Rating: 
Summary: a 2003 take on this
Review: the way I see it - this book is particularly relevant to today because it deals with isolation, loneliness and the mechanistic world v. the frail imperfect human world. To share my ideas on this book I am interacting via a computer; I live a pretty isolated life which main connection to the world is via the web, or through internet. So to a large extent I, myself, have become an extension of the web - a biological peripheral if you like. Anyway - getting back to this book - as far as I am concerned it makes us ask how we descriminate between 'real' people and the new 'plastic' people who are programmed by big business to perform regimented tasks and will have their genes modified to remove unwanted characteristics - the human will be turning himself into a replicant in pursuit of perfection - eugenics is a powerful ethos and with the right genetic technology you can basically chose the characteristics you want - as you would if you were ordering a replicant.So, unlike many readers - I see this book in a very much the eugenic real versus artificial tension that occupys a region of philosophy I guess. The only thing I agree with the other reviewers is the fact that the book bears no relation to the fillum. [also as well as the book, I find the vangelis soundtrack better than the film] read it - it is mind-altering
Rating: 
Summary: Asks important questions
Review: By now, most people are familiar with the book because of the movie, Blade Runner, which frankly fails to capture those qualities that make the book special. Let's face it, Dick was a hack writer, but a fascinating philosopher. I personally, read Dick for his boundlessly thought provoking ideas. In Androids Dream, he is principally concerned with the questions: If the ability of humans to manipulate logic can be modelled in machines, and machines are extensions of human intelligence, then what does it mean to be human? Can there be Artificial Intelligence? If so, can it be distinguished from Natural Intelligence? How so? Obviously, Dick believes the difference is empathy, a notion that derived from an early childhood experience of his own. He was torturing a beetle, and observing the beetles struggles to survive, when he had a full blown satori--that he and the beetle were the same, they were alike in their striving for existance and their avoidance of pain. It was a life changing moment, he later would claim, and that theme is a the heart of this novel, and is reminiscient of Blakes poem, "The Fly". But his point goes deeper than this. He seems to want us to think about how we humans can lose our humanity and behave as if we have become machine-like. If we sacrifice our free will, our creativity, our ability to say yes, or no, independently; if we sacrifice our conscience--and blindly commit ourself to be governed by a set of external rules--then we have become computer programs, not human beings. And he seems to imply that this is how places like Auschwitz came to exist, built by human beings who had become machines that are exceptionally good at following orders. Around the world, we have political machines, economic machines, marketing machines, martial machines. In Cambodia, a political and miliary machine consisting mostly of children forced millions of people from the homes into the fields to be mowed down like so many insects. The points that Dick makes are important--extrememly important, to an authentic human being who has not sacrificed their humanity or abdicated their sense of responsibility to a set of rules. But his particular genius lies in his ability to paint different, contradictory views and interpretations of the same reality. This ability conveys a peculiar paranoid sense of reality that is as eerie as it is profound. It gives a strong sense of what it must feel like to experience a psychotic break with reality. That may be a strange roller coaster ride, but it helps to create a sense of empathy.
Rating:
Summary: Only an inspiration to Blade Runner; this book stands alone
Review: If you have watched "Blade Runner" before reading PKD's story (like I did), you'll find they are very different indeed. "Do androids...?" is the inspiration behind Ridley Scott's movie, but this book has its rightfull place within the realms of good science fiction. While the movie is very graphic, visual and dark (all those rainy nights and opulent clothing), the book seems like a mind-breaking experience. In fact, to fully understand the many layers contained between the lines, one reading is not enough. The novel itself is not that much graphic. Dick rarely describes settings, people, buildings, etc., leaving the reader's immagination to work full-time. In fact, is this science fiction? Yes, I think it is, not because of the science involved, but because of the revolutionary elements present in the story. This is mental sci-fi; the main question of the book is: what defines a human being? Rick Deckard has to answer this question every time he retires a Nexus-6, all the time taking care not to loose his bearings of what he thinks a human being should be. This kind of complexity is what makes "Do androids...?" a great read, although I thought Dick's style a little too dry for my personal taste. Grade 8.2/10
Rating:
Summary: no title
Review: 147 reviews --- says a bit. maybe we need some of that empathy in what's up, what's around us.
rip it
Rating:
Summary: Emotional Science Fiction
Review: This was a really emotional read -- and fun. The story is pretty simple, a futuristic bounty hunter Rick Deckard is commissioned to "retire" six Nexus-6 androids. The Nexus-6 androids are remarkably human and it is only through the so-called Voight-Kampf test that Deckard can truly tell the androids from the humans. The Voight-Kampf tests androids for empathic responses; that is, the androids will respond callously to the test's life-death questions, whereas humans tend to respond with empathy regarding the destruction of life. Herein lies the novel's poignant irony: Deckard is a human, and he's on a mission to "retire" the androids using this test. So the question becomes, Who is really human, who really has compassion? I really enjoyed "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" but it is for a very different reason than say a Michael Crichton or Larry Niven novel. Dick's science is a little screwy/funny, but his heart was _so_ in the right place. Reading a Philip K. Dick novel is a little like looking at the wildest of Van Gogh's paintings, you know, where you can feel the desparation in every dash of paint. Technically it looks like the work of a teenager, but there's a grown man's heart on the line underneath the text of this story. And _that_ is why the next science fiction novel I read will most likely be a Philip K. Dick novel. Stacey
Rating: 
Summary: Review of "Do androids Dream of Electric Sheep"
Review: I have to say this book had a some what weak story line. This is a very recycled story line that has been used in so many, longs drug store quality paper backs. This Just happen to be one that had an imaginative setting and decent dialoged between characters. This book is better then most of its class but still, there are betters out there.
