Customer Reviews

Blade Runner

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Androids takes place in a not-so-distant future where a world war has spread a cloud of radioactive dust across the globe, many forms of animal species are extinct, many of the survivors have emigrated to colonies on Mars and the remaining humans are encouraged to emigrate, except for those who have been tested and classified as "specials" meaning the ones with diminished mental abilities because they have been affected severely from radiation. Emigrants are given androids, very sophisticated robots, as slaves. As the technology gets better, newly manufactured androids become more and more human-like, both in appearance and behavior, to the point that they are very hard to distinguish. Discontented androids sometimes kill their masters and find ways to smuggle themselves to earth, in hopes for a better life. In the post-world war earth, life is regarded so precious that owning and caring for an animal is both considered a highly moral life and a status symbol. Because real animals are so rare, many people have fake, very sophisticated and real-like electronic animals that they care for and hide from their neighbors the fact that their animal is fake. On the one hand there are bounty hunters who catch and kill androids, human robots which dreamt of a better life, evidently with some feelings. And on the other hand there is the value which people place upon animal robots. On the one hand there are intelligent, sophisticated androids like the one who made a successful carrier on earth as an opera singer; on the other hand there are hunters who emotionlessly kill her without regard to her artistic talent, or there are simple-minded specials. Throughout the plot, readers are given a lot to think about questions like what is life, what is empathy, where do you draw a line between the value of real and artificial life? It is a philosophical novel and the author puts all these questions before us with brilliant comparisons between characters. The only negative feeling that one might get is the unusual, somewhat simple prose style but overall, a very good, thought provoking novel.

Strange, Dark, Intense book about what the future could be; what could happen to the human race. Phil did a wonderful work on this book. First I saw the movie Blade Runner, one the best sci-fi I've seen, then I got the computer game, wow, like seen the movie, the only thing missing was the book. This book it's probably one of the best sci-fi books I've read, now I know and understand better the computer game, because I tried to related the game with the movie, but it also got a lot of things from the novel.

This is a must read book, it travels to the year 2021 and it presents a different world, were human emotions are maybe the only thing left from the world we know; all it's gone, the animals, people are moving from earth to other planets, and the androids are moving from the other planets to earth, it's up to the bounty hunters (Blade Runners) to find them and retire them (kill); it put your emotions on the line, because at some point, I feel sorry for the androids, they only want to escape form the humans and make their own lives here on earth, the new ones (Nexus 6) are trying to develop their own emotions. It's a great book and it would make you think about a lot of thing in life and appreciate more the things you have, because in the end, how do you know if you're an android or a human? You cannot, that's the problem...

Dick's book, far more so than the movie you have probably seen, problematizes the issue of personhood, as opposed to humanity. In the culture of the year 2021, the criterion for personhood is the ability to feel empathy, both for humans and for nonhuman animals. The culture has even built a religion, Mercerism, centered on empathy. Androids, who cannot participate in Mercerism, are used as slaves by humans who have colonized outlying planets. The murder and torture of animals is a crime, but the murder and enslavement of androids is required, despite the fact that androids are more intelligent than humans.

This is a readable problematization of issues of personhood which can be used to introduce the philosophically naive reader to questions about what it is to be a person:
-- Does intelligence matter?
-- Can a robot ever meet the criteria, or is there a soul or ghost in the human machine which can never be in the humanmade machine?
-- To what extent does slavery and cruel treatment construct beings as non-persons?
-- Does species matter?

Philosopher and non-philosopher alike can enjoy Dick's inventiveness (a mood organ for changing your moods, a response test for checking your empathy level, invented words like "vidscreen" . . .) and fluid writing style. The novel has action, but those looking for the action and suspense of the film may be disappointed. The book opts instead for a slower and more contemplative exploration of issues.

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" is a brilliant sci-fi adventure through the streets and skies of futuristic society. Set in 2021, this is a story of Richard Deckard; "Blade Runner", husband and just another person with the usual social ails.

