.(less)

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May 23, 2012

Bruce rated it

Is there anyone reading this who doesn't know that this book was the basis for the movie Blade Runner? Look, this is a very good book that is worth reading in its own right, although what I think fans of that film will mostly take away from reading it is just how brilliant a screenwriter and adapter was Dennis Potter.* In retaining the book's mood and exploration of whether or not empathy can be regarded as a fundamental human trait (whether machines can have souls), it's fascinating to see what...more Is there anyone reading this who doesn't know that this book was the basis for the movie Blade Runner? Look, this is a very good book that is worth reading in its own right, although what I think fans of that film will mostly take away from reading it is just how brilliant a screenwriter and adapter was Dennis Potter.* In retaining the book's mood and exploration of whether or not empathy can be regarded as a fundamental human trait (whether machines can have souls), it's fascinating to see what he and/or the set designers kept (such as delapidated urban landscapes, hovercars, the noirish bounty hunter's job details, tools -- the Voigt-Kampff empathy test in particular --, relationship with Rachael Rosen), what was changed (such as the opera singer turned exotic dancer, the chickenhead ambulance driver turned genius toy designer, the fallout-plagued, abandoned world turned Malthusian remnant), what was cut (such as Mercerism and its conflict with Buster Friendly propaganda, Decker's wife Iran, and the throwaway bit with the duplicate police office), and what was invented out of whole cloth or else extrapolated (Nexus-6 androids as "replicants," their motivations and character arcs, Kodalyi's transformation into Edward James Olmos' Greek chorus commentary by way of origami, and Roy Baty's showdown with his creator, Tyrell).

Potter's dialogue is especially transformative and illustrative, even poetic. Decker's first interview with Rachael appears in both the book (starting about p. 39) and is one of the movie's opening scenes; much of the dialogue is identical. However, the film version redacts and distills much of what Dick first put on paper, and the result is that much more profound. Going by memory, I've underlined what Potter, et al. left out:

"I'm Rachael Rosen. I guess you're Mr. Deckard."

"This is not my idea," he said.

"Yes, Inspector Bryant told us that. But you're officially the San Francisco Police Department, and it doesn't believe our unit is to the public benefit." She eyed him from beneath long black lashes, probably artificial.

Rick said, "A humanoid robot is like any other machine; it can fluctuate between being a benefit and a hazard very rapidly. As a benefit it's not our problem."

"But as a hazard," Rachael Rosen said, "then you come in. Is it true, Mr. Deckard, that you're a bounty hunter?"

He shrugged, with reluctance, nodded.

"You have no difficulty viewing an android as inert," the girl said, "so you can 'retire' it, as they say."

"Do you have the group selected out for me?" he said. "I'd like to--" He broke off. Because, all at once, he had seen their animals.

At this juncture in the film if I remember rightly, Decker is distracted by a beautiful, but obviously mechanical owl. The owl is a visual metaphor for how Decker and humanity writ large see Rosen's creations: as beautiful, albeit soulless creations, luxuriant mockeries of the real. In the book, however, Decker encounters a whole menagerie of caged animals, which he takes for genuine. He both envies this ostentatious display of wealth and covets the animals' possession as a conspicuous means to demonstrate his nurturing capacity to others. There follows a lengthy (and a bit repetitive) discourse on the Sidney's catalogue and the monetary value placed on the ownership of other living creatures as pets.

While Decker's Mercerist obsession with animals makes a fascinating addition to the book's backstory and does much to illustrate how a cult of empathy could emerge in the devastating aftermath of nihilistic war(s), both it and the addition of his wife undermine and detract from Decker's grapplings with his own identity. As a classic hardboiled detective in the noir mold of Philip Marlowe, Decker confronts filmgoers and readers with the irony that he may be no less empathetic -- no more human -- than the replicant androids he is paid to hunt. Potter reveals this conflict gradually, allows it to escalate toward the film's climax, at which point it is directly addressed (in parallel between Baty-Tyrell and Decker-Rachael). For Dick, it reverberates throughout his book.

