This book arrived well before the expected date and was a great buy. I will be buying from them again.

I remember reading this 15 years ago and not caring for it, but on a whim I dusted it off and gave it another go. I'm glad I did.

It's no secret that this book is the inspirational source for the movie Blade Runner. I suspect most people will read this having already seen movie, and will quite likely be let down by the book -- which almost certainly was my original reaction. This is understandable, but to actually "like" this book it is necessary to avoid this trap and basically forget the movie and just read the book as a stand-alone story. The movie takes large chunks of the book's plot, but uses none of the themes (or at best just touches on them lightly.) Likewise, things that are throw-away lines in the book are major plot points in the movie, and vice-versa.

The plot of this book is almost secondary to it's multi-textured, interwoven themes: empathy, the value of life, and what it is to be "human." PKD raises some interesting points and makes some interesting observations, but the answers to these concepts are ultimately left to the reader.

PKD's writing style does take some getting used to, and Electric Sheep is a very good example of this: his prose is rushed, (deliberately) unpolished, and often descriptively spartain. Since he wrote this in 1969, aspects of this may also seem dated: it's set in a post-WW3 dystopia with a still-active Soviet Union lurking in the background. I can forgive all of these, but others might not be so lenient.

My advice is to try to get past any "obvious" stumbling blocks and just give it a go.

Not the best stuff but not the worst. World would be less without it though.

Androids, of course, became Blade Runner, and I was happy to see how faithful the film was to the book, at least to the main plotline. But of course, the film left out half the story: the animals. In this postwar environment, most of the animals in the world are dead from fallout. All the surviving humans need to have a pet, and if they can't afford a real live one they make due with ersatz electrics. Deckard is bummed because he has an electric sheep on his roof, and he's anxious to kill the latest batch of escaped androids to use the bounty money to buy a real animal. This valuation of the lives of the fake animals over the fake humans, very sophisticated life forms, different but very nearly the equal of man, provides a kind of Clockwork Orange ethical overtone to the story. One little tidbit I enjoyed (and I love the way many Dick books take place in the Bay Area) was, the repairers of electric animals pretend to be real veterinarians, with their white vans and coats. The Van Ness Animal Hospital, one of these services, is where we used to take our cat.

Of course, there are supernatural forces at play in this book that one has come to expect from the best of Dick. The weirdest is the world religion of Mercerism, and the empathy boxes (left behind by alien visitors?) which allow the decimated and dysfunctional survivors of Earth to fuse into the figure of Mercer, as he climbs the same hill over and over, and rocks come flying out of nowhere to strike him. The participants of the experience find real wounds from the rocks on their bodies when they reemerge into their living rooms.

There is one eerie scene that is explained away in the same flawed manner that Lou Stathis complained about in his foreword to Dick's earlier Time Out of Joint, when he observed that "...nightmares do not follow real-world logic, and the irrational can never be satisfactorily explained by the rational." In this scene, the fake cops come to arrest Deckard and take him to the big main police station south-of-market, the baroque Mission Street Hall of Justice, which Deckard has never heard-of before. This scene scared the hell out of me: it's like Deckard has been suddenly projected into a parallel universe. "The Hall of Justice," Rick said, "is north, on Lombard."

"That's the old Hall of Justice," Officer Crams said. "The new one is on Mission. That old building, it's disintegrating; it's a ruin. Nobody's used that for years." The explanation, an android conspiracy, is a letdown, but that was the only flaw I found in this exemplary book.

Androids is my favorite sci-fi book of all time & is the inspiration for one of the best movies of all time, Blade Runner. The movie & book are very different. Androids deals with future competing religions, the extinction of all animal life & humanities' use of android pets, mood enhancing technologies & other aspects that Blade Runner does not even touch. However the "bad guy" Roy's character (played by Rutger Hower) is much more nuanced in the film; we genuinely empathize with this complex character, even while he is committing unspeakable acts. Finally, the cinematography & music of Bladerunner are unmatched.

If you think you know what this book is about because you've seen the movie Blade Runner, you are mistaken. Only the character names and some of the settings / situations were lifted from this book for the movie. As in most books, there is a lot more going on here. Because the movie is so highly engrained in our (real?) memories, it is difficult to talk about one without contrasting it to the other, sadly. That said, this is a classic that any SF fan (philosophy major, medical student, or engineer) should read.

Blade Runner completely missed the invented religion / technology of Mercerism and the mood organ device. Later authors like William Gibson have PKD to thank for pioneering concepts such as these. How can a religion and technology be one?

In the book, Mercerism combined with nuclear fallout explain why animals are so expensive (and coveted) in the future. Why does an electric sheep exist (pride, vanity, religious devotion)? The mood organ usage contains references to the cold war (and presumed imminent nuclear war) - husband and wife "dialing up" the desire to win an argument at all costs.

The double yellow center line between human and androids is blurred often- taking the reader across into oncoming traffic. Did Deckard pass the VK test? Rachel and Pris are the same model android? What does it mean to have feelings? Why would an android seek revenge?

This was my first Kindle novel purchase. I no longer have a desire to dial 888 on my mood organ (desire to watch TV regardless of what is on). I'm going to dial up more PKD, Gibson, and others instead!

BTW, to get the "Hit me with a rock" reference, you have to read the book...

Philip K Dick did very well on this book. I was a little dissapointed though in the fact that the retirement of the Nexus 6 was straight to the point and quick unlike the movie Blade Runner where there was more suspense. But with the exception of that it is a quick read and brilliant.

I loved this book. It was so different from the film, Blade Runner, which was loosely based on the book and entertaining in its own right. It showed a post apocalyptic time that answered many of the questions the film posed. In this book Deckard has a wife and an android sheep which are props to show you how the people of the future think, function and feel. It is great entertainment with a thought provoking feel to it. Can people of the future really relay on things and ideas we have not thought of yet? I am now reading the follow up books.

J

With very few exceptions, literary visions of the future are bleak and dystopian. Science fiction literature it seems wants to instill fear into the minds of its readers, or at least make the reader extremely cautious to the dangers of "technology run amok." It is difficult to say what motivates the authors to present the future in this fashion. But from the standpoint the marketplace it certainly is a formula that works, as is readily apparent by its wide readership. And the authors, these provocateurs of the amygdala, continue to put more of this anti-technological diatribe on paper.

This book, first published in 1968, represents one of such works, but in spite of this it turns out to be very insightful into the current technological morass called the twenty-first century. All of the characters in the book, human and otherwise, represent many of the moods and concerns of the twenty-first century citizen. The devastating third world war of this book did not happen but the anxieties that some feel about technology are reflected in this book in the killing of the androids (the "andys") and the fear that the "empathy box" may change one's identity permanently. Indeed, the events in this book have their analogs today in the purposeful destruction of genetically engineered crops by some fanatical groups and the research labs that produce them, and also in the misguided legislation that has attempted to thwart developments in genetics and molecular biology. Those who carry out these activities evidently do not foresee their consequences to human health, and have no empathy it seems for those who may starve or die because of the lack of food or medicines brought about by genetic engineering (perhaps they need an empathy box of the sort described in this book to assist them in gaining insight into their actions).

