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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: The inspiration for the films Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 by [Philip K. Dick]

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Philip K. Dick

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: The inspiration for the films Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 Kindle Edition

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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

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229 pages
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English
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Ballantine Books
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February 26, 2008
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You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at all.
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Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one.
Highlighted by 2,522 Kindle readers
In addition, no one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won.
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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

‘The most consistently brilliant SF writer in the world’ John Brunner ‘Dick quietly produced serious fiction in a popular form and there can be no greater praise’ Michael Moorcock ‘One of the most original practitioners writing any kind of fiction, Philip K. Dick made most of the European avant-guarde seem navel-gazers in a cul-de-sac’ Sunday Times ‘He was the funniest SF writer of his time, and perhaps the most terrifying’ Encyclopedia of Science Fiction --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

chapter 1

A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard. Surprised—it always surprised him to find himself awake without prior notice—he rose from the bed, stood up in his multicolored pajamas, and stretched. Now, in her bed, his wife Iran opened her gray, unmerry eyes, blinked, then groaned and shut her eyes again.

“You set your Penfield too weak,” he said to her. “I’ll reset it and you’ll be awake and—”

“Keep your hand off my settings.” Her voice held bitter sharpness. “I don’t want to be awake.”

He seated himself beside her, bent over her, and explained softly. “If you set the surge up high enough, you’ll be glad you’re awake; that’s the whole point. At setting C it overcomes the threshold barring consciousness, as it does for me.” Friendlily, because he felt well-disposed toward the world—his setting had been at D—he patted her bare, pale shoulder.

“Get your crude cop’s hand away,” Iran said.

“I’m not a cop.” He felt irritable, now, although he hadn’t dialed for it.

“You’re worse,” his wife said, her eyes still shut. “You’re a murderer hired by the cops.”

“I’ve never killed a human being in my life.” His irritability had risen now; had become outright hostility.

Iran said, “Just those poor andys.”

“I notice you’ve never had any hesitation as to spending the bounty money I bring home on whatever momentarily attracts your attention.” He rose, strode to the console of his mood organ. “Instead of saving,” he said, “so we could buy a real sheep, to replace that fake electric one upstairs. A mere electric animal, and me earning all that I’ve worked my way up to through the years.” At his console he hesitated between dialing for a thalamic suppressant (which would abolish his mood of rage) or a thalamic stimulant (which would make him irked enough to win the argument).

“If you dial,” Iran said, eyes open and watching, “for greater venom, then I’ll dial the same. I’ll dial the maximum and you’ll see a fight that makes every argument we’ve had up to now seem like nothing. Dial and see; just try me.” She rose swiftly, loped to the console of her own mood organ, stood glaring at him, waiting.

He sighed, defeated by her threat. “I’ll dial what’s on my schedule for today.” Examining the schedule for January 3, 2021, he saw that a businesslike professional attitude was called for. “If I dial by schedule,” he said warily, “will you agree to also?” He waited, canny enough not to commit himself until his wife had agreed to follow suit.

“My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression,” Iran said.

“What? Why did you schedule that?” It defeated the whole purpose of the mood organ. “I didn’t even know you could set it for that,” he said gloomily.

“I was sitting here one afternoon,” Iran said, “and naturally I had turned on ‘Buster Friendly and His Friendly Friends’ and he was talking about a big news item he’s about to break and then that awful commercial came on, the one I hate; you know, for Mountibank Lead Codpieces. And so for a minute I shut off the sound. And I heard the building, this building; I heard the—” She gestured.

“Empty apartments,” Rick said. Sometimes he heard them at night when he was supposed to be asleep. And yet, for this day and age a one-half occupied conapt building rated high in the scheme of population density; out in what had been before the war the suburbs, one could find buildings entirely empty . . . or so he had heard. He had let the information remain secondhand; like most people he did not care to experience it directly.

