Rating: 
Summary: The Hunt Is On
Review: In the old days, owning a beautiful car conferred prestige. A machine that replaced the humble horse, it provoked feelings of excitement, power, control, even love. There were people who gave them pet names and pampered them. As usual, people's standards change to suit the times. In a world ravaged by war, animals are a rarity, and therefore expensive. To own and care for a live animal, not a mechanical fake, is the goal of those who still live on Earth.Rick Deckard lives with his wife in San Francisco. Large sections of this neglected city, like the rest of the world, are empty of people. Many have emigrated to colony planets like Mars to escape the radioactive pollution. Deckard's job is to eliminate (retire) androids. The androids are so life-like their identity can only be proved by a special "empathy test". Without this test it's impossible to tell who is real and who isn't. Androids supposedly have no empathy. Once they are caught out, they don't last long. Deckard's latest contract is a lucarative one. He has to finish what a previous bounty hunter started, by killing six fugitive androids who concealed themselves among the human population of Northern California. Once the job is done, Deckard will have enough money to buy a real animal. If "Blade Runner" hadn't been made a lot of people wouldn't have heard of this book. Although I haven't seen "Blade Runner", it was hard not to imagine Rick Deckard having the face and voice of Harrison Ford. The morality of killing something that seems to be alive makes an intriguing theme. I think a lot of writers since Philip K. Dick have explored this premise. In the SF comedy "Red Dwarf" androids are programmed to believe in "Silicon Heaven", an afterlife for dead technology. This makes the androids more accepting of death, the knowledge that they have to be terminated one day to make way for superior models. Many of us believe that after death we enter an afterlife of eternal paradise. Despite this, we do everything in our power to put it off for as long as possible. From the moment of birth we are slowly dying. Nothing can stop it, life gets shorter every second. The new androids in Philip K. Dick's novel have that same desire for self-preservation. But they're at the mercy of someone higher up, one who decides when they've had enough. It looks as if my copy of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" contains a misprint. In the first chapter of my copy the date is January 1992. Yet another copy indicates it's the 21st century. I thought things seemed a bit too advanced for the 1990s. This is the second novel I've read by Dick, the first being "Dr. Bloodmoney", another after-the-bomb story. I'm currently reading "The Man In the High Castle". A very good book so far.
Rating:
Summary: A look into a possible future...
Review: This book was a bit of a surprise for me. When I started reading it, I had no idea that it was the book Blade Runner was based upon. Of course, I haven't seen the movie either, so this wasn't really an issue. About the book though, it was highly interesting. It was nothing particularly new in idea, though at its time it may have been. It is about androids and their intelligence, basically. The main character is a bounty hunter, paid to kill these androids posing as humans. The one discretion I had about this was that Phillip K. Dick decided to give these androids a sense of life. These androids wanted to live, but knew when it was time to end it. It seems that artificial intelligence should remain just that...artificial. How can you program a machine to feel emotions? I know this is a fantasy book and that anything should be possible, such as their hover cars, but this struck me as a little far fetched. The book was very well written, smooth to read. The vocabulary usage was just enough to emphasize complicity but simple enough to be easy to read. I would recommend this to people who are interested in artificial intelligence, human reactions/emotions, or science fiction. One more thing. The ending. Though I will not ruin it by telling everyone what it was about, I will say that I liked it. Phillip K. Dick could have made it a lot worse or a lot better, I don't know. This middle ground ending was good though, somehow not quite fitting yet still working for this plot. For the 200 some-odd pages that this book is, it goes pretty quickly. I am looking forward to reading other titles of his.
Rating:
Summary: ELECTRIC SHEEP? REAL PEOPLE? COOL BOOK!
Review: This is the first novel by Phillip K. Dick that I have ever read (up to this point it's all been short fiction) and it's great sci-fi. There's a reason that Dick (like Heinlein) is considered a legend in the science fiction genre because he was light years ahead of its time. Blade Runner is all about duality and the contrast of living and artificial beings. It's a great book to read and then discuss with other people because it easily lends itself to open-ended themes and symbolism. The nice thing about the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is that it tells a similar and yet different story than the sci-fi classic movie Blade Runner. You can enjoy both in their own medium and rest easy knowing that you're reading and watching a classic tale.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant, Disturbing and Weird
Review: Phillip K. Dick wrote some really mind bendingly weird books and this is one of them. It is good science fiction that reflects the absurdity of our society.
Rating: 
Summary: Some interesting themes but...
Review: ...overall a bit of a disappointment. The issues that Dick talks about, a society which degrades ''handicapped'' people, robots who are almost human but are in a sense ruthless because they kill humans to get to earth, are intriguing but the story never really developes and the end, in my opinion, is horrible. Some might see a hidden philosophical message in the ending but to me it was just an abrupt one which didn't make any sense. Other parts of the book are also confusing. I know that some people say that if you want a sci-fi book which is mostly based on reality, at least to a certain degree, Philip K. Dick is not the author whose stories you want to read. Nonetheless I had the feeling that parts of the story were just so far off that it really interrupted a good storyline. The characters never really develope and one has no clue as to why Deckard acts like he does when he meets Rachael in San Francisco. (I know I didn't) Gotta give props to Ridley Scott who turned this average book into one of the best sci-fi movies ever. If you're a big Blade Runner fan you might want to read the book just to get another view but in the end you'll be happy that Scott's movie is based
loosely on the book.