This story can still be enjoyed however by those readers who strongly advocate technological advance and are proud of human accomplishments in this regard. This is so because it is a kind of adventure story, and will make such readers salivate at the mouth when it discusses robotic ("electric") animals, human colonies on Mars, videophones, and hover cars. In addition, the author it seems had a rudimentary knowledge of cognitive neuroscience, at least at the level of what was available at the time of publication. And without conscious awareness perhaps, the reader can feel empathy for the androids, which must constantly face the prospect of execution or an irreversible four-year lifespan. Perhaps an update of this story is in order, but perhaps not. After all, this is the twenty-first century, and one need only pick up a technical journal or newspaper to read about technological developments that are much more exciting than what is contained in this story. And thankfully there is more ahead, much, much more.

Coming off "Blade Runner", I expected the book to be a masterpiece, with deeper philosophical insight. I knew from the start the vast amount of differences from book and movie. And quite frankly, they are separate stories.

I easily figured out by the end of the book the meaning of Deckard's electric sheep and why he was ashamed of it, his constant quest for real animals, and his sudden liking of the electric toad he finds at the end of the book, regardless of its authenticity, but really that was the only interesting philosophy and change of character that was neatly done and very expertly.

The story is an absolute mess. Taking place over only one day, Deckard is given a bounty hunting job to take out six androids after Dave Holden is nearly killed by one after retiring two himself. Deckard almost immediately runs into Polokov (BR fans, think Leon Kowalski) and retires him. He then goes to find Luba Luft (BR fans, think Zhora), hears her music, and is raptured. Then he barges into her dressing room, forces her to take a Voigt-Kampff test, and she calls the police, leading to this really poorly executed attempt to get rid of Deckard and an android plot.

According to the documentaries in the Blade Runner Final Cut, they claim there is a part in the book where Deckard is lead into this hidden world where people think he is an android killing people and convincing himself they are the androids, an implication that Deckard might be a replicant in the movie, as he may be an android in the book.

This implication never existed. Deckard is taken to this apparently parallel police station where everyone but the bounty hunter Phil Desch are androids, and no one knows they are there. An entire building full of androids and no one even realizes it. There's some confused and awkward dialogue between Deckard and Garland, another of his targeted androids, leading to Phil retiring Garland. There's then some awkward interaction where Deckard thinks Phil is an android, and Phil waxes philosophical on life which is a bit nonsensical when left open and unrefined. Deckard builds on this with a realization of growing empathy towards androids.

Some scenes compared with the movie are sloppily done, with a sense of the author not really wanting to do them, but rushing through them in a film-script summary sort of manner. For example, his giving the Voigt-Kampff test to Rachael Rosen (BR fans, think Tyrell), and when the results point to her being an android, there's a whole "Clue" climax back-and-forth with an "AHA! But Rachael was born on a space ship and wasn't raised with the same morals as humans. AHA! The Voigt-Kampff test didn't work! AHA! We recorded the session to screw your assignment, Deckard" and Deckard "AHA! One last question. AHA! You really ARE an android! AHA! You tried to trick me but failed!" Of course, not literally going like that, but it certainly progresses at that sort of reckless pace without giving the reader time to digest the events.

Most events in the book progress like this, with much of the author's focus being on esoteric, rambling philosophy he doesn't bother to put a conclusion to. The religion of Mercerism, for example, isn't explained that it revolves around an apparently real person on an apparently real planet, who apparently needs no food or water, and apparently walks up and down a mountain while invisible "Killers" throw a rock at him every time he reaches the top, which you catch upon as the book progresses. People go to their empathy boxes, which tunes their brainwaves or something to Mercer's brain, and people can empathize with him. By the end of the book, the android 46-hour-a-day radio and TV performer Buster Friendly proves that Mercer isn't real, just an actor who filmed some esoteric footage of him walking up a hill and getting hit by a rock, and this suddenly becomes the basis of an entire religion. And for some never explained reason, Mercer appears in reality to talk to Deckard and others.

The androids, specifically Roy and Irmgard Baty, and Pris Stratton, become almost insignificant. The author especially acknowledges this as Deckard easily and almost carelessly kills them one by one without any sort of fight. Deckard has this problem with killing Pris because she's identical to Rachael in model, and he's fallen in love with Rachael and had sex with her, and Pris will be the hardest of them all to kill because she looks like Rachael. Deckard blows her away in half a second without much thought, then ALL OF A SUDDEN "Oh my god, I did it, I overcame, the worst is over, etcetera etceteree." and happily goes on to kill Roy and Irmgard in about a page or two. He also proves to be a complete idiot with regards to his job, as he encounters JR Isidore (BR fans, think JF Sebastian), who tells him he's housing the androids and refuses to tell Deckard where his apartment is, so Deckard says forget it and goes to explore a THOUSAND ROOM APARTMENT BUILDING on his own to find the androids.

Also, Deckard bought a goat with half his bounty money, and for some completely random and unexplained reason, Rachael comes and kills it.


From the start, I had high hopes and expectations, seeing a clear theme emerging, now common in some science fiction, about computerization, materilization, the loss of emotions, and the empathy of androids and humans. By the end, it devolved into a random esoteric scribbling and rambling of a man thinking he's on to something philosophical, then goes for a bathroom break and forgets everything he's thought up, so he finishes up the book without concluding a damn thing but one; Deckard's empathy towards androids.

Basically, the book explores the theme of empathy, how humans sympathize with one another and even with animals, but androids are cruel (experimenting with spiders by clipping off their legs) and self-centered (they don't form alliances, always prioritizing one self). However, it is the story's cool yet sincere tone that really stands out. The book follows Rick Deckard as he starts out as a bounty hunter "retiring"/destroying run-away androids but eventually shows doubt about what he does and what society dictates. It is revealed that androids can be altruistic, and that humans beings aren't as sympathetic as they themselves would like to believe.

Although these themes no longer seem original nowadays, the book still offers an array of relateable characters, such as the hardened yet introspective Deckard, his often unmotivated wife, and the mentally-challenged John Ishidore who, along with a whole class of "Special" people, is barred from emigrating to the less polluted Mars but meanwhlie has a crush on an android and helps out her party. The androids themselves show different degrees of humanness--may it be fear for their programmed death within 4 years, or desire to be accepted as persons, or even want for retribution when one or more of their memebers were "retired"--but also a general apathy toward the feelings of others. The futuristic setting helps one see unbiasedly the familiar dynamics of an otherwise alien world, while bringing freshness, excitement, and a cybernetical coolness to the story.

Basically, the book explores the theme of empathy, how humans sympathize with one another and even with animals, but androids are cruel (experimenting with spiders by clipping off their legs) and self-centered (they don't form alliances, always prioritizing one self). However, it is the story's impartiality and richness that really stands out. The book follows Rick Deckard as he starts out as a bounty hunter "retiring"/destroying run-away androids, but eventually shows doubt about what he does and what society dictates. It is revealed that androids can be altruistic, and that humans beings aren't as sympathetic as they themselves would like to believe.