“At that moment,” Iran said, “when I had the TV sound off, I was in a 382 mood; I had just dialed it. So although I heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn’t feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting—do you see? I guess you don’t. But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness; they called it ‘absence of appropriate affect.’ So I left the TV sound off and I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair.” Her dark, pert face showed satisfaction, as if she had achieved something of worth. “So I put it on my schedule for twice a month; I think that’s a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything, about staying here on Earth after everybody who’s smart has emigrated, don’t you think?”

“But a mood like that,” Rick said, “you’re apt to stay in it, not dial your way out. Despair like that, about total reality, is self-perpetuating.”

“I program an automatic resetting for three hours later,” his wife said sleekly. “A 481. Awareness of the manifold possibilities open to me in the future; new hope that—”

“I know 481,” he interrupted. He had dialed out the combination many times; he relied on it greatly. “Listen,” he said, seating himself on his bed and taking hold of her hands to draw her down beside him, “even with an automatic cutoff it’s dangerous to undergo a depression, any kind. Forget what you’ve scheduled and I’ll forget what I’ve scheduled; we’ll dial a 104 together and both experience it, and then you stay in it while I reset mine for my usual businesslike attitude. That way I’ll want to hop up to the roof and check out the sheep and then head for the office; meanwhile I’ll know you’re not sitting here brooding with no TV.” He released her slim, long fingers, passed through the spacious apartment to the living room, which smelled faintly of last night’s cigarettes. There he bent to turn on the TV.

From the bedroom Iran’s voice came. “I can’t stand TV before breakfast.”

“Dial 888,” Rick said as the set warmed. “The desire to watch TV, no matter what’s on it.”

“I don’t feel like dialing anything at all now,” Iran said.

“Then dial 3,” he said.

“I can’t dial a setting that stimulates my cerebral cortex into wanting to dial! If I don’t want to dial, I don’t want to dial that most of all, because then I will want to dial, and wanting to dial is right now the most alien drive I can imagine; I just want to sit here on the bed and stare at the floor.” Her voice had become sharp with overtones of bleakness as her soul congealed and she ceased to move, as the instinctive, omnipresent film of great weight, of an almost absolute inertia, settled over her.

He turned up the TV sound, and the voice of Buster Friendly boomed out and filled the room. “—ho ho, folks. Time now for a brief note on today’s weather. The Mongoose satellite reports that fallout will be especially pronounced toward noon and will then taper off, so all you folks who’ll be venturing out—”

Appearing beside him, her long nightgown trailing wispily, Iran shut off the TV set. “Okay, I give up; I’ll dial. Anything you want me to be; ecstatic sexual bliss—I feel so bad I’ll even endure that. What the hell. What difference does it make?”

“I’ll dial for both of us,” Rick said, and led her back into the bedroom. There, at her console, he dialed 594: pleased acknowledgment of husband’s superior wisdom in all matters. On his own console he dialed for a creative and fresh attitude toward his job, although this he hardly needed; such was his habitual, innate approach without recourse to Penfield artificial brain stimulation.

After a hurried breakfast—he had lost time due to the discussion with his wife—he ascended clad for venturing out, including his Ajax model Mountibank Lead Codpiece, to the covered roof pasture whereon his electric sheep “grazed.” Whereon it, sophisticated piece of hardware that it was, chomped away in simulated contentment, bamboozling the other tenants of the building.

Of course, some of their animals undoubtedly consisted of electronic circuitry fakes, too; he had of course never nosed into the matter, any more than they, his neighbors, had pried into the real workings of his sheep. Nothing could be more impolite. To say, “Is your sheep genuine?” would be a worse breach of manners than to inquire whether a citizen’s teeth, hair, or internal organs would test out authentic.