A number of highly advanced androids have made a daring escape "off-Earth" and have come back to Earth to try and survive. Deackards job is to hunt these androids, who appear as much like humans as everyone else and neutralise them before they harm anyone.

Dicks ability and endless imagination drive you through the book, depicting the state that the world has become (the rare existance of live animals) and the demise of the rogue androids.

This was my first exposure to Dicks brilliance and I have since read "The Man in the High Castle" and "Planets of the Alphane Moon", which have both been excellent. If you enjoyed the movie adaptation, you will be thrilled with this books added detail and depth. Enjoy!

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is an excellent introduction into the sci-fiction/philosophical masterworks* (*emphasis on master - Dick is a noted literary genius) of Philip K. Dick because this is one of his best works and also most of you have seen a very close adaptation of this book, a film called Blade Runner, which unfortunately was released to box office failure shortly after K. Dick's death, only later to become a cult classic that no one has missed from their DVD collection.

Dick's books must be viewed along with writer's ambitions and warnings. In 1968 Dick wrote this story a year before man landed on the moon and yet describes a world somewhere closer to our own, in a `very soon down the road' roundabout way, as Dick does in all his books. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is no different, describing an environmental catastrophic event that leads to Earth's ruin, where humans have migrated to offshore colony worlds, where they get a free human cyborg - a replicant, to serve them. Back on the earth those who remain live in a world where everything is synthetic, the atmosphere radioactive, and where everyone dreams of owning a real live pet, and not a clone controlled by microchips and circuit boards, including our protagonist, Deckard, a professional bounty-hunter cop, with secret ambitions of replacing his electronic sheep with real ones before the neighbours found out how poor he is, so takes on a contract to hunt down and `retire' a group dangerous renegade replicants that escaped from the offshore world colony of Nexus 6, murdering people during the break out and who have managed to make their way to earth blending in with the local population.

Deckard who is looking forward to buying some real sheep goes to visit the Tyrell corporation where he uses, the now unforgettable, Voigt-Kampff test, to see if a human is a cyborg. The Voigt-Kampff test is the key to opening the philosophical mindset of this book - "Is empathy only a human condition?" with the psychology that a replicant will test negative for empathy during the test. The question then arises for Deckard, "has he ever retired a human by mistake?" Dick challenges us to think about this (look at the books title) as Deckard runs across the city retiring replicants who appear to lack empathy only to suddenly find himself up against a new type of Nexus 6 that does not lack empathy and has the ability to learn it. The book will keep you second guessing as to who is real and who is not, but at its heart the question Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in conjunction with Deckard's job, and his desire to own real sheep, leads him slowly down a path of questioning this own existence and reassessing his life and what he thought he knew. The book finished beautifully, answering these questions to the full with a bit of a revelation.

However we would do Dick a disservice, not to at least complement the writer's ability to craft the English language, and more importantly, edit his work to perfection. This is a page turner, without any interlude or boring descriptions. Everything will be absorbed at a fine reading pace. Dick also manages to come up with about 70% dialogue, all of it beautifully written with characterisation that actually goes somewhere. The story is also very exciting!

You will no doubt read another Dick book after finishing this one even if you do not like science-fiction. I also finished his awarding winning "The Man in the High Castle" and "UBIK". And why not? Dick is possibly the best science-fiction writer ever who does not write science-fiction. Maybe the only one that could that. I would read his whole chronicles (50+ books) just after having read this one.

Bravo - a whole new writer with a massive collection to read.