Although such themes no longer seem original nowadays, the book still offers an array of relateable characters, such as the hardened yet introspective Deckard, his often unmotivated wife, and the mentally-challenged John Ishidore, who, along with a whole class of "Special" people, is barred from emigrating to the less polluted Mars; he also has a crush on an android and helps out her party. The androids themselves show different degrees of humanness--may it be fear for their programmed death within 4 years, or desire to be accepted as persons, or even want for retribution when one or more of their memebers were "retired"--but also a general apathy toward the feelings of others. The futuristic setting does not prevent one from observing such familiar dynamics in an otherwise alien world; at the same time, it brings excitement and a sense of coolness unique to cybernetics to the story.

Basically, the book explores the theme of empathy, how humans sympathize with one another and even with animals, but androids are cruel (experimenting with spiders by clipping off their legs) and self-centered (they don't form alliances, always prioritizing one self). However, it is the story's impartiality and richness that really stands out. The book follows Rick Deckard as he starts out as a bounty hunter "retiring"/destroying run-away androids, but eventually shows doubt about what he does and what society dictates. It is revealed that androids can be altruistic, and that humans beings aren't as sympathetic as they themselves would like to believe.

Although such themes no longer seem original nowadays, the book still offers an array of relateable characters, such as the hardened yet introspective Deckard, his often unmotivated wife, and the mentally-challenged John Ishidore, who, along with a whole class of "Special" people, is barred from emigrating to the less polluted Mars; he also has a crush on an android and helps out her party. The androids themselves show different degrees of humanness--may it be fear for their programmed death within 4 years, or desire to be accepted as persons, or even want for retribution when one or more of their memebers were "retired"--but also a general apathy toward the feelings of others. The futuristic setting helps one see unbiasedly the familiar dynamics of an otherwise alien world, while bringing freshness, excitement, and a coolness unique to cybernetics to the story.

A perfect Sci-Fi classic! Funny thing is the book was awful! It's the first time I thought the screenplay was better! The movie story and dialog are much better.

Knowing the movie so well, it was interesting reading this book and drawing the parallels. I've also read the original script of the movie which is a novel itself and worth reading since it slightly differs from the movie and gives more explanation for things (i.e. why German is spoken throughout).

The book reads like a good romantic detective thriller, which was the original intent of the movie. It just happened to be in the future. Some imagery dates itself such as references to CRT monitors and some imagery gives the future too much credit for advancement such as references to the development of androids in the '70s. But the concept is sound. If one could just remember this was written in the mid-20th century, it could just be seen as a parallel universe if things had played out differently. A future that could have been. Post-apocolyptic novels were less common in this time and thus I feel more interesting to read.

The book, like the movie, brings up the value of life whether it is real or artificially created. This arguement is displayed through the romantic relationships between Deckhard, and android and with his own wife. There are many other examples of this through out the book. Any avid reader should read this book as an example of groundbreaking thinking of the time and just to ask themselves the question "What if.."

During the Grunge craze, several bands became prominent and were written about. Band members were interviewed by Rock journalists and others. Although I've no enthusiasm for their music, TREES provided the ultimate insight into what they did and how they did it. And about that I'm wildly enthusiastic because it holds the key to so much of POP art and lit. This small group of hirsute, obese strummers came out of the dank gloom of so many of the fishgut towns in the Northeast, wanting what most guys that age want; a break, some excitement, some fame and enough money so they can pick up some fat hungry girls who like to eat and go ut and have a good greasy, dirty time. Two fat guys, a drummer and a screamer; the screamer was tall, long-haired and chronically depressed, and sang behind the veil of his lank hair, but he had the right kind of voice and delivery to make the gloomy doggerel of their songs seem like lyrics of some profundity when yelled into and across the intense sonic whine (singing trees) of the band's electronics. They were both puzzled and affronted by their success because--and they were frnk enough to see it and admit it--their success, their sound came from their amateurism. They were not and did not pretend to be professional musicians; what they did came ou of their need to express themselves with what they had.

In that sense the group grasped what they had in common with all the truly great proletarian artists, in Rock, in high POP art, the Blues, in Comics like Heavy Metal, in Heavy Metal music, in Pulp Fiction generally, and in Sci-Fi stories; the Pulpy spinoff of the three-penny thriller. All these creative artists offered an immense working-class public entertaining material that served as High Art and the repository of great ideas and sensations, in easily-digested, cheap forms. Mass entertainments for mass markets.

Dick's books fit into this form perfectly, and this book, surely one of his legitimate masterpieces, fits perhaps best of all. Its form is that of a kind of montage made up of thinly detailed but vividly colored scenes from the private and professional life of an individual who must work for his living. His name is Deckerd, and he lives in an apartment or house so unattractive, a minimum of words is more than enough to describe it. He has a semi-catatonic skank for a wife, and she, unable or unwilling to face any reality outside their dwelling, stays attached to a device called a Mood Organ, endlessly varhing the combinations in hope of finding one that will deliver her from he nightmare of apathy. It is a set-up very much like something one would find in an illustrated Crum magazine; say DESPAIR COMICS.

After his dose of Mood modification, he escapes to go to work. It is a job he hates, but has grown numb hating. He is something between a policeman and a garbage man, in that he spots and eliminates stray, or unauthorized, escaped droids from neighboring planets and space platforms, who have deserted their posts and come to Earth. In the course of his duties he has the opportunity to visit the droid or replicant production facility, and there to administer a standard Empathy test to one of the replicants, a shining female. The contrast here is poignant: he has before him a beautiful, synthetic and capable woman who functions well in the world, and who can be trained to love him. At home he has an authentic woman who is neurotic and profoundly incapable of maintaining either herself or their home and is therefore an unsuitable or unsatisfactory wife or companion.

That problem's the essence of BLADERUNNER, the most beautiful and important film of the second half of the 20th century. But the film is not the novel. There are many shades of difference, and those differences enhance the inspirational fecundity of the book. More pictures will be made from it, or inspired by it, and they will all be more than superficially different.

Others here have pointed out Dick's comparative lifelong poverty. As a Chicago nerd transplanted to Los Angeles, without looks or any technical and financially rewarding specialty, he fell into writing for the Sci-Fi pulps. His work has the look of that genre: the flat, quick stories, sketched out and either stitched togethe or pasted over one another, and all written under an editor's or publisher's deadline. He produced about 30 books, and estimating what he might have made out of them, I conclude that he made between 5 an 6 thousand dollars a year, during the sixties, and kept himself gring them out by means of drugs. Like Warhol's paintings that depend on mass production techniques--wherein painting blends with silk screen and becomes photosereography--or the physique painters and illustrators of Sci-Fi an fantasy--wherein draughtsmanship meshes with pastiche realism; indeed, like the decorative cubists who incorporated pieces of 'found' material into their paintings and sculptures, so Dick used what he found, modifying it slightly, and by manipulating the context of these images, was able to simulate many of the effects of conventional narrative writing, without having to use that technique itself. Although as some have noted, there are stretches of good or even brilliant writing, they tend to be short, small and the stories proceed around them, like fluids streaming around a solid object. Quentin Tarrantino, another great proletarian artist also uses mass-production techniques, producing visually, a sense of fast-editing that is reinforced by his ability to interweave separate character-driven stories and incidents into an overall narrative, and then to bring them all to a satisfactory conclusion. Tarrantino's films have yet to inspire books, whereas Dick's books continue to inspire screenplays. Dick's books use limited language, even inarticulateness to suggest pictures; to conjure up images in the imagination. It's as simple-minded as a Hockney assemblage of Polaroids. But one feels sure, no matter how fanciful the outward appearance of any given metaphor, that Dick has based all on solid observation of the world around him.

