Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by
Philip K. Dick (1968).
This is it!! The famous novel that helps create BLADE
RUNNER!!
Blade Runner is one of my favorite and Philip K. Dick is
one of the craziest. So naturally, this book is crazy and awesome at the same
time.
Where Arthur C. Clark is a historian/genius,
Philip K. Dick is a mad scientist /prophet!!
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layers. -
Rick Deckard. The famous BLADE RUNNER. One of the
bounty hunters for San Francisco Police Dept.
The
book-version of the detective is far more domesticated than tough Rick Deckard Harrison Ford plays in
film. He has a round face and hairless head which makes him look like a regular
office clerk than a demonic android hunter. He lives with wining wife who
thinks depression is way of life. He is constantly checking Sidney’s Animal
Price guide for a deal (having a LIVE animal is a status since there are no
wild animals left on Earth anymore) and always looking around him for a live
animal because each one of them is worth fortune however small they are.
I think he
is in the middle of mid-life crisis: job, marriage, self-esteem all are
suffering from the hard reality of post war Earth. On top of that, now he is
not quite sure if he likes being a human. You see, he is a lot deeper than film
version of himself.
Racheal Rosen. An android own by
Rosen cooperation. Like all androids, she is born with a false memory which
tells her that she is a human and a member of Rosen family who owns huge Rosen
cooperation which is the only cooperation run by a family in the world.
After Rick
identifies her as an android, at first she is shocked like all other androids. But
later accepts the reality and offers her help for finding other androids or
that’s what she wants Rick to believe? Or maybe she is really innocent? You’ll
find it out at chapter 16.
Mercer. Some kind of religious
figure who sells salvation. He is a really weird man whom I just can’t explain
properly because I don’t really understand him.
John
Isidore. A pickup truck driver for a small animal repair shop (people who
can’t afford the live stocks buy electric animals and pretend they have real
ones because it’s really hard to tell the difference except the price, off
course).
He
is a special. Specials are the people who get contaminated/mutated by the dust.
They are slowly losing their mind and memory and degenerated into walking dead.
They are not allowed to leave Earth for the fear of spreading their diseases. People
call them “chickenhead”.
He
is a good, gentle man and the only resident in a huge abundant apartment
building until suddenly an android named Pris moves in.
He
tries to become a friend with android and later even tries to sort of
protecting them, but is it worth it? Go to chapter 15.
Here
is the list of 8 androids who make it into Earth. There is no specific of how
they obtain their human identifications but it is done by murders, I think.
They have a life span of 4 years so no human can run away with them. Clever.
1. Anders and 2. Gitchel are retired by
Dave, Rick’s former boss who is in hospital with critical condition hence never
appeared in this book other than name.
3.
Pris. Isidore’s neighbor. She is identical to Racheal.
4.
Luba. Popular Opera singer.
5.
Roy Batty and 6. Irmgard are husband and wife. Roy is the calculating brain who
comes up with the plan to escape into Earth.
7.
Polokov is a city worker who beats up Dave and sends him to hospital.
8.
Garland is a police chief who hires lots of Blade Runners under him just to
blend in. He does a great job until Rick figures him out.
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lace. –Post war
Earth. Year 2021. There is not much talk about politics or war but you can
easily guess that the world is run by one big government, UN I think, and
citizens of Earth do not have many choices or even freedom.
There
are tons of empty buildings at the end of city line and they are filled with
specials. Remain of the war.
People
need machines (An Empathy Box which you grab with the twin handle and a guy
comes out and tell you what to do. Like a little Jesus in the box) to control
their feeling/mood and buy animals to ease their anxiety. It’s grim, dangerous
and depressing place.
There
are no mention of Mars and how people are actually doing in there. But judging
by some of conversations between androids, Mars sounds horrible too. The bottom
line is Earth in 2021 is hell. Mars, too. We humans are doomed!!
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lot. – Philip K.
Dick is a mad scientist and drunken genius. He has a mind of prophet who can
foresee future however gloomy it is. The only problem is (this is where
“drunken” part comes in) that he is just not a good writer. He is genius at
imaging the future but not good at putting those vision into the storyline at
all. All his books are the masterpieces of concepts but hell to read. The story
jumps around all the time and is too drastic in many cases (honestly, I’ve only
read three so far and they are all very hard to finish) and quite often, because
they are so dense with concept/philosophy, I have to work little harder to finish
the books.
