Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? [NOOK Book]

The inspiration for Blade Runner, but different

It's easy to see how this book inspired the movie, Blade Runner, but it's plot runs differently.

I found it quite enjoyable to read. It was thought-provoking on it's issues and I was very impressed with the way that the writer created a dark, empty and claustrophobic atmosphere. The human characters in the book were more complex and interesting than in the movie.

On the other hand, this is not the book to read in order to figure out the movie. The movie's plot was simpler and more cohesive. The book's story line is as murky and inconsistent as the future world that the book describes.

Basically, the book raised lots of new issues to think about and didn't add much to my understanding of the movie. It's a great book and I recommend it highly, if that's what you're hoping for.

11 out of 14 people found this review helpful.

Cylons before Battlestar Galactica did it

Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter on the now sparsely populated planet Earth. His job is to hunt "andys," slang for androids, that have escaped from the human colonies on Mars and Earth's Moon. The latest model of cylon, er android, the Nexus-6, is particularly wily; they resemble humans more closely than ever before. Most importantly, the Nexus-6 can almost pass a Voigt-Kampff examination, which tests an intelligent being for empathy, a quality androids don't possess. As Deckard pursues the six andys that eluded his predecessor, he finds that the line between human and android isn't as defined as he previously believed and starts to question the morality of his undertaking.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the second Philip K. Dick work I've read (the other being A Scanner Darkly) and there is a theme that the author explores in both novels: an understanding of the quality that makes us human. In A Scanner Darkly, Dick was able to create a sympathetic character out of a double-crossing, drug-addicted undercover informant. Similarly, Dick makes sympathetic characters of his androids, showing their humanity even though they are not human. The bounty hunter Deckard starts to notice this too.

Deckard begins to question his preconceptions when he is pursuing the opera singer Luba Luft. She cunningly accuses Deckard of being an android because of the ease with which he "retires" androids without feeling any empathy toward them. Deckard, of course, denies this, but a change in his attitude is revealed shortly, after Luft has been retired by Phil Resch, another bounty hunter. Deckard was touched by Luft's musical skill and starts to think that robbing the world of her talent, android or human, is insane. This is the first time Deckard feels empathy toward the "things" he hunts.

Luft's death makes Deckard aware of the difference between himself and Resch. He is convinced that Resch is an android because of Resch's quick trigger finger (and his indifference to art, perhaps, as well). Deckard tells Resch, "You like to kill. All you need is a pretext. If you had a pretext you'd kill me." Despite his conviction, however, Deckard's test reveals that Resch is human. The result of the test is significant enough for both bounty hunters to try to make sense of it, with Deckard reasoning that Resch has a defect that makes him unsympathetic toward androids. Resch points out, though, that this isn't a defect; if he felt any empathy toward androids, he wouldn't be able to kill them.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Is filled with conundrums of this sort, in which the qualities that make humans human and androids android are flipped, mixed, rearranged and contemplated. Deckard, a bounty hunter, mourns a dead android and finds he has too much of the quality that androids don't possess. Those humans that can afford it use a machine to program moods for themselves; Iran, Deckard's wife, even programs depression for herself twice a month so that she feels bad about being left on Earth. John Isidore, a human whose intelligence was affected by the nuclear fallout on Earth, is considered sub-human, below the level of animals even, which are now highly sought-after because most of them died from radiation poisoning. The only friends he has are the escaped...

[Due to BN.com's character limit, the rest of this review can be found at FingerFlow.com]

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

Highly Recommend

A great story. As they always say, "the book was better than the movie." I wasn't a huge Blade Runner fan, but I really enjoyed the book. It poses the classic Scifi questions about defining life. It's a quick read; for anyone with a few hours to spare, I'd highly recommend it!

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Classic Philip K. Dick, you just have to be in the mood for it.

Philip K. Dick is not so much of a science fiction writer as he is a mystery writer who sets his plots and characters in imagined future enviroments. His characters are interesting while humanly flawed and the plot twists keep you guessing and surprised. Unlike some science fiction he doesn't focus on a narrative of a future world. The details just kind of sneak out naturally as part of the plot. What the future allows Dick to do is to change the rules and see how his characters fit into that environment. But the humans still act like humans with all their flaws, and the androids, maybe more so.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Original and Entertaining

This is a great book for escapism. If you've seen the movie Blade Runner and expect the same sense of intellectual challenge and ambiguity, you'd be disappointed. Not because the book is less interesting, it is just a lot more different that you'd expect. Nevertheless, it is a great sci-fi story and its short content makes it an easy read.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