I imagine that Dick had as his day job, something like Credit Investigator. He looks like a ReproMan.
He's working in that endlessly inhospitable, expensive conlommeration of hovels, Los Angeles, with its acrid, brown atmosphere, it's stink and its 24-7 Euphoria.
His job is to track down physically magnificent, but deadly and unfeeling escaped slaves; i.e., blacks. To a middle-aged mid-American like Dick, these large, people would be dangerous at least.
His job is to ruin or to destroy their credit, if they have any; to repro their cars; to strip them of unpaid-for jewelery and costly electronics. He works with the police, but outside the legal system.
His turf of exploration is that vast, inhabited wasteland of semi-industrial blight, around L.A.X.
He is sexually challenged by the beauty and the physicality of the women.
He is intimately threatened by the physicality of these virile men.
He cannot and does not get the affair going that he wanted with the female. Probably impossible anyway. 50s-60s L.A. Probably racially restricted housing. He's relieved.
He crashes when he's finished his gig, and his home skank manages to pull herself together enough to throw a cover over him as he sleeps, and to put on a pot of coffee.
Tomorrow is another day: same plot, different characters.
Both Stalin and Roosevelt are dead, but this is what happens when Kafka and Orwell combine to produce the literture of the Proletariat. It is monstrous because life for most people today is monstrous. All one can say as one looks down on this misshapen thing on its gurney is, "It's alive! Alive!

Second class synthetics.

In a dystopian future androids are used by humans, and look so similar sophisticated tests have to be used to be able to tell them apart, based on functions that they are not able to perform - having children, etc.

Humans don't allow them rights, and some of the robot people variety rebel at this - which gives people like Deckard a job, tracking down these rogues.

An investigation of racism, of course, as well as a squalid, trashed planet.


4 out of 5

To me, Philip K Dick's significance as a writer and a thinker is best described by Baudrillard, who (quote from the Wikipedia follows) "[saw him as] the ultimate articulation of hyperreality:

"It is hyperreal. It is a universe of simulation, which is something altogether different. And this is so not because Dick speaks specifically of simulacra. SF has always done so, but it has always played upon the double, on artificial replication or imaginary duplication, whereas here the double has disappeared. There is no more double; one is always already in the other world, an other world which is not another, without mirrors or projection or utopias as means for reflection. The simulation is impassable, unsurpassable, checkmated, without exteriority. We can no longer move "through the mirror" to the other side, as we could during the golden age of transcendence.""


In plain terms, it means that the 21st century belongs not to Orwell or Huxley. It belongs to Phillip K Dick. This is how it's going to be and this is how things, in many ways, already ARE -- because this is how we already THINK. Remember that when reading this powerful and gripping novel, IMO one of Dick's best.

In this second piece found in the omnibus "Counterfeit Unrealities (contains Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep [aka Blade Runner], The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch)," we find ourselves working between two intertwining plot lines. One is based around Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who "retires" escaped androids - who have killed their owners off-world in the colonies and then come to Earth to live and try to blend in. The latest model - the Nexus-6 - can only be told from humans through use of a sophisticated psychological testing mechanism that measures empathy levels; empathy being the one thing that androids quite simply lack. The other plot line revolves around J. R. Isadore, a "chickenhead" (that is to say, a man who has mutated enough that he is starting to lose his cognitive abilities, but not so much that he cannot still manage to take care of himself and serve the public in some small way). He works for the Van Ness Pet Hospital, which serves people who own electric animals. However, his day gets off to an uneven start when first he discovers another tenant in his previously empty building, and then he is given a real cat - which subsequently dies on the way in to the hospital before he even realizes it is actually alive.

Similar in theme to the previous Philip Dick novel I reviewed, this book explores the differences between reality and fantasy by probing the differences between man and machine, as shown by the differences between human and android (sometimes that line is very blurred), electric animal and real animal, and so forth. Always in the background is the constant back and forth of Mercerism vs. Buster Friendly, who always gently (and sometimes not so gently) accuses Mercer as a fraud and fake.

Please note, those who have seen "Blade Runner"; it has been years since I have seen the movie, but from what I recall - the movie is only VERY LOOSELY based upon this novel.

Nonetheless, I did find the story enjoyable; dense and difficult at times, but the interchange and interplays are always deft and intriguing. This classic bit of surreal sci-fi is not to be missed.

(This review is based on the novel as it is printed in the Library of America edition.)

Famed for being the basis of the cult movie "Blade Runner", this novel is, in my opinion, not as good a book as the movie is as a movie. There are big differences between the two, as far as the plot is concerned, and the mood, and quite frankly, I prefer that of the movie. But to the novel itself.

If you are familiar with Dick's style, you will not be in foreign territories here. All the features that define Dick's prose are there. Interestingly enough, and as for his other novels that I read, I never find myself bored, and it's always a pleasure to read Dick's work; and that, despite the shortcomings.

If you've never heard of "Blade Runner" or this novel, then here is a short sum up of the basics: it's set in the future, where humans colonise the universe, and have reached the level of technology enabling us to create androids, a sort of organic machines resembling humans. Those androids are illegal on earth and whenever some of them flee to this planet, bounty hunters are after them. The main Character of the book, Rick Deckard (named after René Descartes, the French thinker famous for his "cogito ergo sum", or "I think therefore I am") is one of those bounty hunters. As usual, Dick creates a very interesting dystopian world, the kind that you can't get enough information.

The story is a lot more complicated than that, and for those who know "Blade Runner", there are many things that you never heard of in the movie. Mercerism, to name but one. The fact that Deckard is a married man, and not much like the Deckard of the movie.

What I disliked about the novel was similar that what I dislike in every Dick novel I know of. For one, this novel has one of the worst titles in existence that I had the displeasure to lay eyes on. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", I cannot think this is anything close to a good title. Dick is quite bad when it comes to naming things. One reflex he has that I cannot stand is that he somehow feels obliged to give ridiculous names to either people or companies, and it just makes the whole thing sound grotesque. In "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", one big company was called "Perky Pat Layouts"; in this novel, a TV host is named "Buster Friendly", and I won't list the others. Or just this one more: "andy". That is the word by which Dick has his novel call the androids. In plural form, this becomes "andys". Not very thrilling.