The morning air, spilling over with radioactive motes, gray and sun-beclouding, belched about him, haunting his nose; he sniffed involuntarily the taint of death. Well, that was too strong a description for it, he decided as he made his way to the particular plot of sod which he owned along with the unduly large apartment below. The legacy of World War Terminus had diminished in potency; those who could not survive the dust had passed into oblivion years ago, and the dust, weaker now and confronting the strong survivors, only deranged minds and genetic properties. Despite his lead codpiece, the dust—undoubtedly—filtered in and at him, brought him daily, so long as he failed to emigrate, its little load of befouling filth. So far, medical checkups taken monthly confirmed him as a regular: a man who could reproduce within the tolerances set by law. Any month, however, the exam by the San Francisco Police Department doctors could reveal otherwise. Continually, new specials came into existence, created out of regulars by the omnipresent dust. The saying currently blabbed by posters, TV ads, and government junk mail, ran: “Emigrate or degenerate! The choice is yours!” Very true, Rick thought as he opened the gate to his little pasture and approached his electric sheep. But I can’t emigrate, he said to himself. Because of my job.

The owner of the adjoining pasture, his conapt neighbor Bill Barbour, hailed him; he, like Rick, had dressed for work but had stopped off on the way to check his animal, too.

“My horse,” Barbour declared beamingly, “is pregnant.” He indicated the big Percheron, which stood staring off in an empty fashion into space. “What do you say to that?”

“I say pretty soon you’ll have two horses,” Rick said. He had reached his sheep now; it lay ruminating, its alert eyes fixed on him in case he had brought any rolled oats with him. The alleged sheep contained an oat-tropic circuit; at the sight of such cereals it would scramble up convincingly and amble over. “What’s she pregnant by?” he asked Barbour. “The wind?”

“I bought some of the highest quality fertilizing plasma available in California,” Barbour informed him. “Through inside contacts I have with the State Animal Husbandry Board. Don’t you remember last week when their inspector was out here examining Judy? They’re eager to have her foal; she’s an unmatched superior.” Barbour thumped his horse fondly on the neck and she inclined her head toward him.

“Ever thought of selling your horse?” Rick asked. He wished to god he had a horse, in fact any animal. Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one. And yet from a social standpoint it had to be done, given the absence of the real article. He had therefore no choice except to continue. Even were he not to care himself, there remained his wife, and Iran did care. Very much.

Barbour said, “It would be immoral to sell my horse.”

“Sell the colt, then. Having two animals is more immoral than not having any.”

Puzzled, Barbour said, “How do you mean? A lot of people have two animals, even three, four, and like in the case of Fred Washborne, who owns the algae-processing plant my brother works at, even five. Didn’t you see that article about his duck in yesterday’s Chronicle? It’s supposed to be the heaviest, largest Moscovy on the West Coast.” The man’s eyes glazed over, imagining such possessions; he drifted by degrees into a trance.

Exploring about in his coat pockets, Rick found his creased, much-studied copy of Sidney’s Animal & Fowl Catalogue January supplement. He looked in the index, found colts (vide horses, offsp.) and presently had the prevailing national price. “I can buy a Percheron colt from Sidney’s for five thousand dollars,” he said aloud.

“No you can’t,” Barbour said. “Look at the listing again; it’s in italics. That means they don’t have any in stock, but that would be the price if they did have.”

“Suppose,” Rick said, “I pay you five hundred dollars a month for ten months. Full catalogue value.”

Pityingly, Barbour said, “Deckard, you don’t understand about horses; there’s a reason why Sidney’s doesn’t have any Percheron colts in stock. Percheron colts just don’t change hands—at catalogue value, even. They’re too scarce, even relatively inferior ones.” He leaned across their common fence, gesticulating. “I’ve had Judy for three years, and not in all that time have I seen a Percheron mare of her quality. To acquire her I had to fly to Canada, and I personally drove her back here myself to make sure she wasn’t stolen. You bring an animal like this anywhere around Colorado or Wyoming and they’ll knock you off to get hold of it. You know why? Because back before W.W.T. there existed literally hundreds—”

“But,” Rick interrupted, “for you to have two horses and me none, that violates the whole basic theological and moral structure of Mercerism.”

