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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick
To start with, let me just say that once they start making electric sheep.... I want one. How handy must it be that if your sheep gets a bit ill or starts to look a bit past its best that you just get it back to the manufacturer and voila... one refurbished sheep, good as new. When it gets low on energy, you just plug it in. I would probably see if I could get the sheep to a point where it started to baa really slowly because it had run low on energy... that has to be hilarious. But anyway.. enough about the sheep for now.
This is the story that the movie Blade Runner was based on and what a book it is! I liked it a lot. On the surface it is a story about a guy trying to kill his bounty. But... there is so much more to it.
One of the reasons I liked the book is that it is about people. Both human and non human. Real people at times behave more like androids and androids are built to be more and more human. It is about status, about what matters to the outside world. It is about suffering and if you suffer alone or not. If you are saved, who saves you? Are you saved by your own actions, is you fate your own or is it the others around you... can you even be saved and should you want to?
The book paints a pretty bleak picture of our future. Earth is a horrible place to live after the nuclear war. Some got out, some didn't. Those that had money got out and are now living in Perfectville with their androids serving them and obeying their every whim. Those that stayed live out their lives trying to keep safe from radiation and stop themselves from becoming too sick to be able to leave earth. The ones that are too sick already, the Chickenheads are the sub humans. Treated like idiots and outcast from most of normal society. On this earth, human emotions can be managed via a mood organ allowing you to dial up any emotion you want. You can dial yourself happy and dial your self depressed. You can have pets. Not real ones as they are either extinct or way too expensive. Electronic animals are readily available at reasonable prices if you know where to go. Most people probably have electronic pets but it is still best not to let the neighbours know you cannot afford a real pet. There are even pretend vets that fix your pretend animal. All this kind of makes you wander how real the people left on earth are and how real their life is when you compare it to that of the androids. At least the android does not pretend to be anything else than it is. People seem to be constantly fooling themselves and each other. Their lives are filled with 24/7 telly and controlled human emotions so who is really more human? Man feels himself superior to the machine but really the differences are very small indeed.
To help mankind through the worst of times the religion of Mercerism has been created. I don't quite get it myself. I am not quite sure what working together to support a man climbing up a hill has to do with anything but it seems to make sense to those who join in. Okay... I lie.. I kind of get some of it... I think. At times we all feel like life is hard, a struggle. When that is the case it is good that you can draw strength from others. You all share the same emotions, have the same struggles but together you can overcome it all. Just one thing you have to ask yourself once you link up with all the others... are you only supporting other in the struggle or are you the one struggling. Also, what is the point of the struggle if you have to go through it again the next day, and the next, and the next?
On earth androids are not supposed to be roaming free and those that are are hunted down by Deckard and his fellow bounty hunters. Deckard is up against the newest of the new in android/andy technology. Lucky for him there is a test that he can do that will separate the men from the androids so he always knows who the good en who the bad guys are. The book follows Deckard on his final hunt. There are 6 andys that he needs to get, he has to succeed where his colleagues have failed. He does succeed but it is not an easy fight.Deckard is a bit of a dark character. He seems very tired and thinks about getting out of the game after this one last assignment. As he needs all the help he can get he seeks out the ones that created the androids. This lands him on the doorstep of the Rosen Association and Rachael. As with all big businesses in the future, all is not what it seems there, they are up to something and Deckard almost gets tricked into helping them. But instead all he does is make an enemy for life. Rachael is a very interesting character. She pretends to be all innocent but almost manages to trick Deckard into changing sides. She preys on his emotions, uses his humanity against him. She sleeps with him in the belief that it will feed Deckard's sympathies for the androids and she is also the one who kills his goat.. his real goat!
Deckard does get his andys in the end but not before he has to contend with one slippery opera singer, one not so real policeman and an entirely fake police office that he never knew existed. He meets another bounty hunter who seems to be totally unaware of the world that Deckard knows. He may even be an android himself. Again... what is real and what is not. It sometimes depends on your perspective and whether or not you are an android.
Then there are the androids. Created by man to serve man. In reality some of them have become aware of what they are and what they are designed to do but have chosen to rebel. They just want to be free. Unfortunately for them that is just what they can never be.The book is dark and perhaps a bit pessimistic but it is a cracking read!
Looking forward to reading more of Mr Dick's books... already have my sights on the next one. But... I am not allowed to buy books, must not buy books must not buy books! And yet.... it seems to be what I am programmed to do?!
Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Author: Philip K. Dick
244 pages
Del Rey Books
ISBN #0-345-40447-5
Books to be read: 149
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