Rating:
Summary: of Toad and Donkey
Review: With over 140 reviews I really wonder if i can bring anything else to the fore. I won't bother going into the details of the story because it has been mapped out by previous reviewers what I wanted to speak of is the question of what is life? In this book human beings are of course the most important beings. However, even with humans there are certain stata: normal folks, people of lesser mental ability called chickenheads, and those of even less ability called antheads. The chicknenheads's and antheads mental ability was lowered due to the effect of fallout dust. Besides these strata there exists androids At first androids were a bit clunky, but as time went on they became almost indistinguishible from humans, but because they were created they were only to serve humans. However, some did not want to do that and they killed their owners to live new lives. Of course this was not proper, so bounty hunters were sent to destroy the androids. This book is an excellent look into artificial intelligence and it makes one question what is life?
Rating:
Summary: Bleak, Dark, Irrational and Demented Existence
Review: This is the most depressing Sci-fi novel I have ever read, Perhaps I was expecting something else. It shows you how truly irrational life and experience can be. For me it reflects present day life and probably most life untill now, the imposibility of any REAL empathy between living things, the lack of coherence in most beings and the power of the "current" against change, the failed and innatural wirh that we have that life should stand still. It is a pessimistic work at least and I think it was intended to be depressing, so some people can actually understand what that means, or in the case of a lack of response to the book it is a sick joke about the "flattening of affect". The work of course is designed to either produce a negative emotional response or to show the ovious sickness of any lack of it, and it succeeds admirably, sickening the gut of the most unflinching lunatic, for there is something very wrong in the lives of the characters as it indeed is a reflection of reality and the lack of "empathy" in it.
Rating:
Summary: Total commitment
Review: Other SF writers have ideas; Philip K. Dick had visions. In fact, all of his visions may be said to be part of a single Uber-vision, a life-long attempt to construct a picture of the world and to ask meaningful questions about it. Most of his SF novels were different "takes" on this vision and explorations of those questions. To say, as so many people have done (including Dick himself), that his themes are "what is reality" and "what is human", is to touch only on the surface of the problems he was grappling with. It is necessary to understand how thoroughly Dick lived with his vision of life to know what his explorations meant, especially if one wishes to grasp their emotional center. Take this novel for instance (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?). One could read it as if it were an ordinary SF novel and be fascinated by its "ideas", such as androids with false memories or the economy of real-animal trade in a post-apocalyptic setting -- in the same way that some fans of the "Star Trek" shows are interested in the structure of the Federation, the nature of the Borg, etc. But Dick's ideas are nothing more than access points to his larger vision, and the novel has some interesting little conduits that can take you there. One thing of note (that few notice) is the idea of the "Penfield mood organ" which triggers an argument between Deckard and his wife in the opening chapter. Apparently one selects a desired emotional state and "dials in" settings to send one's brain the electrical signals that create that emotion, such as "pleased acknowledgement of hushband's superior wisdom in all matters". (The name of the gadget is obviously derived from Wilder Penfield, 20th century pioneer in brain mapping research. A variant of this idea was used later in another of Dick's robot-or-man novels, the neglected We Can Build You.) Significantly, the device "frames" the novel, referenced again during the last scene. Such a device is the least outlandish piece of "science fiction" that the novel contains, since it is based on real science. And that fact roots the other speculations of the novel, however wild, in a very real and pressing contemporary question: if our moods and attitudes can be manipulated via electrical currents, then... what are we? Another fascinating aspect of the story is the quasi-religious figure named Mercer. Mercer speaks at times with words like those of Christ, at other times with Zen riddles and self-contradiction. He offers empathy without salvation, salvation without truth, a truth through lies. When he is exposed as a fraud (when the set for the Mercer films are "subjected to rigorous laboratory scrutiny"), he admits it but insists that it does not detract from his validity. Mercerism is the only hint of transcendence offered by the novel, which raises the question: if such transcendence is exposed as fraudulent, then... what can be our transcendence? The devestation that Deckard experiences in the end is a reflection of Dick's own emotional response to the conundrums of life as he saw it. That's because his vision was never an abstract or academic construct, an intellectual game without consequences -- it was always a life-or-death matter for him. And so it is for us, because Dick's true theme is neither ontology nor human identify, but the value of our existence, our origin and our fate, our relationships to one another and to God.
Rating:
Summary:
You Can Have My Pet
Review:
This nice new edition of Dick's novel (it's insufficient to call it a masterpiece, because that's a tendency which runs through much of his output) will make an appropriate introduction to his body of work, particularly for the young aspiring writers in your family and circle of friends. Like much of his work, it's deeply paranoid and warped, which is one of the attractive characteristics of it.
Yeah, that's right, it was the basis for the movie "Blade Runner", which sucks by comparison. The movie "Total Recall" was based on Dick's super, tiny short story, "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale". "Minority Report" was based on still another P.K. Dick story. "Blade Runner" can be enjoyed for itself, as long as the viewer isn't expecting great cinema, or even a great sci-fi flick. But it ain't this novel.
This one is an out of the park home run that smashes through the sun roof of a Lexus parked outside the ballfield, sets off the car alarm, and spills the cold coffee all over the leather upholstery.
|