A Great Primer For Dick

If you have never read any of Philip Dick's other books, I recommend you start here. Chances are, you have seen the film that was based on this novel (Bladerunner) and this is one of the easiest of his books to get into if you are not familiar with his style. Do not expect a lot of action, as this is a small but heady novel full of intriguing philosophical ideas and biting social commentary. if you like this, move on to Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said or A Scanner Darkly. PK Dick is a real treat for the mind.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

A quick, interesting read

This book by Philip K. Dick was a very quick read. The beginning of the book doesn't move so quickly, but once you get into the book, things start moving fairly fast. The book is primarily about one man's encounter with androids that have escaped and turned to killing humans. He is a bounty hunter for the San Francisco Police Dept. and gets paid to 'retire' these rogue androids. When he receives a larger assignment than usual, some unexpected things happen when he is forced to fight the most advanced androids in existence, the Nexus-6 series of android. The way in which the author portrays the world adds a lot to the story and helps make a lot of the other things in the story that most people would normally take for granted make sense. However, at the same time, it can be seen as a sort of a dystopian view of the world (most everything is destroyed, people are grouped into 'regulars' and 'specials' based on how much brain damage they have received from nuclear fallout, etc), so if you don't enjoy that sort of book, this is probably not the book for you. If you're looking for a sci-fi thriller, this is also not the book. There are not very many action scenes in this book, instead philosophical ideas fill in this gap. I personally enjoyed the book. I believe most people would as well, if they can find the story engaging (easier after reading the first few chapters). It is definitely worth reading.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

The best Book Ever!!!

This is the best book I have ever read.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Amazing

Great book

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Awesome

Yup...awesome.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

I hadn't read PK Dick since the late 1960s, and since I enjoyed

I hadn't read PK Dick since the late 1960s, and since I enjoyed Blade Runner so much, I thought I should see what the writer had to say. Of course, it came as no surprise that the movie follows a different path. If they had stayed true to the books, no one would have seen the film. This is a dark and very sad novel. Reading it, as a fully-conceived idea of the world of the Nuclear Winter I was struck,over and over again by the persistence of both human denial and human ascendancy, despite all odds to the contrary. These people still find things to care about, even though there is little reason to. Unlike the feeble triumph of Cormac McCarthy's characters in The Road, Dick's characters gain nothing and once the bounty hunter has discovered how his work is actually affecting him, he understands the futility in life itself continuing under these conditions.

The extremely touching counterpoint to the violence of his occupation is his own search for an animal to love -- one that actually needs him. The image of the rooftop pasture occupied by a robotic sheep is one of the most pathetic visions I have ever absorbed. This book left me sad, and without a great deal of hope for the future in the face of the hubris of our species. It is a master work, make no mistake. The writing held me throughout and only lapsed into murkiness when it fit the story, enhancing my emotional response to Dick's well-chosen words. I highly recommend this, but it is not a rollicking chase adventure like the movie was. The androids he hunts down are also not dreamy philosophers, like Rutger Hauer's character in the movie. They are barely passable, utility replicas with no redemption.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Greatly recommended!

It's a shorter book but still dives deep enough to completely develop the main characters and the plot. It truly makes you wonder what things are actually alive

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Great Read

While hard to follow at times (as is normal with PKD), it's a great book! Hard to put down!

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Really amazing.

Books like this don't come around all the time for me. I basically like every book I read, but I don't love all of them. But this book I can honestly say is amazing. I first tried to read it in 8th grade, and got about 80 pages in before I quit. And I just now picked it up again 3 years later. Now a sophmore in highschool I can appreciate it more. It has a good message and a very comfortable style of writing. I will definitely read more Phillip K. Dick.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

If you are hoping for Blade Runner, you might be disappointing.

I was warned before I read this book that it was not Blade Runner, even though the movie was loosely based on the book. It was interesting that there were direct quotes from the book used in the movie though.

This was a good read though. Hopefully our world won't turn out quite so bleak.

2 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Fresh+and+engaging%2C+even+now

Very+different+from+Blade+Runner%2C+one+of+my+favorite+movies.++But+that%27s+a+fine+thing+in+this+case%2C+as+it+means+you+get+two+different%2C+wonderful+experiences.++This+book+is+thought-provoking%2C+funny%2C+and+entertaining.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

INSPIRED Bladerunner..

While a great book AND a great movie.. do not read this thinking its Bladerunner. The screenplay can at best be described as "inspired" by the book. That said its definately worth the read, but be sure to prepare yourself for a quirky add ride down 1960s style pulp fiction.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

I loved Blade Runner-The book is even better!

