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Summary: I really enjoyed this novel...
Review: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is an inpressive work of science fiction. It's gripping plot and it's relevance to current issues make it one of the best books I have read in some time. The story's enthralling plot depicts an earth ravaged by World War Terminus, and Rick Deckard is searching for illegal androids inhabiting the changed world. As a bounty hunter, he must find and 'retire' these androids before they assume control of the planet. This promotes an exiting chain of events that keeps the reader riveted and waiting for the next cliffhanger. This novel also deals with one of today's most talked-about issues, robots and artificial intelligence. It illustrates a future in which technology has gone too far and turned itself against the human race, all based on today's quickly advancing tecnological frontier. It is cautionary and shows a shocking view of the potential future, which make the novel all that much more interesting and entertaining.
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Summary: It's the Idea, Stupid
Review: Expect the typical PKD: whacked-out ideas, clunkly writing, and a great heart. The movie is maybe 20% of the book, and in fact one could make a case that the movie has almost zilch to do with the novel, since it fails to address the two huge ideas in the book: Mercerism (a religion that offers shared group experience) and animals (cheap machine-made fakes vs. expensive, rare live). The actual elimination of the androids takes maybe 10 pages total, if that, but of course, a faithful adaptation probably would have taken twice the time/budget. Then again, maybe Ridley Scott didn't pick up the Mercerism thread because it wasn't really fully developed.I would rate this book lower than PKD's masterpieces, like the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch or Ubik, but it's still plenty worth your time. It shouldn't take any longer than 3-4 hours to finish this book, and I'm a pretty slow reader. - SJW
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Summary: The Modern Frankenstein
Review: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; Or, The Modern Frankenstein It is not so difficult to see why Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has attained the kind of cult classic status that I feel it has. The story of Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter, obsessed with needing to replace his electric sheep with a real one find himself in the same kind of circumstance that Dr. Frankenstein found himself in, to destroy an unnatural creation. This may not have been Dick's intent but Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? can be analyzed on many levels, here is one..... just like Frankenstein before it (actually about 150 years before it), Dick presents us with the proverbial man vs. machine masked in a futuristic configuration. The Android, man's creation, has suddenly become the "other". You can pretty much replace anything that is not "us" and you will find a "them". We fear the possible destructive power of the Replicants (much as the real fear of Frankenstein was not the incredible strength and rage of the monster - but it possibility of procreation - remember when the monster asked for a bride?) and just like the Germans feared and hated the Jews in World War II, we use a metaphor by replacing any vilified group with the Replicants. We feel the need to destroy the "other" in an effort to preserve the "us". In effect, Dick presents to us a metaphor of otherness within a framework that is safe - as Androids are make believe. Deckard is not Dr. Frankenstein. He was not part of the creation but is certainly part of the destruction. His romance with Rachel Rosen allows Deckard to experience some form of humanity. What is "humanity"? In the book, Dick places "humanity" within the realm of health. Deterioration seems to be the measure of how close one is to passing the Voight-Kampff test. Despite Deckard "crossing the line" the point driven home is the need to retire the andys. I can see a garden party of Nazi soldiers saying.... "I was following orders." In effect, Deckard is just part of a matrix that is beyond his control. Let me just clarify that Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a book that can be read on many levels. The Ridley Scott rendition is the stylish futuristic neo-gothic action adventure movie "Blade Runner". Blade Runner in its own right is a great film and stand up to what I feel is Dick's real agenda - Dick is a 20th century Romantic (in the Shelley sense) who tries to warn us of a science without soul. He pushes us to ask the question, "What is "it" that makes us truly human? Deckard want a real sheep. In a real sense, the age of high tech is come and gone - here to stay is mature industry that is transferring the baton to genetic engineering. Do we really want human hybrids? For the questions that Dick poses, I give him a resounding 5 stars. Miguel Llora
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Summary: Animal Lovers...your humanity has been confirmed!
Review: This is a book with, among many thought provoking ideas, about humans loving animals and furthermore, humans identifying their humanity by their capacity to LOVE a fellow living creature: animals. So what is the problems? The problem is, humans have decided that androids must be destroyed, there is an industry to destroying them, AND the destroyers, "bladerunners" such as Rick Decker are beginning to think that androids may be just as VALID to live as humans. Why? He hasn't figured out just what makes a human a human such as loving fellow living creatures (but aren't androids fellow living creatures too?). And what of the androids INCREDIBLY strong WILL to live? Don't they have as much rights to live too?? Humans are keeping android animals in secret to "pass" as real and androids are living in secret and passing as humans, so the ONLY real "defining" way to prove whether one is a human or one is an android is to give a "test" like a lie detector test that shows that one has empathy for a living creature. Do you kill a coach roach? Do you recoil at a snake? Then maybe you aren't human, maybe you are an android?? How do you define your humanity when it is defined by your empathy for life as it is in this world? Then how do you reconcile your job when it is to KILL androids who think that they are alive and do not wish to die? And how do you live with yourself when you are killing androids just so that you can have money so that your wife can buy a real life sheep so that she can feel that she is more human?? This is a maddening paradox and so incredibly inspired that Philip K. Dick is recognized as one of the best writers (sci-fi or not) in the English language. The movie, "Bladrunner" is good but it is not the book. With the poaching done from the book, and the movie in the mainstream consciousness, the book still stands alone and cut above as what PKD intended. You can enjoy both although the book is more profound and much more of a puzzle/a Rorschach test of just what you think you see in this book.