I'm by no means the first person to point this out. In just looking up the name of the Eldon Rosen character in the movie (Tyrell), I came upon this similar analysis, which compares book dialogue and plot with similar material from the film, reaching similar conclusions. (Note that this link contains quite a few spoilers to both book and film, so be warned.)

Dick's book contains other extraneous material (such as the use of mood-altering electric field generators in lieu of drugs and the power of psychosomatic responses to impart real physical damage) that I think reflect more the author's immediate preoccupations than those of the world he wishes us to consider. However, these do not ultimately detract from the work as a whole, be it as a book or as a movie, both of which offer a fascinating and profound exploration of what it means to be human. I happen to think Dennis Potter, et al. do it better, but credit Philip K. Dick for pointing them in the right direction.

* UPDATE - regarding Dennis Potter, a friend of mine who ought to know corrects me, "I'm inclined to agree about Blade Runner improving on its source material, however, I don't believe that Dennis Potter was involved. Though Potter dabbled in science-fiction in his later work like Cold Lazarus, Blade Runner's script was written by others, in particular David Peoples who also wrote the screenplay for Clint Eastwood's movie Unforgiven."

Mea culpa. In fact Dennis Potter is not credited on IMDB, although he has been credited with Blade Runner authorship in multiple critical reviews of his work as a whole (which also address screenplays IMDB does credit him for: Gorky Park, The Singing Detective, and Pennies from Heaven). If the Blade Runner attribution is in fact just factoid, maybe it arises from confusion from Potter's teleplay for BBC's Blade on the Feather (which my friend describes for me as "a play he wrote for British TV in the late-70s featuring Tom Conti and Denholm Elliot")?(less)

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Jan 25, 2010

Dan rated it

The setting is around 2020, after the World War, when most of the humans have emigrated to Mars. The humans who remain on earth face the dust, a nuclear fallout that renders men sterile, necessitating that they wear lead codpieces. To entice humans to emigrate, the government promises them servant androids who can fulfill their every need. The latest model of android, the Nexus-6, is almost indistinguishable from a human being. Only an empathy test, administered by a trained police bounty hunter...more The setting is around 2020, after the World War, when most of the humans have emigrated to Mars. The humans who remain on earth face the dust, a nuclear fallout that renders men sterile, necessitating that they wear lead codpieces. To entice humans to emigrate, the government promises them servant androids who can fulfill their every need. The latest model of android, the Nexus-6, is almost indistinguishable from a human being. Only an empathy test, administered by a trained police bounty hunter, can identify androids...and once an escaped android is identified it must be retired.

Richard Deckard just learned the department's senior bounty hunter has been picked off by a Nexus-6. He now must try the impossible: retire 6 Nexus-6 in a 24 hour period. Not only are the androids dangerous, but they bring a bounty of $1000 each, and Rick needs the money. He wants to buy a real animal to replace his electronic sheep.

I enjoyed this book, one of the best "idea books" I have ever read. The future contains "Penfield Mood Organs", where it is possible to "dial a mood" such as 888: the desire to watch TV, no matter what is on it.
I think it was included in the list for its exploration of what it means to be human, what common experience binds humans? What creates a loyalty among a group of people, or an empathy? The androids are so sophisticated and realistic that some humans have had relationships with them. Created for a life of bondage, the latest androids are conscious of lacking empathy, in the form of an inability to participate in organized religion (called Mercerism). The empathy test Deckard administers measures the individual's physiological response to a series of scenarios, all involving a percieved cruelty to life (example: you go to cabin and there is a mounted deer head). After the World War life is so scarce and precious that all humans would be appalled by any destruction of life, for any reason. Androids cannot be made to simulate this empathy, this common experience that links all humans. Obviously, such a test poses risks, especially since it is known that certain illnesses can cause a lack of empathy, and therefore cause the subject to fail the test and be "retired".(less)

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Aug 16, 2011

Aloha rated it

Shelves: a-audios, a-ebooks, a-own, genre-sci-fi, z-dick-philip, a-forum-read, b-dystopian, a-favorites, a-reviewed, b-technological-singularity, c-sf-masterworks

“Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the emphatic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.” so states a passage in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

The setting of the book is San Francisco in 2021, after World War Terminus have spread radioactive dust over earth. Most of the living creatures have become extinct through exposure to radiation...more