What is the difference between the `artificial' and the `real'? And, more importantly, is it possible to distinguish between the two? If so, how? By pure instinct, or with the help of objective rules? These questions receive multiple interpretations depending on when they intervene in Philip K. Dick's remarkable novel. The opening chapter presents their first occurence: Rick Deckard dreams of owning a real animal instead of the electric sheep he takes care of as if it was a real one (his neighbour was convinced that it was real). Such a distinction is central to Deckard's job: as a blade runner, he kills androids and is thus forced to distinguish between the real and the artificial; if he can't do so, his role loses all its meaning and he becomes a mere criminal. Both his instincts and the test he uses to make that distinction do not seem fool-proof, though, as he repeatedly discovers throughout the book. The humans - those who think they are humans - are not the only ones with questions about identity: three of the Nexus-6 androids Deckard is ordered to kill, Priss Stratton, Roy and Irmgard Baty, hide in a building with a `special' human, John Isidore (himself working for a company that `takes care' of electric animals and thus exposed to the same possible misjudgements), and wonder if he is indeed human and how much they should trust him. The same goes for two seemingly `metaphysical' characters, Buster (whose TV show is broadcasted twenty-four hours a day) and Mercer (empathy boxes enable mystical fusions with him). This is a complex and stimulating work, written by a brilliant thinker.

Now I know why most people who like the book also like the movie or vice versa. It works because both are original in their own way. If Ridley Scott had made his movie 1 to 1 from the book, he would have bored us to death. The book thrives almost entirely on dialogue (internal and external) and on description of minutae (just think of the scene with Isidore, the Andys and the Spider!). PKD is such a great writer, he doesn't need movement to captivate the reader, he simply creates his dark and surreal world, populated with reluctant protagonists driven by powers beyond their control.

Philip K. Dick believes his scrawl, and it definitely comes across to the reader. A very believeable tale that is written with tremendous conviction. "Do Androids..." is one of the best Sci-Fi books ever written -- just behind Frank Herbert's DUNE.

Philip K. Dick books are quickly written books wildly careening between ideas and mixed up plots. He's like a literary anarchist, eschewing structure and command in order to throw everything at the reader. When it works, it's brilliant. When it doesn't work it's horrible. Many times you'll finish a Philip K. Dick book exclaiming "That's it???? Where's the ending?" and other times you'll wonder why such a great idea got passed off to such losers.

This book is one of the latter. There are some great ideas throughout including the emotional machine where you can choose your emotions for that day or hour ("today I will be indulging in a deepseated depression" - "he wasn't sure whether he should push angry or concillatory") as well as the company that keeps making these artificial humans better in order to make Decker's job more difficult. THere are also the robot sheep that exist solely in order to give the illusion that humans still have live pets.

Unfortunately the plot peters out somewhere in the middle and you are left with a confusing mess. No resolution to it, no reason why we should care about these people. Philip K. Dick writes about losers. Sometimes they are losers that you want to read about and other times they are losers that you want to forget.

This is an interesting book but not Dick's best. My personal favorites are Man in the High Castle, Eye in the Sky and Martian Timeslip. Last recommendation - Ripley Scott streamlined many of the plot elements from this book and made them into one of the definitive science fiction thrillers (are there any cities in these futuristic movies where it's NOT raining all the time?) and it is an amazing movie. This book has none of the stylistic elements of that movie. While that movie feels like a trip to a smoke-filled jazz bar where everyone is wearing tuxedos and evening gowns despite the rain, this book feels like a trip to McDonalds.

There is such a vast difference between the book and the movie that I would recommend the book that DOESN'T have a movie picture on the cover. The only place where this is even more true is the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest cover with Jack Nicholson (portraying the main character who is described as 6'5" with flowing red hair and large muscles)

Pretty good book to complete your Philip K. Dick collection, but don't buy it as your first Dick book.

To be honest I liked the book better than the movie (but isn't that always the case?). The thing that always bothered me about the movie was that an important point made in the book was never brought in to the screenplay of the film; and it could have been, without much trouble. The important point I'm talking about is the fact that it is the future and there almost no "real" animals left to have as pets. Everyone has electric sheep or dogs or cats, etc. It is very prestigeous (in the book) to own a "real" animal. Decker figures at $1000 per killed android, he could make the $5000 necessary to acquire the pet goat he wanted. Also, the goat is pivotal late in the book when Rachel (replican) gets mad at Decker for killing her replican friends, and goes to his apartment and throws the goat off the roof to its death (to get even with Decker). This point was important to me and I was amazed they didn't mention it in the film... I think it would have made the "morality" message a little more substantial if they had. Read this book