The movie changed those things. "Andys" become "replicants" and "bounty hunters" become "blade runners". All for the better, if you want my opinion. I believe the plotline of the movie to be far superior to that of the novel even though they share a lot, as would be expected. My feeling on Dick is that he crams so much material in his relatively short novels that he cannot get the best of it. Mercerism, mentioned above, is a quite obscure religion that never gets fully explained in the book, and is completely absent from the movie, and one understands why all too easily.

Another thing I think Dick is short on is descriptions. For all I remember, Dick rarely, if ever, describes much; and the result of this is that one doesn't really see the world in which the characters evolve. If you expect visions similar to those in the movie, you will be disappointed. In Dick's novel, Earth is being abandoned by everyone, and it's mostly desert and gets less and less populated. Quite unlike the Earth of the movie, quite unlike the megacities people live in. I think it's an impressive feat that the people who made "Blade Runner" based it on this book. The themes are excellent, and Dick, in my opinion, doesn't reach the full extent of what he could have done. To name one example, the relation between creator and creature, à la Frankenstein, is entirely nonexistent in the novel, whereas it's central in the movie.

If you love the movie, you will only get disappointed by this book if you expect it to do the movie justice; it won't. But it's nevertheless a good read and an interesting one with regards to the "Blade Runner" universe. It won't be as good as the movie - that's hard - but it is a good read, and that is why despite all my negative comments I still gave this novel 4 stars. I would recommend to people who enjoy the movie, but I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the book the same had I not known of the movie first. Yet, there definitely are good things in the book.

Really I don't know what I can add that hasn't already been said about this fantastic book. A must read for even non-sci-fi fans as it could be the book that converts you to the genre!

I noticed that many commented on the quality of Dick's writing. This may not be Shakespeare-quality prose, but what sci-fi novel is? (Dune was actually exceedingly well written, though.) Dick is so committed to his vision that he draws you in, and by the end it's hard to escape the eerie despair of life after World War Terminus. It may be clearer after a second or third read, but my only objection is the concept of Mercerism as it's developed late in the book. Its relation to the characters is not explained in-depth, and I was left wondering why it affected certain characters in certain ways. But I don't want to give too much away! This is a definite buy if you enjoy sci-fi lit of any kind.

Dick presents us with yet another bizarre vision of the future in this fast-paced adventure novel. The protagonist is a bounty hunter who tracks down renegade androids who have killed their off-planet masters and fled to Earth to lose themselves among the general human populace. Complicating his job is the inevitable fact that as technology improves, it becomes increasingly more difficult to tell the androids from real people. So the hunter has to administer very subtle tests to his subjects in order to verify their non-humanity. These tests require the co-operation of the subject, even as the androids - knowing they are about to be detected - are preparing to kill him.

The title is a riff on the reigning philosophy of the period, a faith called Mercerism, which advocates the sanctity of all life (spiders, chickens, goats, whatever) and provides a communal experience that validates human empathy. Dick postulates that no matter how closely the machine mind may approximate humanity, it can never achieve empathy with the living, and so must ultimately fail. Even if Mercerism is a sham, it is better to believe in humanity, it is better to believe that we are not alone, it is better to believe that someone will help us when we find ourselves stuck in the tomb world, than to give in to despair. The machines, which know neither despair nor empathy, have nothing to bind them together, to take them beyond the confines of their own short existences, while humanity, which has the potential for community, can see a bigger, and ultimately more lasting picture.

This is one of Dick's best novels: well-constructed around a strong central character, with a reasonable ending instead of the jaw-dropping "twist" that (while cool) sometimes mars his books. Readers new to this giant of the genre might do well to start here.

It's hard to review "Androids" without referring to Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner but I'll try to do it.

Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter hunting androids in a post World War III America. In his spare time he tends to his robot sheep which grazes on the roof of his apartment building. He saves his bounty money in the hopes of buying a real animal--a status symbol in a society where nearly all the animals are articifical. The conflict is that Rick empathizes with his quarry. He may even be an android himself.

Phillip K. Dick presents a parable which comments on war, the environment, faith, technology, commerce, racism and humanity. The book is Dark witha capital "D", to the point of being nihilistic. At the heart is the question, "What makes us human?" To say more would spoil the book.

Most of the book is dialogue. The description is minimal and for a book which features an android hunter as its protagonist, the action is minimal. Action scenes are typically about one sentence long. (Example: "He shot her.") This is a philosophical work, not an action yarn.

My biggest problem with "Androids" is the lack of a primary antagonist. There is no main "bad guy" and the villains don't seem to want anything other than to be left alone. This is results in a notable lack of rising action and suspense.

If you like dark sci-fi, however, this should be at the top of your reading list.

Dick is a highly productive writer, producing many mediocre Sci.Fi novels, but Do androids dream of electric sheep is not one of them. A tale of philosophy and of humanity and immensely more powerfull than the film version titled Blade Runner. Dick, as always, produces some rather controversial aspects of human nature and society, as it could have been, or maybe will be, off cause in an exaterated nature by which he delivers his morale. A product of the time it was written, the danger of a nuclear war and the world that would be leftover is the driving factor in the novel, but Dick tells a story which is incredibly relevant in the world we live in, right now. Close to a classic, and if you want to read just one novel by Philip K. Dick, it better be this one!

Imagine a post apocalyptic world devoid of almost all natural life. Radioactive dust falls constantly. Humans artificially adjust their moods and are reminded of their humanity in a group consciousness merging of emotions - the cult of Mercer.
Into this void, unbidden and forbidden, come a group of "replicant" humanoid androids that can no longer bear the conditions and loneliness of their lives in the outer worlds, where there are sent to do tasks too dangerous for humans.
It is the duty of the police to `retire' i.e. destroy these rogue androids, who are superior in all aspects of body and intelligence to humans, but lack empathy. Welcome to "Do androids dream of electric sheep"
"Blade Runner" was, and still is my favorite movie. Many of you may also have been intrigued by the eclectic name of this novel and like me have been exposed to it in the credits of the film. I had an inescapable feeling that there was so much that I was missing in the movie, and eventually read the novel to explore this.
The book is much more complex (yes, really!!) than the movie, and the movie plot has some serious deviation from the theme expressed in the book especially in the portrayal of the character Rachel. However each art form stands alone well and these variations should not deplete ones enjoyment of the other.
So if you have ever wondered at the beauty of the owl, why the apartment buildings are so empty, the complexity of Decker's anti hero or simply wish to ponder the big questions of life, love, humanity and religion, then this book is a must.

I have never dreamed of Electric sheep so does that mean I'm not an Android? I doubt it would matter. I'm pretty sure none of the androids we have ever known dreamed of them. I don't recall Yul Brynner in "Westworld" or Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about it in "Terminator". I certainly don't recall Data in the "Star Trek: Next Generation" exposing the lack of sleep causing him to resort to such a measure. I know Isaac Asimov's robots didn't since I read all his Robots and Foundation series. Why is this book even discussed to any degree? Two reasons. One, it is a good book with some unusual ideas. Two, if it wasn't it would never have caught the eye of movie producers and directors and led to the making of "Blade Runner". Now the fact only have some roughly similar viewpoints doesn't make either the book or the movie bad. I think each are great in their own medium. And why would anyone say you can't judge a book by it's cover? Duh! So although I get the book, I like the movie. I can't help it I'm into visualization. But those of you like to feel the paper, cloth, or leatherette binders I understand.