“You have your sheep; hell, you can follow the Ascent in your individual life, and when you grasp the two handles of empathy, you approach honorably. Now if you didn’t have that old sheep, there, I’d see some logic in your position. Sure, if I had two animals and you didn’t have any, I’d be helping deprive you of true fusion with Mercer. But every family in this building—let’s see; around fifty: one to every three apts, as I compute it—every one of us has an animal of some sort. Graveson has that chicken over there.” He gestured north. “Oakes and his wife have that big red dog that barks in the night.” He pondered. “I think Ed Smith has a cat down in his apt; at least he says so, but no one’s ever seen it. Possibly he’s just pretending.”

Going over to his sheep, Rick bent down, searching in the thick white wool—the fleece at least was genuine—until he found what he was looking for: the concealed control panel of the mechanism. As Barbour watched, he snapped open the panel covering, revealing it. “See?” he said to Barbour. “You understand now why I want your colt so badly?”

After an interval Barbour said, “You poor guy. Has it always been this way?” --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From AudioFile

Society still functions in 2021, but radiation contamination from World War Terminus has left a deteriorating world. Citizens are encouraged to move to Mars, where colonists are given androids to assist them. No androids are allowed on Earth, but some escape servitude and hide among Earths population. When that happens, its Rick Deckards job to find and retire them. Scott Brick narrates this science fiction classic at a slow, deliberate pace, reflecting the melancholy that permeates this bleak dystopia. His voicing of the characters is where the production really shines, from the conflicted bounty hunter to the doomed androids. And the halting speech of Isidore, a slightly deranged radiation casualty, almost steals the show. If youve seen the movie, now its time to hear the book. S.D. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Back Cover

"The most consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world."
--John Brunner
THE INSPIRATION FOR BLADERUNNER. . .
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published in 1968. Grim and foreboding, even today it is a masterpiece ahead of its time.
By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . .
They even built humans.
Emigrees to Mars received androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn't want to be identified, they just blended in.
Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.
"[Dick] sees all the sparkling and terrifying possibilities. . . that other authors shy away from."
--Paul Williams
Rolling Stone --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

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. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

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 --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000SEGTI0
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books (February 26, 2008)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 26, 2008
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2111 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 229 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #18,243 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
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Philip K. Dick

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Over a writing career that spanned three decades, Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned toward deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film; notably: Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and in 2007 the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

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Why did I sleep on this one?

Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2023

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In the last 20+ years I've read every PKD book I can get my hands on, in some cases more than once (or with VALIS, three times) but, for some reason I'm not even sure of now, I never read this one. Never saw the movie either. I think I thought it was a short story (and I don't care for his short stories.) Or maybe thought what I knew about the movie wouldn't make the book enjoyable? Either way, I'm not sure what I was thinking - this book is fantastic and the differences between the two are notable and kinda funny.

I picked up What If Our World Is Their Heaven recently, I had some Kindle credits or something, and, while I was enjoying the interview, it was quickly occurring to me that I was going to spoil both this book and related movie. So I put it down and for the first time ever started Electric Sheep. It is very obvious why they chose this book to make a movie out of, and why they left out some of the more curious parts. The whole thing with the electric animals is both the weirdest and best part of the book. A man hunts human robots but is fine with robot animals? Sure he wants a real one, but is willing to settle for a robot sheep?

This book has everything you could want in a PKD novel. The straightforward stuff that is 60 years ahead of its time - the philosophical arguments of what defines life when it comes to organics and synthetics (and as I type this AI is the hottest of topics.) The weird stuff that almost nobody would ever consider putting into a novel - the idea that war killed off all the animals and now humans are obsessed with them, both real or fake, as some sort of status symbol. And then the ultra out-there stuff that's kind of hard to understand - all the Mercer/empathy box parts that you read and basically have no idea what's going on. And yet altogether this is an amazing package, open for multiple interpretations, timeless, and full of action, characters progression, and amazing writing.