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Jan 27, 2009

Jason rated it

Ooooooh, i think i get it now! The title "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Is intentionally ambiguous. It wants you to think of "dream" as the notion of sleep, when it's "dream" as palpable hope. The incisive plot threat in the book revolves around a set of androids with the ambition to outlast human beings. It seems like they only want to survive, but their leader--Roy Baty--alludes toward a propagandized theme he led the group with, that Mercer is a fake and without empathy human beings a...more Ooooooh, i think i get it now! The title "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Is intentionally ambiguous. It wants you to think of "dream" as the notion of sleep, when it's "dream" as palpable hope. The incisive plot threat in the book revolves around a set of androids with the ambition to outlast human beings. It seems like they only want to survive, but their leader--Roy Baty--alludes toward a propagandized theme he led the group with, that Mercer is a fake and without empathy human beings are not worth saving. Their endeavor is impractical, because they are so few, depend on human beings to be constructed, and are hunted. But the symbolic, allegorical aspect is when the world is so bereft of empathy, we all act like robots anyway. What's the sense in caring about life or death? The soul is beat.

In the end of the book, one of the andys is cutting legs off a spider. It's the last of its kind. It's going to die anyway. This is a justification for torture. That's what the book is about, the anguish of being near the end. Of course, as was written in other reviews, much of the logistics of life are not accounted for...food? water? despite the dust, they get electricity? Will human beings survive? With no vegetation, there'd be no oxygen? No circle of life? Isn't death just around the corner?

This book is about the absurd man. What, in fact, is the Absurd Man? In the words of Camus: He who, without negating it, does nothing for the eternal. This book is about a question, that between preserving a dying life system, or letting it fall to its naturally disabling evolution (it's called kipple here, and the metaphor for it is useless junk, pretty genius). Camus writes about a man who goes on doing in the face of "God's" letting him alone. Not to be disheartened by the unintelligent vacuum of space, but to be delighted in the complicity of any consciousness. The Absurd man says:

"This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction."

Not that nostalgia is foreign to him. But he prefers his courage and his reasoning. The first teaches him to live without appeal and to get along with what he has; the second informs him of his limits. Assured of his temporally limited freedom, of his revolt devoid of future, and of his mortal consciousness, he lives out his adventure within the span of his lifetime. That is his field, that is his action, which he shields from any judgment but his own.

This book is a testament to an absurd idea: in the event of a world that is dying, do we give up hope or preserve. The world has already made its choice in a remarkably sad, even obscene remorse: trying to preserve every single living thing, and if not that, then the representation thereof. And also, to kill any sentient being who could threaten that kind of hospitality. Those who do not empathize with the absurdity, must be killed. The biting edge here, is that that endeavor to kill those who are not absurd is its own absurdity. The world engulfed in flagellating tears, it seems. The only prevention for sadness is to condemn the wicked.

Rick Deckard's existential crisis is his awakening to a despair, a real despair, above this false hope presentation of preservation. He sees that killing even those that are not real, the androids, is still killing. And in the plight to preserve all life, is fake life still life? The immortal android question! His resolution: I think a frighteningly sad but noble one--go on with the hopeless drive for life and the killing of those who try to stop it. Because, inevitably, the alternative is no life at all. He steps out of the cave and comes back; but rather than revolt, in willing complicity he resigns to his duty. He is the absurd man. A very solid, very depressing theme.(less)

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Aug 20, 2012

Kara Petrucci rated it

Shelves: adventure-whore, sexist-hogshwot

Besides the sexism and obvious obsession Dick has with tits in this novel, it offered a rather different portrayal of dystopia. The overlying subject of the novel seems to be the significance of being a living entity and having the ability for empathy and compassion. However, the novel constantly tests the characteristics that make humans human. Society programs individuals to behave in a certain way and perceive the world in such a way that fits the conventional mold.

