A masterpiece ahead of its time, a prescient rendering of a dark future, and the inspiration for the blockbuster film Blade Runner

By 2021, the World War has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remain covet any living creature, and for people who can’t afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep. They’ve even built humans. Immigrants to Mars receive androids so sophisticated they are indistinguishable from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans can wreak, the government bans them from Earth. Driven into hiding, unauthorized androids live among human beings, undetected. Rick Deckard, an officially sanctioned bounty hunter, is commissioned to find rogue androids and “retire” them. But when cornered, androids fight back—with lethal force.

Praise for Philip K. Dick

“The most consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world.”—John Brunner

“A kind of pulp-fiction Kafka, a prophet.”—The New York Times

“[Philip K. Dick] sees all the sparkling—and terrifying—possibilities . . . that other authors shy away from.”—Rolling Stone

Length: 258 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a book that most people think they remember and almost always get more or less wrong. Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner took a lot from it, and threw a lot away. Wonderful in itself, the film is a flash thriller, whereas Dick's novel is a sober meditation. As we all know, bounty hunter Rick Deckard is stalking a group of androids who have returned from space with short life spans and murder on their minds--where Scott's Deckard was Harrison Ford, Dick's is a financially strapped municipal employee with bills to pay and a depressed wife. In a world where most animals have died, and pet keeping is a social duty, he can only afford a robot imitation, unless he gets a big financial break.

The genetically warped "chickenhead" John Isidore has visions of a tomb-world where entropy has finally won. And everyone plugs in to the spiritual agony of Mercer, whose sufferings for the sins of humanity are broadcast several times a day. Prefiguring the religious obsessions of Dick's last novels, this book asks dark questions about identity and altruism. After all, is it right to kill the killers just because Mercer says so? --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

In Dick's futuristic dystopian novel, life has become a tenuous existence for those who have stayed behind after the war and exodus to other planets. Rick Deckard struggles as a bounty hunter in San Francisco to destroy a new breed of androids nearly undetectable to humans. However, he finds himself battling with empathy for the supposed lifeless beings—especially when he must team up with one to achieve his goal. Dick blends the detective story with science fiction and a bit of philosophy. Brick is a perfect match for one of Dick's most memorable novels. He maintains Deckard's grittier disposition and a range of other human and inhuman characters, but also provides the inflection and morose tones found in the story's more somber moments. Not all of his female voices are completely believable. However, one of Brick's most gifted abilities lies in his quivering voice used throughout for emphasis and mood. A Del Rey paperback. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product details

File Size: 2098 KB
Print Length: 258 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books (February 26, 2008)
Publication Date: February 26, 2008
Sold by: Random House LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B000SEGTI0
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

X-Ray:

Enabled

Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

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Freemont DelRay

Not Blade Runner, but a deeper look at the human psyche through the lens of a moral dilemma

January 18, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

He turns off machines, that's his job. They are dangerous machines, androids, but he is basically turning off machines. But he realizes that there is little difference between the machines and the people he knows. So why MUST the machines be turned off?

This is a moral dilemma for Decker and he cannot untwist his increasing sympathy for the androids he is hunting from his sense of duty to the force and his wife.

It is very sad and very depressing especially when you are clearly presented with androids who are not sympathetic, do not care, except about their own survival, and can only imitate emotion, not really feel. In the end Decker is crippled by his murder of the last of the androids. He will no longer hunt them, can no longer kill them.

Blade Runner hinted at this moral dilemma but spectacle triumphed over substance and all we have left of it is Decker's moves to save the woman/android he has come to love. That, and the magnificent monologue of Rutger Hauer on the roof of the Bradbury Building. Stunning performance. That recollection of his life makes him human, no different then other humans but then, it's time to die. Love, love, love that scene.

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As Good As The Movie, In Its Own Way

September 22, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is one of those stories I have been meaning to read for years (ever since viewing "Blade Runner," starring Harrison Ford/Rutger Hauer/Darryl Hannah). The movie is loosely based upon the book; however, the vision created by Philip K. Dick is one that is not to be missed.

I found the world the author created to be fascinating. While there is fear of androids, humans use devices to dictate their emotions. Television is a major factor in their lives, and religion is embraced but controlled. The author handles all of this and more in a matter-of-fact style, drawing the reader into a future that at times is strange, yet vaguely familiar to those of us living in what would have been PKD's future.

The story is told through two people, the bounty hunter Rick Deckard and John Isidore, a "damaged" human who lives for a time with the androids Deckard is hunting. The reader sees the world through the eyes of these two men, and we are allowed to experience the inner turmoil both must deal with as the story rushes to its conclusion.

While I still love the movie, the differences between the book and movie versions are why I awarded five stars. Some of the book explained a bit of the back-story never told in the movie, and the well-detailed future world is definitely worth your time.

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Van T. Roberts

Far Superior To the Film!!!