Going back to What If Our World after I finished the book, I honestly didn't gain much more insight. He's just very excited for the movie and the production behind it all. And I'm frustrated because I can't find the movie on any streaming services. There are also significantly different versions/cuts? I'll probably give up and not even try to watch it. The book was that enjoyable. I'm not sure I need a watered down version of the story. My hope is that it still manages to dig into the arguments of what defines life. But without the electric animals, I'm not sure how it fully could.

Either way, though, I think this book could be an excellent introduction to PKD or, if you’re like me, an excellent way to save the best for last.

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Chris Gladis

Who am I? Who are you? We know nothing, NOTHING!

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2011

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I have kind of a weird confession to make. It's not really a confession as such, since you only confess things that you're ashamed of or that you feel you have done wrong. But this is something that I believe people may find a little odd, so I suppose it's the best word under the circumstances.

I don't kill cockroaches.

Fortunately, I live up on the tenth floor in a nice modern apartment building, so they're not really a problem for me. But even in my old place, where they'd turn up from time to time, or walking about in the city, where you're bound to see them, especially after dark, I feel no desire to do what everyone else seems to do - freak out and jump on them with both feet. After all, why should I? They're just being what they are. They're just doing what millions of years of evolution have programmed them to do. They don't act out of malice or with the intention of trying to harm me, so I say live and let live.

Oh, don't get me wrong - I don't let roaches stay. I'll capture them, take them out to the riverbank or somewhere and let them go. I'll put down deterrents to roaches around the house. I may be kindly-disposed towards all living things [1], but I'm not an idiot. My point is, I feel a certain empathy towards those little guys, just trying to make their way in a hostile, anti-cockroach world.

And that's how I know I'm not an android.

When we talk about things like computer intelligence, one of the questions that comes up is how we would tell an artificial intelligence apart from the real thing? For a computer-bound AI, there's the Turing Test - a conversation with a human wherein the human cannot tell that she's talking to a computer. And that's good, as far as that goes. But what if we start putting them into physical bodies? What if we make these AIs in our image? Fleshy, sweaty, hairy robots that look and behave just like humans do? How, then, would we be able to tell the difference between a made being and a natural-born human?

Philip K. Dick's answer is empathy, and it is at the core of this book.

Dick is kind of like science fiction's mad mystic. He explores the hidden inner worlds of the people involved in the story, peeling apart issues of identity and psychology and reality itself, forcing the reader to ask him or herself what's really going on.

In other words, reading his work can be something of a head trip.

This novel introduces us to a near-future America, one which is greatly different from the one we know today. After a devastating nuclear war that wiped out countless species of plants and animals, the planet is being slowly emptied out. Those who are young, healthy and fertile are allowed to emigrate to off-world colonies. With them go the androids as servants, workers and slaves. Some people stay on Earth for reasons of their own. J.R. Isadore, for example, is a "special," one who doesn't make the genetic grade to leave the planet. Rick Deckard, on the other hand, is a bounty hunter, a man whose duty is to hunt down and destroy androids that come to Earth. Deckard has been handed a special assignment - six androids of the latest model, Nexus-6, have landed nearby. They're strong, intelligent, almost indistinguishable from humans, and Deckard has to "retire" them all before they get away.

Like many people, I first encountered this story in the movie Blade Runner, which followed much the same path. And, probably like a lot of people who saw the movie first, I was a bit thrown by the difference between the two. Rick Deckard in the book is not the morose lone wolf that he is in the movie. He has a wife here, and an electric sheep that he keeps on the roof (though he'd never admit to his neighbors that it was electric.) He has an interest in animals - the keeping of which is a mark of true status in a world where so many species have gone extinct. He's a more interesting character, with more depth and inner conflict than we see in the film. On the other hand, Roy Baty, Deckard's adversary, is far less interesting. He's intelligent and cruel, yes, but with so much less visceral power than Rutger Hauer gave him.