Blade Runner is probably one of my top 5 ever Sci-Fi movies. This book which was the basis for the movie is even better! As usual the book goes into much more nuance than the movie. After reading the book I felt that the casting for the Movie was perfect.
This is my first Philip K Dick book. I plan on reading more.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, one of Philip K Dick¿s famo

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, one of Philip K Dick’s famous science fiction novels, is well known as the inspiration behind the well-known movie Blade Runner. In this novel, Dick tells a story of a dystopian society. After a World War in which nuclear weapons are used, the earth is succumbed by harmful dust. First the animals start dying. Soon everything starts to slowly degenerate as some people move to a new hope on Mars or stay on the decaying earth. As society evolves in these hostile environments, so does technology. Androids are not all uncommon to these future societies. Often time’s androids are a means for them to replace the loss of life, especially pets. This distinction between what is real life and what is manufactured life is often the underlying theme in the novel. 
More than just a novel of a futuristic dystopian society, Dick’s novel is an exploration of what it truly means to be alive. This central idea almost seems to precede the plot/events in the novel. The novel follows a character named Rick Deckard who hunts androids or andys as they are often referred to. Rick hunts androids who have escaped from their masters on Mars and have made their way to earth to try to live their lives. I found that I honestly did not care to much for the success of his quest but more for the philosophical questions arising from the story. Often times in terms of the plot and the events that unfolded between Rick and the androids I thought were portrayed rather simple and quickly which seems inconsistent with the story. Without giving to much away, it seemedas thought there was not much of an actual fight for Rick to succeed. I thought what truly made the book interesting were the events that may not have been immensely important to the plot such as the scene between Rick and Phil, another bounty hunter, which did not actually make it into the movie Blade Runner. 
Written in 1968, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep has an erie way of describing technology resembling new technological advances in modern society. It seems as though Dick’s future society grows nearer as new technology comes out, such as face time/Skype and genetic alterations and to some extent the Internet. While reading the novel, the TV show of Buster Friendly, a 24 hour talk show that seems to be the only thing people watch, not only reminded me of the constant news shows on TV but also of the internet. The internet, like Buster Friendly and his show is constantly on, constantly at people’s finger tips, and constantly relied on by so many people. Often times the Internet eliminates some social interactions we have and replaces them. In the book, many people were greatly isolated from society, living in outskirts, often alone; having the talk show of Buster Friendly often seemed to falsely give people a sense of togetherness. It seems as though people are wired to the internet like people are wired to Buster Friendly. Dick’s novel offers his interpretation of where technology is headed and their affect on society that can easily be compared to today. 
Overall, I enjoyed reading the novel. Although there were many parts in the novel that I may have gotten annoyed with the plot, I thought that the novel offers a lot of food for thought and has an interesting subject. 

Philip K. Dick¿s, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Is one of

Philip K. Dick’s, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Is one of the most well known novels in the science fiction genre. The novel is set in San Francisco, California in 2021 after a world war. It is about a man named Rick Deckard. Rick is a bounty hunter whose assignment is to kill androids. The androids are these perfect replicas of humans who were made to do the hard physical tasks that humans do not want to do or are not able to do in the colonization of new planets. A group of androids came to San Francisco from mars and go on a killing spree of humans. Rick Deckard’s job is to find those androids and “retire” them, which essentially means he his job is to kill them. 
At the Beginning of the novel, Deckard hates the androids. He thinks they are nothing but murders that need to be stopped, but as you get further into the novel, you see that Deckard starts to find himself contemplating his feelings about how he is starting to feel about the androids and if it is right to kill them our not. 
I personally am not am not a big fan of science fiction, but I really did like this novel, and I think it would be hard to find someone who likes science fiction and did not like this novel.  The novel is great because you experience so many of the elements of science fiction. You will experience a futuristic time setting with the post apocalyptic, post world war time setting in 2021. You will also experience the use technology and new technology with the androids and some of the weaponry throughout the novels, but the main elements that are in the novel, that make any good novel are the conflict and resolution. The thing that is great about this book is, there is more than one conflict and resolution, there are three major ones. You have the conflict of real animals versus fake animals. You also have the conflict between how Rick originally feels about the androids and how his empathy and love for one android specifically gets in the way of him being able to do his job, and finally you have the main conflict of humans versus androids. What also makes this novel so great is the character development of the main character. He goes from a man that hates androids, and only cares about his social status and getting a real animal to up his status, to a man who begins to feel empathy for the androids and starts to view them as real people and things with lives of there own.  The last thing that makes Do Androids Dream of electric sheep? is, that you do not only get elements of science fiction throughout the novel, but you also get other elements that would interest readers who are not so into the science fiction genre. The story makes great and intense observations about religion, the nature of life, technology, and human emotion. As I said earlier, I am not usually a fan of science fiction, but I would recommend this book to anyone who was looking for a new great book to read.