November 22, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Philip K. Dick's novel surpasses the Ridley Scott's cult classic on many levels. The novel contains some white-knuckled suspense sequences, and it has predicaments and situations that are far more provocative than the film. It seems difficult to believe that Scott and his writers didn't leave it alone instead of trying to improve it. The book deals with what it means to be human, and principally this is empathy. Our bounty hunting San Francisco Policeman wants to buy a live animal rather than keep a computerized sheep that mysteriously malfunctions. In the post-apocalyptic San Francisco, humans all strive to have some kind of animal. These humans live in the aftermath of a nuclear war referred to as "World War Terminus" that has eliminated many animals. As it turns out, our hero is a second-string sort of bounty hunter who discovers that the number one bounty hunter has been wounded by a Nexus-6 model android, and he has the chance 'to retire' these androids. The Rick Deckerd character in the novel has a wife and his adventures against the androids are much more suspenseful. One of the best scenes occurs when he is arrested after trying to test an opera singer and is taken into custody at an alternative San Francisco Police Headquarters. If you love the film, but you haven't read the novel, you may change your mind after you read all the missed opportunities that Scott and company passed up when they adapted the novel.

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Maverick

No i have not seen Blade Runner Yet.

October 19, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This kind of novel defies understanding. I could tell there was enough in here to leave revelations after several readings, despite its slim size, but my one read through yielded enough for a satisfying experience. Empathy is an obvious theme. The novel asks us what deserves our empathy, and twists that in surprising ways. Once we start to see the androids as something akin to human, PKD twists our legs off. Its an interesting juxtaposition, and made for a fascinating scene.

My favorite quality of this novel is how pkd shifted the world and examined the cultural impact of it. After WWT, live animals became scarce leading to a market of life like robotic animals. Actual animals became pricey commodities and a symbol of status. Our hero of the novel desires a living animal, and he obsesses over it throughout to an almost comical degree. This is where the title comes in, he owns an electric sheep and wonders if the androids have their own humanlike desires.

A great read, i see why PKD is a legend. His imagination is astounding and breaks all the rules without breaking a sweat. Will read more of his work including this novel again. You should too.

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Allen Smalling

The difference between humans and humanoid androids is . . . what? . . . --

April 19, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I found this book fascinating, and in all respects except visual style superior to its movie derivative, the influential BLADE RUNNER. A San Francisco cop who is part detective, part bounty-hunter, is deputed to bringing in escaped androids from Mars, who have become so human-looking and -acting that they are difficult to locate, track, and kill. That part is the same as the movie, except that this top PKD novel is set in an explicitly post-nuclear world, not merely a chronically polluted one, and most of the differences flow from that. Even so, Dick makes it surprising. While he was rarely a top prose stylist, Dick's ideas and plots are so innovative and compelling that it doesn't really matter. If you're read any of his other novels, such as THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, you'll probably enjoy this one. If PKD is new to you, this is a good one to start with.

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Most recent customer reviews

Mark Abernethy.

Somehow darker but less rape-y so that's good. Does a much better job of illustrating what ...

Definitely not Blade Runner. Somehow darker but less rape-y so that's good. Does a much better job of illustrating what the movie can only hint at.

Published 6 hours ago

Aaron Bass

Loved it!

Imagery, timing, intimacy. They are all there as expected.
Time to go climb the mountain with Mercer now. Amen amen.

Published 2 days ago

Valerii Soloviov

Still good book for 2018

I found that this fiction is not outdated for 2018.
I anticipated to hero. I loved the hero.
It's very good book!

Published 4 days ago

SpaghettimanTop Contributor: Minecraft

A deeper, more complex Blade Runner

Having recently seen the original Blade Runner for the first time earlier this year and enjoyed it, I decided to partake of the story it was based...Read more

Published 4 days ago

RhiannonKH

This was college assignment reading.

This was college assignment reading. Very disturbing book and yet had a huge impact on me thinking of where we are with cloning and AI

Published 10 days ago

Michael A~~~~

THE SCIENCE FICTION CLASSIC THAT I REPURCHASED BECAUSE MY OLD ...

THE SCIENCE FICTION CLASSIC THAT I REPURCHASED BECAUSE MY OLD COPY JUST FELL APART AND IT'S AS CLASSIC AS EVER AFTER ALL THESE YEARS~~~!!!!!

Published 13 days ago

Adriane

Great

Published 14 days ago

What for

Not for everyone, like all sci fi! But likeable.

If you like fantasy this is your cup of tea or wine ,whatever you want go for it the time is not wasted as with some books! You may not love it, but you wont regret, the effort

Published 15 days ago

Python

Absolutely brilliant.

It was good, like really good. There were moments I didn't want to put it down and it asks great questions in a way that is similar to the movie blade runner, but in it's own way.

Published 15 days ago

J. L. Malenfant

Its worth the time to read.

The story is different from the movie, but the dialogue feels natural and the venues are described very well as are the scenes.

Published 20 days ago

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