The major themes are different as well. In the movie, one of the overriding themes is the desire to live, the instinctive need that humans have to keep surviving even for just one more second. It's what keeps Deckard hanging on the edge of the roof when Roy's already broken his fingers. It's what sends Roy to Tyrell's home in the middle of the night with murder on his mind. The replicants in the film, despite being made beings, want what we want: more life.

The book follows a different path, though. The book looks at the difference between human and android, the Born and the Made, especially where it comes to that elusive quality of empathy. It is a capacity that only humans are supposed to possess, and indeed there is a whole religion founded around it - Mercerism. By using "Empathy Boxes," a person can become one with the iconic Wilbur Mercer, and share the joys and pains of everyone else connected to him at the same time. Life in all its forms becomes utterly sacred, and the destruction of a living thing is one of the greatest sins one can commit.

The androids, on the other hand, know nothing of empathy. They would gladly give up one of their own to die in their place. In one rather vivid scene, the android Pris starts snipping the legs off a spider, an act so monstrous that it drives J.R. Isadore to betray her and the other androids, people he believes are his only friends. The androids can pretend to feel empathy, but a simple test of involuntary physical responses show that they cannot truly feel it.

So, in a world where life has been scythed clean, respect for life is the highest virtue. The androids have no respect for life, and must therefore be kept off the planet, eliminated if they set foot on it. But what happens when they get more complex? What happens when the androids are so good, the humans begin to empathize with them? How can you destroy something when you can imagine its pain as your own? And if you can refrain from killing a lowly cockroach because you have empathy for it, how can you then turn around and kill thinking, self-aware android?

It's the kind of logical and moral conundrum that Dick excels at. The capacity for empathy cannot be what makes one creature worthy of protection and another not. After all, cockroaches don't feel empathy any more than androids do, yet they would be cherished in this world. It must then be the ability to generate empathy in others that is important, and in this book we see the androids cross that line. Deckard realizes that he's beginning to feel for the things he has to kill, and cannot reconcile that feeling with his job.

The theme of Born versus Made is reflected all through the book, especially where animals show up. There are animals that are presented as real, which later turn out to be androids. Others which the characters think are androids, but turn out to be real. Some characters can't even say with certainty whether they are not androids. All throughout the book, people find themselves in the position where they can't tell the difference between biological life and constructed life, which then raises a whole new question - if you can't tell the difference, then is there any difference at all?

It's the kind of question best discussed over a cup of coffee at Denny's with your friends in college.

Even today, people look down on science fiction as being less substantial than "real" fiction. Stories of androids and bounty hunters and off-world colonies, they think, can't compete with tales of single mothers raising kids in the inner cities or soldiers fighting and dying in a pointless war. To those who think there's nothing to grab on to in science fiction, I submit this book. It'll stay in your head, keep you up at night, and make you ask the kinds of questions that you'll never be able to answer.

If that's not quality writing, then I don't know what is.

----------------------------------------------------
"You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe."
- Mercer, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
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[1] Well, almost all living things. There's still Ann Coulter....

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Jsizzle

The Great Gatsby of science fiction

Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2023

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This is an absolute classic that caught me by surprise.

The protagonist is moody, thoughtful and likable, which is a perfect match for the literary world he inhabits.

My last encounter with the writing of Philip k dick was the man in the high Castle, which I felt was the most believable alternate world, populated with novel, creative ideas. This novel has that same character and shows off Dick's talent as a world builder.

I especially loved how he evoked genuine feeling by crafting a scene where a heartless 'andy' cuts the legs of a spider, and the natural revulsion of picturing a spider with legs being snipped off mingles with revulsion at cruelty, which melds with the despair and sickness of a very sympathetic character. It was at that moment in the novel that I realized it wasn't reading your typical sci-fi novel, but suddenly I felt like I was reading 'The Great Gatsby'.