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Summary: Yet Another "Blade Runner" Comparison
Review: "Blade Runner" is and had been for many years one of my favorite sci-fi movies. I'll take its film noir-ish depiction of the future over Star Wars's cartoonish-ness any time. And after all these years, I finally got around to reading the source material. When they say that "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" only "inspired" the movie "Blade Runner," brother, they are not kidding. "Blade Runner" took a story written in Phillip K. Dick's usual absurdist style and gave it flesh and blood. Dick's writing is quite philosophical and tends to leave you cold as a reader. Often his characters act in ways that seem to make little sense on a narrative level. "Androids" is no exception to this. The concepts are great, but the details are baffling. For instance, could anyone really live on an Earth mired in the throes of a post nuclear holocaust raidiation cloud? Ultimately, comparing "Androids" to "Blade Runner" is quite unfair to both. "Blade Runner" represents that rare science fiction film with more brains than brawn while "Androids" is a typical Phillip K. Dick mindbender. If you like his stuff, you'll like this book. If you're contemplating reading it just because you liked the movie, don't waste your time.
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Summary: Strange and Perplexing
Review: I first saw the movie BladeRunner before I read the book. The book to me was hard to understand especialy when Isidore had hallucinations or dreams. The book did not explain who Mercer is or who the killers are. The androids in the book seemed stupid compared to the ones in the movies and made less an effort to survive or fight back. The book was partialy intresting but became boring at the end.
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Summary: Do people dream of electric androids?
Review: I would just like to apologize for that title there, that was pretty much lame... But good news!The book isn't! It is the best thing that I have read in a while considering that I am a college student and read a lot of things that suck. Bladerunner, the movie, was pretty good, but this is even better. The book starts out pretty cynically, but I was quite moved by the quest for life portrayed in it and a sort of ultimate new hope. So, buy the book, be moved and entertained- I coudn't put the thing down for two days.
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Summary: Good Movie, Great Book
Review: What an excellent example of the oft-stated principle that "reading the book is better." Blade Runner is a good movie, in my opinion, but Dick's story on which it was based is a lot more cerebral, offers many extras that would have been difficult to pull off in film, yet is no less entertaining. There is a pervasive animal component to the story that is not fleshed out in the film, which is not only interesting but a neat commentary-slash-prediction on the possible future implications of Earth's growing list of endangered and extinct species. Also, there is a much different dynamic to the Deckard- Rachael Rosen relationship than was presented in Blade Runner, and another, colder bounty hunter is introduced who causes Deckard to rethink his personal philosophy. The descriptions of the futuristic setting were intriguing, yet not over the top (that was predictably better handled on film), and there are clever technologies presented such as mood organs and empathy boxes. Do Androids Dream... has a fascinating story line and unique perspective that is a refreshing change from the more apocalyptic tones of science fiction. Instead of trying to save the earth per se, Deckard is charged with keeping the peace, albeit in a sense not (yet) faced by today's law enforcement officers or vigilantes. "Retiring" androids might seem to be amoral on the surface, yet the equation gets complicated the more human the androids are built. The only aspect I wasn't crazy about was the presentation of the religion/philosophy of Mercerism. I appreciated the commentary made by Dick about people's cultish devotion to a belief system, and the system's eventual expose, but I thought that aspect of the story needed more developing. The Mercer passages were largely symbolic, and described in vague terms of imagery- a sharp contrast to the rest of the book's style. [As an aside, the copy I had of this mixed up the words "emphatic" and "empathic" often, which was kind of an odd editing oversight, especially as the ability of humans to empathize was a central theme of the work.]
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Summary: Deep, moving science fiction
Review: In addition to having the most original book title in history, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" is an amazing novel. At its most fundamental level, it questions what it means to be human. Is the soul fundamental to life, or is it the product of compassion and experience? Furthermore, is religion a product of human experience, or is it a guide for human experience? Dick doesn't claim to know the answers to these questions, but, as is the case in many of his novels, it is the asking that is important. The fact that such deep thinking occurs in a brilliantly imagined post-apocalyptic city populated by deep, wonderful characters makes this novel all the more remarkable.
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Summary: made me want to buy all pkd novels
Review: this novel made me want to write sci-fi it shows that sci-fi can be literature and be entertaining at the same time. the characters in my opinion are all well-developed (buster friendly is my favorite) and are engrossing. i had seen this book in the library years ago and ignored it, i wish now i had been reading his work years ago. i had read now wait until last year and am in the process of reading valis (which i love so far) dick is a major writer who deserves attention on par with any american writer of this century. this is considered by some to be pkd's best work by some. the plots twists are excellent and unpredictable. this book is far better than the movie. read the book first and then see blade runner if you haven't already and you will see that the book is far better. but as it has been said film and fiction are two different mediums.
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