Rating:
Summary: Read the book first...
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, more than its inspired movie Blade Runner. The film was so visually strong that a lot of plot and conversation passed right by me. I do recommend reading the book first-by first seeing the film, I found myself being distracted by comparisons and contrasts.
I recommend this book to even the most naïve reader to the world of cyberpunk. I think the main reason I found it enjoyable was that the book maintains a constant flow-not necessarily an easy read, but not cluttered by computer lingo that can be confusing to the layperson. The interactions between humans and androids were much more intricate than that in previous books I have read, for example, Deckard and Rachel's relationship. Rather than being cluttered with a bunch of cybersex talk, they engage in very emotional conversation. If you are timid about jumping into the genre of cyberpunk, this book would be a good place to start.
Rating:
Summary: My God this book is good
Review: I read this book before seeing Blade Runner, and I'm glad I did. "Do Androids Dream?" is more of a philosophical novel than a science fiction film. Basically, the premise is, "what are the philosophical implications if robots became virtually indistinguishable from humans"? In 1968, this was a mind-blowingly new idea. The vision of Philip K Dick is absolutely fascinating. For example, in order to maintain the difference between androids/replicants and humans, the government has invented a new religion, based on the idea that killing animals is highly immoral. Yet today we eat animals every day. This belief-system has artificially made a moral code which androids fail to understant.
It's a little like the blacks after the Civil War - invent white supremacy, disallowing the blacks from making their way in society as normal people - and whites can then point at them and say, AH HAH! I told you blacks need us around to help them! Look how (...) their lives are! OBVIOUSLY they are inferior! Philip K Dick makes many references to the Afro-American experience in this novel, and the theme is most disturbing. There are many, many other, even more interesting, themes in this novel; including those seen in the film. If replicants show more mercy than humans, does this not grant that they have greater "empathy"? This is a vast theme, and one that is successfully portrayed in the film. Roy Baty has a chance to kill Rick Deckard (in the film), yet he chooses to save him. This novel bears so many re-readings. For instance, yesterday I reread the part where Deckard gives the Voigt-Kampff test to Rachael the replicant (it also appears in the film!) I noticed for the first time, that the questions that Rachael does not react to are the ones concerning killing animals! Again, this is an artificial moral code, so the only reason she feels no "empathy" to wasps, butterflies etc. is that such moral codes were never natural.
ALso, she fails to react to a question about killing babies. The reason this is so is that replicants cannot have babies, and so any emotion towards "children" are denied them... To anyone hesitating before being this book: There are some aspects of this book that may turn one off. First, there is little or no action, and no film noir style. That part (great as it is!) is only in the film version. Secondly, the novel is in Philip K Dick's bizzare, almost childlike style. Do not look for brilliant prose (although there are some gems), or brilliant dialogue. Thirdly, Philip K Dick was desperately poor all his life, and all his books were written VERY fast in order to make enough money to live! Thus, the book is not as well polished as it could be 0- although it's better than some others. Fourth, there are some parts of the book that are - well - strange. VERY strange. Philip K Dick was the master of strangeness. If you prefer books where both feet of reality are kept firmly planted on the ground, this is probably not for you. Fifth, the book is extremely rich in religious imagery, especially towards the end. Although these are my FAVOURITE parts of the book, if you find religion a bore, or disturbing, then maybe this should be given a miss... BUT - if you don't mind your mind being stretched - if you don't mind a rather ropy style - if you LIKE PHILIP K DICK or GREAT GREAT IDEAS - then read "Do Androids Dream" now! Oh, and by the way, because of Blade Runner the Movie, this book has sold more copies than all PKD's other books put together. It was the event, the film was, that made PKD a name as a great writer - some two months after he died of a stroke... Oh well. Thank you Ridley Scott, and thank you Blade Runner. You have opened PKD's books to a wide, wide audience...
Rating:
Summary: a must in a any sci-fi fan's bookshelf
Review: Philip L. Dick presents a most disturbing vision of the future which may have shocked most readers when it was first published. After the proliferation of dark movie views of the possible future, this may be a candid story to the recent generation. A very consistent one yet sometimes it may not hold you tight enough in thrill(which happens to many writers). Unfortunately I saw the movie "Blade Runner" first, which has biased me to thinking of this book as a script, which in fact it is not. I favor a little bit Ridely's Scott interpretation as you may have noticed by not giving it 5 stars. However it is very much worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book I have ever read
Review: This book is simply superb. It has meaning and substance, but at the same time provides the reader with action and excitement. You can also read it in two ways - the hillariously funny way or the brooding and dark way. In either case Dick still asks the fundemental questions about reality and whether the reps are being treated right by society. I've read this around seven times, own the directors cut of Bladerunner on video (watched it around five times) and own the game. This is definately one of the most interesting and enduring stories in the whole sphere of Sci-Fi.
Rating: 
Summary: Ridley Scott ran with this one
Review: While Phillip K. Dick should be credited for the idea that spawned the powerful and captivating BLADE RUNNER film, that is about all the credit he should be given. The book is initially intriguing, but ultimately fails to ask the important questions the film so perfectly presents. It may have been Dick's idea, but it will always be Ridley Scott's vision
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