Even if you've watched the blade runner movies, this novel is so far removed and so far above those movies (even though I love the original blade runner) that the movie doesn't spoil anything. This novel is a great piece of literature.

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JenniferT

Androids v humans

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2023

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In a world where real animals are the ultimate status symbol, we meet Rick, a man who eliminates andy's, or androids so human like it takes a trained expert to spot the difference.

I've never enjoyed the blade runner films but I have read a few of Philip K Dick's short stories which I found interesting. I did enjoy this book but it was quite hard to engage with the style of writing so it felt slow. But fascinating nonetheless and I'm glad to have read it.

Dr. Thomas Lange

Das Buch unterscheidet sich schon deutlich vom Film

Reviewed in Germany on June 12, 2023

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Hat man zunächst den Film gesehen, wird es schwer sein , die Magie aus dem Film im Buch wieder zu finden. Zweifellos enthält das Buch viele interessante Ideen, die im Film gar nicht vorkommen. Besonders der religiöse oder spirituelle Überbau wird ja im Film völlig ausgeblendet. Man wird es außerdem eher wegen der interessanten Ideen und dem Plot lesen als wegen seines literarischen Werts.

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R. Rangel

Awsome

Reviewed in Germany on August 7, 2023

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Excellent reading

Rishi Goswami

It's PKD

Reviewed in India on July 1, 2023

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It's PKD Nuff Said

Matt Jenkins

The Book That Introduced Me To PKD

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2011

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"World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade [androids] who were his prey. When he wasn't 'retiring' them with his laser weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal -- the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life. Then Rick got his chance: the assignment to kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But in Deckard's world things were never that simple, and his assignment quickly turned into a nightmare kaleidoscope of subterfuge and deceit."
-- from the back cover.

Written in 1966 and published in 1968, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is Philip K Dick's twenty-third published novel and perhaps his best known, following its big screen adaptation (Blade Runner). PKD's abiding themes were 'What is reality?' and 'What is it to be human?' and, though both these themes are explored, it is perhaps the second that is explored most obviously.

As with all PKD's works this novel makes you marvel at his imagination but also (if you are of a philosophical turn of mind) brings you to question and consider the themes he raises for yourself. PKD also creates characters that I at least find believable. As Ursula Le Guin has said "There are no heroes in Dick's books, but there are heroics. One is reminded of Dickens: what counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary people." PKD's characters always strike me as in some way authentic.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was a Nebula Award nominee in 1968 and in 1998 was on the Locus Poll Award, All-Time Best SF Novel before 1990 (in 51st place).

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was filmed as the movie Blade Runner and released in 1982 (the year of Philip K Dick's death). I think this is a great film. However, to my mind it is best taken as a separate entity because as with any adaptation, much is changed and lost in the process.

"[Dick] sees all the sparkling and terrifying possibilities. . . that other authors shy away from."
--Paul Williams, Rolling Stone

"Philip Dick does not lead his critics an easy life, since he does not so much play the part of a guide through his phantasmagoric worlds as give the impression of one lost in their labyrinth."
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans"

If you are new to Philip K Dick's work I would also recommend the following novels (which generally seem to be regarded as among his best):

The Man In The High Castle (S.F. Masterworks)
Ubik (S.F. Masterworks)
A Scanner Darkly (S.F. Masterworks)
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (S.F. Masterworks)
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (S.F. Masterworks)

That said, though some of PKD's works are better than others, to my mind they are all well worth reading. I would also recommend his short story collections:

Beyond Lies The Wub: Volume One Of The Collected Short Stories
Second Variety: Volume Two Of The Collected Short Stories
The Father-Thing: Volume Three Of The Collected Short Stories
Minority Report: Volume Four Of The Collected Short Stories
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale: Volume Five of The Collected Short Stories

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