This anti-robot novel is oft misunderstood by those who come to it with expectations formed by the pro-robot movie. The novel is essentially a paranoid fantasy about machines which pretend to be people. The pretense is so horrifyingly effective that a bounty hunter engaged in the entirely necessary task of rooting out and destroying these monsters finds that his own humanity has become imperiled.

The novel "DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?" re-titled "BLADE RUNNER" to tie it to the Ridley Scott film loosely based on it, remains available under either title (and with separate entries on AMAZON), but it is the same book. The film studio wanted to market a "novelization" of the film, but PKD adamantly refused to authorize this, forcing them to instead market his original novel under the film's title. Good move, Phil!

This decision, however, has led to confusion and/or disappointment when readers approach the novel with expectations formed by the film. Many reviewers here (whether they like the book, the film, or both) have commented on how different they are. Few seem to realize, however, the extent that they are in direct and fundamental conflict. Some praise the book for tearing down the distinction between man and machine or promoting other nihilistic views and pro-robot messages that the author would have found abhorrent. Others pan it for lack of focus, or for otherwise failing to promote the film's pro-robot agenda as effectively as the film did.

The book is anti-robot and pro-human, and seeks to uphold the distinction between robot and human, and between illusion and reality, in the face of a most-insidious challenge. The common man is celebrated for his basic decency -- specifically his capacity for basic empathy and compassion -- and deplores the robots for their complete lack of these qualities. In the book, even a "chickenhead" (a mentally retarded human mutant) is infinitely more valuable than the smartest robot.

The film was pro-robot and anti-human, promoting the idea that a compelling illusion is equivalent to reality. It glorifies the android as a sort of superman ("more human than human") -- stronger, faster, more beautiful, more intelligent, -- who seem poised to inherit the future on a dying Earth. The film even seems to admire the robots for their ruthlessness.

The book makes Deckard (the protagonist) human, and loyal to humans. The film has Deckard switch sides and join the robots. Indeed, in the film (not the book) Deckard may himself be a robot (the latter is never made explicit, but director has made clear it is what he intended). This means that, in the FILM, there are virtually no sympathetic human characters -- those characters who suggest that a man is worth more than a computer program are portrayed as bigots.

In PKD's view, the androids are unquestionably monsters who must be destroyed. The irony, and the central problem posed in the novel, is that their ability to SEEM human (which,, in the NOVEL, is never more than meticulously-programmed fakery), means that those who must destroy robots risk damage to their own humanity in the process. Thus, the author approves of Deckard's wife, whose sympathy for the "poor andys" is evidence of her humanity, while still approving of Deckard's assignment.

In the novel, the robots' increased ability to fool the VK test is merely an advance in programmed mimicry of human test responses. The film, on the other hand, treats the improved performance on the VK test as evidence that the robots are truly "human". But the film's robots do not demonstrate compassion in any meaningful way. The agenda of the film is NOT so mcuh to show that robots are as compassionate as humans, but rather to show that humans are as ruthless as robots (as evidenced, mainly, by their willingness to kill robots). This agenda is eerily similar to that of the TV androids near the end of the novel, who set out to expose human empathy as a myth.

In the novel, the title question must be answered in the negative. Androids DON'T care about other creatures. It is humans who have the capacity care about other creatures -- ironically, even about androids -- even electric sheep.

So many, even among the author's admirers, have missed the novel's true focus that it may be best to defend my interpretation with a quote from the author himself, made shortly before his death (quoted in the book "Future Noir"):

"To me, the replicants are deplorable. They are cruel, they are cold,
they are heartless. They have no empathy, which is how the
Voight-Kampff test catches them out, and don't care about what happens
to other creatures. They are essentially less-than-human entities.

"Ridley, on the other hand, said he regarded them as supermen who
couldn't fly. He said they were smarter, stronger, and had faster
reflexes than humans. 'Golly!' That's all I could think of to reply
to that one. I mean, Ridley's attitude was quite a divergence from my
original point of view, since the theme of my book is that Deckard is
dehumanized through tracking down the androids. When I mentioned
this, Ridley said that he considered it an intellectual idea, and that
he was not interested in making an esoteric film."

This anti-robot novel is oft misunderstood by those who come to it with expectations formed by the pro-robot movie. The novel is essentially a paranoid fantasy about machines which pretend to be people. The pretense is so horrifyingly effective that a bounty hunter engaged in the entirely necessary task of rooting out and destroying these monsters finds that his own humanity has become imperiled.

Originally entitled "DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP," this novel was re-titled "BLADE RUNNER" to tie it to the Ridley Scott film loosely based on it. It remains available under either title (and with separate entries on AMAZON), but it is the same book. The film studio wanted to market a "novelization" of the film, but PKD adamantly refused to authorize this, forcing them to instead market his original novel under the film's title. Good move, Phil!

This decision, however, has led to confusion and/or disappointment when readers approach the novel with expectations formed by the film. Many reviewers here (whether they like the book, the film, or both) have commented on how different they are. Few seem to realize, however, the extent that they are in direct and fundamental conflict. Some praise the book for tearing down the distinction between man and machine or promoting other nihilistic views and pro-robot messages that the author would have found abhorent. Others pan it for lack of focus in failing to promote the film's pro-robot agenda as effectively as the film did.

That conflict may be summarized as follows: The book is anti-robot and pro-human, and seeks to uphold the distinction between robot and human, and between illusion and reality, in the face of a most-insidious challenge. The film was pro-robot and anti-human, promoting the idea that a compelling illusion is equivalent to reality, and that its ruthless robots were, if anything, better than humans.

The book glorifies the common man for his basic decency -- specifically his capacity for basic empathy and compassion -- and deplores the robots for their complete lack of these qualities. In the book, even a "chickenhead" (a mentally retarded human mutant) is infinitely more valuable than the smartest robot. The film on the other hand, glorifies the robot as a sort of superman ("more human than human") -- stronger, faster, more beautiful, more intelligent, -- who seem poised to inherit the future on a dying Earth. The film even seems to admire the robots for their ruthlessness.

The book makes Deckard (the protagonist) human, and loyal to humans. The film has Deckard switch sides and join the robots. Indeed, in the film (not the book) Deckard may himself be a robot (the latter is never made explicit, but director has made clear it is what he intended). This means that, in the FILM, there are virtually no sympathetic human characters -- those characters who suggest that a man is worth more than a computer program are portrayed as bigots.

