Rating: 
Summary: Ersatz andy
Review: I have yet to see Blade Runner so I can't figure how the story would work without the animal theme. This was a good story, though. It seemed like the androids were humans as we know them(generally indifferent to the plight of animals) and the humans were actually super-humans(had telepathic powers) and that was neat. The JR Isidore sub-plot was not as interesting as the main plot. The Buster Friendly - Wilbur Mercer sub-plot was cool, though, especially when Buster makes his announcement.
Rating: 
Summary: Blade Runner It Is Not.
Review: I have to admit, I only picked this book up because I loved Blade Runner so much. Since this is the novel that it was based on I thought I would be in for a treat.What I found was a slow moving story, similar to the movie. Rick Deckard's life is explained a little more, and so are the other characters which is nice. I liked the character development. But the story was just so slow moving I found myself drowsing off once in a while.
Rating: 
Summary: A page turner
Review: This is a great little book. If your a fan of Blade Runner, you may or may not like the book. In my opinion the movie does not do justice to this book. Now a little more about the book. A New York time reviewer said, 'PKD is a kind of pulp-fiction prophet'. This statement is no hyperbole; anyone who enjoys Kafka and like scifi must read this.
Rating:
Summary: The book IS better
Review: Most who say that movies based on books say the book is better. That is definitely the case here. I enjoyed the book so much I think it is a shame that not more was put into the movie from the book. Don't get me wrong, Blade Runner is among my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: don't expect Blade Runner....
Review: Having read DADOES? five or six times over the last twenty years, I'm fairly sure that what he's doing here is ruminating on a potential definition of humanity, and on why it is so painful to be human. For PKD, the defining characteristic of a human being is the ability to empathise. If you can't do that, then you're not human; QED. It's not a bad definition, actually; so there's a gadget that tests your ability to empathise - fail the test and you must be an android. Of course, he can't resist his favoured target of consumerism either. A theme that comes up again and again in his writing is the way technology gets used for dangerous, reckless or trivial uses, frequently simply to allow people to lead more slobbish lives. True to form, his characters here live in a world where, as well as gadgets to detect androids, you can buy gadgets to fake feelings, gadgets to enable you to subscribe to the empathy-based religion of Mercerism, and fake animals to impress the neighbours (because real ones, being rare, are therefore automatically valuable). The ultimate consumer products, however, are the "andies", whose predicament is oddly familiar. Banished from the place they originated from, any return is denied them by laser-wielding sentries. Their maker seeks to destroy them on sight for what they are and may do, based on what their predecessors have done. They are complete duplicates of ourselves, except they are stuck with a much more vindictive Creator. In fact, androids only have it on someone else's say-so that they actually are androids, as witnesses the existence of a complete parallel police department staffed entirely by androids who think they're humans hunting androids. This last is a classic PKD twist - the idea that reality is something the mind unreliably creates is one he explores in many other stories, and one found elsewhere in classic American writing. It's a mistake to assume this is prediction - what he has to say about people is true already and the sci-fi backdrop is there because it's necessary. You could not transplant this into a contemporary or historical setting and still have a sensible novel. I secretly suspect PKD of writing American Literature in the finest Edgar Allan Poe tradition, and if I had to make the case, this is the book I'd use to argue it. It isn't easy; but it's very, very good.
Rating:
Summary: Not as powerful as the movie
Review: Blade Runner is my favorite movie of all time, and picking up this book I expected alot. Dick's writing is completely contrary to Ridley Scott's film, though. Dick's style focuses on queer details about the philosophies of the future (Mercerism, obsession with animals), whereas Scott conveys the more poignant details about the fine line between replicants (andys) and humans. The most crushing difference between the two was the purpose of an android four year life span. In the book, it is simply a question of the cells dying without regenerating. In the movie, it is an engineered tool used to kill the replicant slave just as it gains the emotional capabilities to appreciate life. There are no emotional adaptations in the andys of Dick's book. The androids are so callous and loathsome that the reader doesn't care when Dekkard retires them.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing, thoughtful
Review: I first read this novella about a month after seeing the excellant Director's Cut of Blade Runner, and was surprised, but not at all disappointed. While the philosophical questions were very deep and thoughtful, what I liked best was the portrayal of completely normal people in this lonely future society, a staple of Dick's books, as I later found out. Despite the oppressiveness of the society portrayed, the characters continue to live out their small lives. As I once said, "If a character written by Heinlein was in the middle of the LA Riots, he'd foil the rioters, (Or side with them and overthrow the government) develop a machine to help him do so, get the girl, and rich while at it. An Orson Scott Card character would figure out a way to end the riot, after much moral agonizing. A Phillip K. Dick character would go out and buy a color TV". Sounds boring, but it makes it hit very close to home.
Rating:
Summary: read it!
Review: I've only read two Philip Dick novels -- this one and "Scanner Darkly" and both were thrilling and alarming experiences. I can't think of another author who gets into my system quite the same way. His books are set in an imagined future, but they draw from the psychological traumas of our era, which gives them great resonance. The reader comes away feeling that his/her own soul has been put through the same ringer as Deckard, Isidore, the androids, and the other characters. I don't want to add too much more to the interesting movie/book debate below, but let me just say that they are two radically different entities. Blade Runner actually reminds me more of another author -- William Gibson. Gibson, like Ridley Scott, is really into texture and image and has been accused of shortchanging plot and character. Philip Dick, at least in this book, seems relatively uninterested in high-resolution universe-building and much more concerned with exploring the characters' predicaments. A risk in both "Blade Runner" and Gibson is that the fun wears off along with the novelty of the images; in fact, watching "Blade Runner" just the other day, I found that a lot of the imagery had become somewhat familiar. maybe, ironically, because these works WERE so prophetic. Dick's novels, though, make a bid for timelessness and thirty years on "Do Androids Dream" didn't seem to have dated much, at least for me.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent style
Review: While the plot is quite interesting, the thing I enjoyed most about this novel was the way PKD was able to shape the world. Every detail is thought out in its entirety in his mind and transfered to paper. The Man in the High Castle does this even better and I strongly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, in a way, but poorly written
Review: I wont compare Do Androids Dream of Electic Sheep with Blade Runner - previous reviewers have covered it all. I read the book with an open mind, trying to forget the movie, which I love. Taken on it's own merit, the book sorely disappointed. Written in the 60's, it's a great, imaginative peek into the future with hovercrafts, empathy machines and videophones. It's odd that as much vision as Dick has about technology, his women of the future remain secretaries and house fraus. Dick is not a classic novelist as some have called him. His dialog is stilted many of the scenes are dis-jointed. I dropped the book in horror and disgust at the following: (Rick Deckard has the android who already injured his partner in his hovercraft. The android is posing as another bounty hunter from Moscow, Rick figures it out) "... you're Polokov, the android; you're not from the Soviet police." Rick, with his toe, pressed the emergency button on the floor of his car. "Why won't my laser tube fire?" Kadalyi-Polokov said, switching on and off the miniaturized triggering and aiming device which he helf in the palm of his hand. "A sine wave," Rick said "That phases out laser emanation and spreads the beam into ordinary light." "Then I'll have to break your pencil neck."... uh huh. Shut up and kill each other? Dick has told us already that the androids lack certain human emotion, but, sheesh. "Why wont my laser tube fire?," is just plain bad dialog. There's better sci-fi out there, and it's not too hard to find. Throw you non-functional laser pen in any book store's sci-fi section and you are bound to hit one.
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