J.R Isodore plays the role...more

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Jun 24, 2012

Tze-Wen rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: e-books, owned, dystopia, sf-fantasy, sparrow-and-nightingale, science-fiction, 2012

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the first book I've read that was written by Philip K. Dick, or PKD for short. I found it laced with black humour and philosophical questioning. At the same time, the pace of the story was never slowed down too much nor any pondering about real or artificial life without purpose to the narrative.
In the midst of hopelessness, on a scorched and plagued Earth, humans focus their efforts on obtaining a real animal. Animals - most of them rare if not extinct -...more Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the first book I've read that was written by Philip K. Dick, or PKD for short. I found it laced with black humour and philosophical questioning. At the same time, the pace of the story was never slowed down too much nor any pondering about real or artificial life without purpose to the narrative.
In the midst of hopelessness, on a scorched and plagued Earth, humans focus their efforts on obtaining a real animal. Animals - most of them rare if not extinct - are both a status symbol and a sign of enlightenment: without a living pet, you are branded as one who lacks the all-important empathy, thus marking you as one without morality and spirituality. Yet, despite the gravity of the situation, there is just something tragically funny about the deals Deckard tries to broker in order to own a living animal.
PKD's brilliance shines brightest in the scenes that turn one's sense of reality upside down. My personal favourite is the one in which accomplished opera singer Luba Luft calls the authorities on her molester and would-be killer, and a bounty hunter unknown to Deckard shows up. For a moment, it seems as if two parallel realities have overlapped by happenstance and that Deckard has stumbled into the alien one. The reader starts to wonder whether Rick Deckard is the android here and not Miss Luft. The carefully orchestrated confusion is then agonisingly dragged out for a few more pages, with Phil Resch launching into self-enquiry on his suddenly debated humanity.
On the downside, while empathy is stressed as an indispensable human quality, the characters in the book do not call up that particular emotion. From Rick Deckard himself to his purposefully depressed wife Iran, the Nexus-6 androids and genetically damaged J.R. Isidore, only Isidore manages to convey his heartfelt loneliness and arouse any sympathy from the reader. In my opinion, the display of calculating, desperate humans and humanoids alike makes their differences blur even more. If humans and their android counterparts are so much alike, then why do androids have no fundamental rights? Furthermore, what would a human do in such dire conditions? To be "born" into slavery, only to die four years later, having achieved nothing? Would a human being not also kill his or her oppressors for a chance at life in freedom?
Blade Runner, a 1982 movie by director Ridley Scott (known for the Alien franchise and more recently Prometheus), was based on this novel. While it differs from the original in many aspects - leaving out Mercerism and television icon Buster Friendly and giving the Nexus-6 renegades a more elaborately explained purpose for fleeing to Earth - I found it just as enjoyable as PKD's story itself. If you have not yet seen it, I recommend you go and give it a try.(less)

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May 08, 2011

Shovelmonkey1 rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone who believes the world is going down the sh*tter

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list

Shelves: 1001-books, bookcrossing-books, read-in-2011

This book taught me two thing:
1. I'm not as entirely sceptical about sci-fi as I thought I was.
2. Where the band, "The Killers" got their name from (one of them was clearly a big PKD fan).

However, can someone please answer me this; why is it all sci-fi writers look into the future, scratch their heads and then put pen to paper only to map out the demise of earth and the fall of mankind due to either:
*Disaster (any kind will do - nuclear, chemical, biological, asteroid, genetic engineering gone h...more

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Apr 29, 2011

Benjamin Duffy rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: e-books, great-movie-great-book, fantasy-sci-fi

It seems to me that a lot of science fiction writers, even well-known and popular ones, aren’t great writers. They’re great at concept and imagination, but not always that good at conveying their imaginings to the reader. One example would be Larry Niven, whose Ringworld quartet I finished a couple of years ago. As captivated as I was by his world-building, I was equally frustrated by his storytelling. The pacing hitched and jerked like an old truck, racing through some parts while draaaaaaaaggi...more It seems to me that a lot of science fiction writers, even well-known and popular ones, aren’t great writers. They’re great at concept and imagination, but not always that good at conveying their imaginings to the reader. One example would be Larry Niven, whose Ringworld quartet I finished a couple of years ago. As captivated as I was by his world-building, I was equally frustrated by his storytelling. The pacing hitched and jerked like an old truck, racing through some parts while draaaaaaaagging through others, and the description was so vague that it was often like looking at Niven’s (presumably amazing) world through a small, dirty window.