In PKD's view, the androids are unquestionably monsters who must be destroyed. The irony, and the central problem posed in the novel, is that their ability to SEEM human (which,, in the NOVEL, is never more than meticulously-programmed fakery), means that those who must destroy robots risk damage to their own humanity in the process. Thus, the author approves of Deckard's wife, whose sympathy for the "poor andys" is evidence of her humanity, while still approving of Deckard's assignment.

In the novel, the robots' increased ability to fool the VK test is merely an advance in programmed mimicry of human test responses. The film, on the other hand, treats the improved performance on the VK test as evidence that the robots are truly "human". But the film's robots do not demonstrate compassion in any meaningful way. The agenda of the film is NOT so mcuh to show that robots are as compassionate as humans, but rather to show that humans are as ruthless as robots (as evidenced, mainly, by their willingness to kill robots). This agenda is eerily similar to that of the TV androids near the end of the novel, who set out to expose human empathy as a myth.

In the novel, the title question must be answered in the negative. Androids DON'T care about other creatures. It is humans who have the capacity care about other creatures -- ironically, even about androids -- even electric sheep.

So many, even among the author's admirers, have missed the novel's true focus that it may be best to defend my interpretation with a quote from the author himself, made shortly before his death (quoted in the book "Future Noir"):

"To me, the replicants are deplorable. They are cruel, they are cold,
they are heartless. They have no empathy, which is how the
Voight-Kampff test catches them out, and don't care about what happens
to other creatures. They are essentially less-than-human entities.

"Ridley, on the other hand, said he regarded them as supermen who
couldn't fly. He said they were smarter, stronger, and had faster
reflexes than humans. 'Golly!' That's all I could think of to reply
to that one. I mean, Ridley's attitude was quite a divergence from my
original point of view, since the theme of my book is that Deckard is
dehumanized through tracking down the androids. When I mentioned
this, Ridley said that he considered it an intellectual idea, and that
he was not interested in making an esoteric film."

We all know that Bladerunner is based loosely on this book. Very loosely. They are two separate works - I like them both, but they need to be considered independently of each other.

It's an "After the War" setting, with the existential emptiness of not really knowing who was fighting, or who launched the weapons that scorched so much of the earth, or maybe even what the weapons were. It hardly matters, since the world is a radioactive waste, with daily reports on fallout the way we expect reports on rain or high tides. The governments want everyone out, to colonies on the other planets. As incentive, they offer a free robot to everyone who leaves, built to request. If you qualify for an exit ticket, there's no down side.

Unless you're one of the robots. Slaves, really, since they're carbon goo instead of steel and silicon. Of course, some few try to escape. Of course, since their factory-made minds are so agile, many succeed. Of course, the people (such as they are) who remain on Earth are fussy about "skin jobs" who killed real people (whatever that means) in order to escape. Enter Decker, a quasi-cop whose job is to bring back enough cells to confirm the kill.

Despite it forty-year age, the story remains strong and vivid. Lots of things morphed on their way to the silver screen, including J.R. Well, that's OK. They're different media. They tell stories different ways, and that means that they have different stories to tell. Even with the movie update, this one is still strong and original.

//wiredweird

Great read to anybody that has any slight interest in this style of science fiction.

A thought provoking story, but too scattered to bring any one idea into focus. The movie it inspired, "Blade Runner", was much better.

Reviewer H. Lim pointed out that the movie "Blade Runner", which was based on this novel, helped make this novel the most read by Phillip K. Dick, and even raised the level of Dick as a popular writer. I read this novel because I had seen (and loved) "Blade Runner." Many normally consider the book better than the movie. In this case, I strongly disagree.

The 4 star rating on Amazon means "I like it." In my case concerning this book, that is not accurate. It is too well done for me to have given it either a 3 star or even a 2 star review. But personally, I did not like the book. And the reason I didn't is because of its philosophical effectiveness, and I disagree with that philosophy.

The first complaint I have about the book is its basic philosophy, which is nihilism. For those unfamiliar with the word, it refers to a view that there is no meaning to life, either real (as there is in Christian theism) or imaginary (as there is in existentialism). In the story, Rick Deckard is to "retire" six replicants. The one day record of replicant retirements is seven, but because these are more advanced, Deckard would set the record with six. To me, this is nihilistic.

The second complaint is the book's theology. Wilbur Mercer is basically a "Christ" figure in the book, who is revealed to be a fraud. As a fundamentalist minister, I found that aspect to be offensive.

One thing I found interesting and even prophetic. There is a TV program, which seems to be on 24 hours, called the Buster Friendly show. This program consistently mocks Mercer, and is actually the source of proving Mercer to be a fraud. This makes me think about how today's TV programs -- be it the morning "news" programs like "Today", the daytime talk shows like "Jerry Springer" and "Oprah", the nightly network news, prime time, or the late-night hosts -- are antagonistic to conservatism in general and Christianity specifically.

"Blade Runner" is based on the book, but there are very few similarities. Both deal with Rick Deckard, the test to discover androids, and the scarcity of real animals (replaced with electric animals). The names of the characters common to both the book and movie are the same. That's where the similarities cease. In fact, some of the characters in the book are omitted (e.g. J. S. Sebastian's employer in the book, Buster Friendly, and Wilbur Mercer; also, the androids to be killed are down from six to four).

The theme of prejudice is true in both the book and movie, and so is the theme about what really constitutes humanity, but the theme of mortality is missing from the book. The robots do not have the four year expiration date they have in the movie.

Rick Deckard has a relationship with Rachel Rosen in both book and movie. The book is more direct that it involved sex (the movie showed kissing, but did not get any more in detail). However, Rachel in the movie is more of a love interest and portrayed in a positive way; the book Rachel is not as nice. Additionally, in the book Deckard was married, which makes him an adulterer; in the original movie, Deckard was divorced (his marital status was not dealt with in the movie, except an apparant absence of a partner other than Rachel).

Because of its nihilism, its anti-religious flavor, and the adultery of the main character, I cannot recommend the book. But objectively, I have no choice but to point out that it was well written and very effective, though depressing (even if you did not have the problems with the story I did.)

Let me add to the extraneous kipple out there, because I am compelled, and because this is a very special novel. PKD is always personal, but here, he has surpassed himself. He becomes more intimate, a very close friend, a lonesome but reflective voice for sanity, and,a philosopher and codifier of forgotten dreams about what it means to be human. Dick leaves us feeling that even in the midst of radio-active earth, there will be humans heroically trying to care for that which has been lost. That the essence of 'Mercerism" reflects our condition to care, even if the object of our affection is illusion, or electric. It is when one stops caring that one begins to die.
This is a novel I really did not want to end.I know, if you read my other reviews, you would know that I have dubbed a few other PKD's as 'the best'. But this book really is the best of the best. And it is a pity that the movie based(however loosely) on Androids...is typed together with the book. The conceptual framework is as different as...well... a chickenhead and an android.
Again, for sheer pleasure, this novel takes the cake. Dick throws off sentences which have ideas that can create worlds upon even a cursory reflection. He doesn't need to build suspense. Dick throws away 'hype' with an hyperbolic display of unsettled, degenerated earth. His prose is unfettered, even serene. The world Dick creates begins in the mundane, stays there, it seems, for Dick, while we, the reader, are transported to the paradise of possibility.