The good
news is that this book “ Do Androids Dream ….” is one of the better one from
his library. It has a straight story and cool main guy which is quite rare for
Philip K. Dick.
If you are
familiar with the film “Blade Runner”, than you understand the basic setting of
the book. However, as you know, because books are ALWAYS better than their
adaptations, there are much more in here.
The basic setting is like this. There is
a WWIII (Terminus) a few years back which nobody quite remember why or how it
started and even who won. What remains is something called “the dust”.
The Dust
effectively wipes out all animals on Earth starting from owls for some
mysterious reason. Then it slowly causes mutations on humans.
UN for alternate
solution, starts sending people to Mars. If you look at the picture of Mars,
you can easily see how lonely, desolate, hostile, and depressing Mars is. There
is nothing but hills and endless desert.
So as an
incentive for immigration to red death planet, UN comes up with a brilliant
tactics. One android for everyone who willingly deports to desert planet Mars.
It works for a while. However, the demand for more sophisticated servants (androids)
arises and each company which has resource/connection to develop androids
competes like hell and one of them finally creates the one looks/acts almost like
humans with their own mind (they call it NEXUS-6).
Some of
those human like androids naturally don’t want to be treated like robots and
choose instead coming back to Earth and blending in (being humans).
This is
where Rick Deckard, Blade Runner, comes in. As an official bounty hunter for
the police department, he has a license to kill (only androids, mind you). In
order to identify runaway androids, all Blade Runners have to apply the tests
to suspects and once the subjects are cleared as androids, then they can shoot,
kill whatever it takes to take them down.
The problem
is that the various tests they apply to androids are based on basic human
emotion “Empathy” which even the most sophisticated androids can’t imitate or
they thought so. However, the new line of androids (NEXUS-6) actually have deep
emotion and can care for each other (androids) like humans. So it gets almost
impossible to tell them apart from humans. Adding to the difficulty is that a
lot of humans are depressed and no longer care for each other (no empathy). So
the fundamental question is what makes human human?
The actual story is like this. 8 NEXUS-6
androids escape to Earth. Rick is called into taking charge of the cases
because his direct boss Dave, after successfully retires two of them, is
brutally beaten into unconsciousness by one of them.
One by one,
he finds them and retires them accordingly. Now, this sounds simple but it’s
nothing but. First, Rick has to learn how to identify NEXUS-6 which is never
done before so he has to summon all his strength and experience to maximum use
to find the proper way to do the job (killing humans by mistake is a huge
crime).
After that, Rick struggles to find reason to
hunt them down and kill them all.
Because they are so close to humans, it’s
like killing one of us instead of disassembling machines. And all these happen
in only one day. At one point, he is so stressed down, he starts wondering if
he is in fact android too.
At the end
of the story, he faces a devastation so big, he almost, even unconsciously,
throws himself in it (literary). But at the last second, thanks to a rock, recovers
from depression, finds himself out of oblivion and discovers possibly how to be
a human. I said possibly because there seems to be lots of metaphor or symbolism
at the last chapter but they are beyond my understanding. So I am just guessing
here. You should read it for yourself.
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erdict. – I have
only read three of his books but this one is by far the best and least
confusing work by Philip K. Dick.
What this
book does is keep asking you the same question again and again from different
angles: what makes human human? What is the deference between animals and humans?
It is supposed
to be “empathy” that tells the difference between human and all others but what
if we lose it? A lot of humans don’t care for each other and not even for
themselves. So than again, what is humans?
Off course,
there are no answers here, or anywhere else for that matter, but Philip K. Dick
puts Rick in a few different/difficult spots and every situation gives us
something to think about.
This is not
an easy book to read partly because it’s more a philosophical novel than a
science fiction and mostly because story kind of jumps around a bit so it’s not
easy to follow the story. But if you somehow get your hands on it, it will
leave a huge impact on your mind.
It’s a
timeless/classic Science fiction which will offer wonderfully confusing time to
your mind.