After reading Philip K. Dick’s Adjustment Team, I was prepared to put him in the same category, as that book was built on an interesting premise, but just felt skeletal and under-written. Fortunately for me, I decided to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and see if I was wrong. I was. The book is richly written, nicely paced, and while the dialogue is slightly wooden, that actually fits well in a story where most of the characters are androids, psychopaths, or mentally retarded – it added an uneasy, off-kilter feel to character interactions that worked nicely with the atmosphere of the book. I also found the religious and philosophical aspects of the story very interesting, not to mention unique, which is pretty hard to accomplish.

I was of course very familiar with Blade Runner, the film inspired by this book, but I did my best not to let that affect my expectations. As it turns out, the book is very different in feel than the film, being desolate and post-apocalyptic rather than claustrophobic and noir-ish. There’s also a pretty heavy dose of cultural satire with a feel somewhat like Stephen King’s The Running Man or the film Robo-Cop. Except for the shared names of a lot of the characters, it would have been easy to forget the movie was even based on the book.

I highly recommend this book, whether you've seen the movie, liked it, or not. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is an intriguing, thought-provoking creature all its own.

PS - One interesting thing is that the titular electric sheep actually feature significantly in the plot. It’s not just some metaphor, as I assumed it would be. Crazy.
(less)

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Apr 22, 2011

Jennifer rated it

Shelves: sci-fi-other

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a classic post-apocalyptic thriller. It was the vague (from what I hear) basis for the movie Blade Runner that I did see, but don't remember one scene from. Obviously the book is much more memorable.

Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter, paid to kill androids that are living illegally on Earth. This is more difficult that you'd expect since the only real difference between androids and humans is the ability to feel empathy. As you fake an empathetic response to...more Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a classic post-apocalyptic thriller. It was the vague (from what I hear) basis for the movie Blade Runner that I did see, but don't remember one scene from. Obviously the book is much more memorable.

Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter, paid to kill androids that are living illegally on Earth. This is more difficult that you'd expect since the only real difference between androids and humans is the ability to feel empathy. As you fake an empathetic response to situations, he employs a strange lie detector type test to spot the androids. This works well for him until a woman beats the test. Or does she? This uncertainty sets of a chain-reaction of doubt in Deckard that follows him throughout his hunt for the remaining androids.

Mercerism is the official (and as far as I could tell only) religion on earth. It is a shared empathy-based religion where followers can "commune" with their god Wilbur Mercer through a tool called an empathy box. Another part of the religion is the owning of animals. As most animals are extinct, real animals are very expensive. Some people resort to owning fake electric animals and pretend their animals are real so others don't think bad of them, hence the "Electric Sheep" in the title. Empathy is a huge issue in this book and once Deckard finds that he feels empathy for androids his entire world is shaken.

Mood organs are owned and used to regulate a person's mood. Any mood (out of hundred of possibilities) can be chosen for each specific occasion in life. There are also hovercars, a classic futuristic staple. This book is truly and completely science fiction oriented.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is bizarre, but in an entertaining, unexpected way. You don't see the plot twists coming because you don't know what this future Earth has to offer. You could go as far as to suggest that a lot of the moral and ethical dilemmas presented here are social commentary on the world around us, but the book is thought-provoking enough without reading anything more into the situations. (less)

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Aug 04, 2011

Charlie Flannelly rated it

Shelves: favourites, to-reread, desert-island, my-actual-bookshelf

Brain-burstingly brilliant. I read it in two or three sittings, and when I wasn't reading it I was thinking about it, coming up with theory after theory about how it would all work out--"Decker's an android!", "They're all androids!", "None of them are!", etc. Some of the ideas in here were fascinating, and I could definitely see how the author was influenced by Asimov's "I, Robot", building upon some of the concepts barely touched on in the older novel, though I'd say those ideas were executed...more

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About Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago in 1928 and lived most of his life in California. He briefly attended the University of California, but dropped out before completing any classes. In 1952, he began writing professionally and proceeded to write numerous novels and short-story collections. He won the Hugo Award for the best novel in 1962 for The Man in the High Castle and the John W. Campbell Memo...more

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