I finally read this book, after being a fan of the film Blade Runner for the last 16 years. I still love the movie, but I now think that it would have been even better if Riddley Scott and company would have used more of the elements in the original story. For example, why is the wish to own an organic animal ignored in the film? It`s one of the most important themes in the novel, emphasizing how special it is to have a real animal, a piece of the world`s natural pre-war past. This desire for organic quality over cheap mechanical substitutes permeates the story. "Androids" does not picture the future as glossy and optimistic, but as a huge wasteland in which entire suburbs are abandoned and "kipple"- piles of trash- threaten to cover the landscape. It`s actually considered elite to move to Mars, Earth`s colony planet. Those who stay on Earth are often viewed as subhuman, an inferior grade of mankind. And the frighteningly realistic androids are considered even lower. Though many of them, especially the females Rachael Rosen and Irmgard, appear to be slowly becoming human, they are still considered to be things, not people. Bounty hunter Rick Deckard and his boss speak of "retiring" them, not killing them.
But there are several passages in which you cannot figure out who is an android and who is not, as in the eerie chapter where Deckard finds an alternate police station staffed by replicants, with token human Phil Resch. When Deckard gives Resch an identity test, the latter even has doubts whether he is truly human. Scenes of this sort give the novel the confusing sense of unreality which is one of the hallmarks of Dick`s work. In an era in which many current books are pat and predictable, this one keeps the reader guessing. And the characters are realistic: you can feel the emotional weariness of Deckard and repair vehicle driver Isidore, the wistfulness of Rachael as she speculates on what it might be like to be human{"how does it feel to be born," she asks}.
In short, one of the best things I`ve read in the last five years. I`m eager to read many more of Dick`s books, since I`ve started with this and his wonderful short stories.

Interesting SciFi is never really about science, but about society.
Themes here are the world after a devastating war, plus artificial intelligence. Dick wrote this about 40 years ago. The language is fresh and modern, unlike some other stuff from the 60s. But somehow his development of plot left me unsatisfied and hollow. It begins with a delightful subversiveness, but moves into somberness and depression.
I do not easily hold scientific doubts against the author of scifi books in cases of long time spans, but the essence of the problem here is just too outdated by biology development: human versus android is not likely an issue that would require questionable psycho tests.
I can live with that as long as the story stays in a quasi frivolous mode, but not when it gets depressing.
What annoys me: on the cover somebody from the highly esteemed NYT is quoted as saying that the book is like pulp written by Kafka. I think the Kafka club should start sueing. The PKD club as well.

In reading some reviews by people who had seen the Ridley Scott movie and then read this book, I noticed that many were disappointed. Not only were they disappointed to not have something so visually stunning to look at, but the personal drama in the book is much slower and awkward than in the movie. To my mind, the ideas that Dick 's writing explore requires more subtle and quiet drama than the screen can easily reproduce. Dick's fiction was not space adventure. It was truly science fiction, the creation of another world, that was enough like our own to be believable, but different enough to fascinate and challenge us. The best part about the book, in contrast to the movie, is that Decker can tell the difference between humans and replicants quite easily. The machine he uses to analyze them is not exactly a formality, but it's sort of like modern DNA testing in criminal matters: we it use to make 100% sure we're right. In the movie, the replicants, whose lives are so short, seem to be more full of life than the humans. They live with fear, and as a result they appreciate each moment, each second, every (false) memory much more than those of use with long life spans tend to. The book is really an inversion of this situation. Decker knows what being a replicant is: it's not human, it's devoid of something critical, something essential to human consiousness. However, when he looks back at what it means to be human, he has a hard time finding answers. The outcome isn't that the replicants seem more human than humans (as is the case in the movie), but that being human is dissappointing and dry, it also is lacking, but in some other strange way. Another innovation that helps us think about this point is the characters' use of a device that allows you to select your mood. You want to feel sad because of a friend's death, but you also want to feel slightly relieved that it's not you...so, you dial up 1376 on the machine, place your hands on either side of the box, and zap! the feelings are yours. The notion that feelings, that aspect of consciousness that is "given" to us, can be selected after the fact is a very innovative idea. One need only look at he number of drugs we use today to help stabilize and improve our mood. That's another neat example of how PKD was really a far-seeing man. If you are going to read this book and appreciate some of it's finer points, of which there are many, I would keep these things in mind.

Marina Kushner
Author
The Truth About Caffeine: How Companies That Promote It Deceive Us and What We Can Do about It

Generally, the movie (Bladerunner) is much better. I am surprised that they got that much of a movie out of the book. The book is darker and less exciting. The story is quite different, though, and the book explains some things you see in the movie that go without explanation. Overall, I am glad I read it.

I gave it a 5, cause its one of the best sci-fi books i've ever read. It's a great book i would reccomend to everyone who likes sci-fi, or want to get into the genre.

Here's the thing: Rick Deckard is an android. Whether Philip K. Dick thinks he is an android is irrelevant. Deckard is an android, and the other androids do not deserve to be "retired" just like no human being deserves to be "retired". Androids DO dream of electric sheep, and this was an okay book, although I would have liked to learn more about Mercerism, because the conclusion that Deckard comes to is one of the most dissatisfying conclusions to anything I've ever read. They are all androids, with the exception of Iran, Isidore, and a few other minor characters. Deckard is a ruthless android who kills other androids and dreams of owning a live animal. I didn't really like the book, but this stuff is fun to think about. Again, it is irrelevant if Philip K. Dick thinks Deckard is an android, because what one person thinks about another person doesn't change their identity.

I haven't read the other reviews here so some of this might be redundant. The book, which the film Blade Runner was LOOSELY based on, was originally written in the 1960's and is slightly dated. This seems to make the book more interesting in my opinion, although some may feel otherwise. That having been said, I generally shy away from reading books after seeing the film version because I have trouble staying interested in a plot that I already know.

This was the biggest surprise to me, in that the film is only very loosely based on the book. In fact, the only similarity is in the names of a few characters and the general idea of Rick Deckard as a bounty hunter seeking to "retire" replicants. Otherwise the similarities are nil. The book, as usual, is far superior to the film. If you are a fan of Philip Dick, the Blade Runner film, sci-fi, or great fiction, this is a must read. The plot is philosophically deep and twisted, with tons of action, and is wildly different than that of the movie.

By far the best Philip Dick novel I've read, and that's saying a lot for me since I'm a huge fan of his works. Great book, one of the few that you simply MUST read before you die.

This has been one of my favorites for decades. The movie Blade Runner was shallow and disappointing after the book. I recently re-read it and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" holds up just as well now as it did when I first read it in the early '70s. Like any good psychopath, the androids lack empathy. While more intelligent than humans, the androids are chilling and horrifying, even as both the main character and reader find themselves questioning their own sympathy for them. As the android Rachel says: she has "empathy" for herself. And yes that does make them fundamentally different from the rest of us humans and animals that do have empathy for each other. Is this about rob