Philip K. Dick has packed his fabulous Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? with all the phobias and anxieties of the sixties: the third world war, the post-apocalyptic bleakness, nature in the state of the ultimate decline, collapse of ecology, degradation of mankind and the desperate fighting to keep one’s identity.The novel is a cat-and-mouse game but the protagonist stands before the problem of moral choice: which one is a cat and which one is a mouse?The old man said, “You will be required ...

I'd watched Blade Runner several times, but hadn't read Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The book and movie don't entirely match up, but they are both thought-provoking and entertaining in their own right. Fans of the film will notice serious discrepancies in the book as I did (and vice versa). Still, they somehow compliment each other. That's not a common response when I read a book after watching a film, or more commonly watching a film after reading the book. Before readi...

Is Deckard an android?"An android," he said, "doesn't care what happens to another android. That's one of the indications we look for.""Then," Miss Luft said, "you must be an android."That stopped him; he stared at her.This is all I could think about when reading. I really looked for evidence to back the idea up, though the novel only provided me with speculation and partial facts. For every little suggestion in the text that he is a robot, there is an effective counter argument. Somehow, though...

What differentiates humans from androids, if there is any difference at a certain point of technological progress, is the main question of this botchy novel.Very personal opinions fans of Dicks´work might find offending and nasty.Prodigy or overratedThere are two options, to see Dick as an ingenious literary prodigy, writing novels so densely packed that they can´t be understood without rereading and diving deeper into the complexity of the stories. Others think that he is completely overrated a...

Revisiting this again after seven years, and it absolutely holds up. Five stars. What a book, man. 2025 might be the year of sci-fi for me. I need more stuff like this. My review from 2017 is below. —————————————————Raise your hand if you saw my name next to a five star rating and thought you were dreaming. Dreaming of electric sheep. Boom. Ohhhhhhhhhhh baby. How have I not read this until now? Why haven’t I seen Blade Runner before? Why?! Why?! Whyyyyyyyyyyy.........Everything about this book i...

“It's the basic condition of life to be required to violate our own identity.”― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?Having hooked up all the iridescent wires from my XC-23 Weird and Crazy in Fiction Test Machine to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I’m here to report results showed the needle registering a maximum ten out of ten on each and every page. Quite a feat. Quite a novel. But then again, maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised - after all, this is Philip K. Dick. One of t...

An android walks into a bar."Hey!", the bartender says, "Only people with feelings are allowed in here! You need empathy in order to be in a joke like this, or at least have something people can relate to.""Oh, don't worry", the android replies, "I definitely feel empathy."Relieved, the bartender invites him over to the bar. "What are you having?""A beer would be great!", the android replies. The bartender, evidently approving of this fine choice, gladly obliges and goes on to cater for the othe...

I could say that I love Dick, but that would be weird. I do very much enjoy Philip K. Dick's writing and though this is not one of his best, the "Pizza and Sex Rule" applies to him; ie. just as even bad pizza and / or sex is still pretty good, bad PKD is as well. And this is not bad at all. The first mistake that a new reader would make is to watch Blade Runner and expect a novelization of that film; it was LOOSELY based upon the book. I'm a big fan of the Ridley Scott film starring Harrison For...

I Love Dick. There I've said it. No, not a “Mood Organ” or blood filled skin sack made to facilitate reproduction but Philip K. Dick. Is it really possible for androids to acquire human traits like empathy and the desire to understand the meaning of life and avoid death at all costs? What would the role of socialism play in an android world? Would self aware androids seek out to destroy anything that threatened their existence or tried to control their thoughts (ie programming)?A Google search r...

It takes five full pages for a character to buy a goat and ONE FRIGGIN' SENTENCE for a character to "fall in love". This book was so amazing in the beginning...and then suddenly everything plummeted downhill. It was almost as if Dick got 150 pages in and then said "awwww screw it...uh, sentence, sentence, sentence, THE END!" Why did there need to be any sort of "love" storyline anyway? Along with being the only geek who made it through puberty without reading Phillip K. Dick books, I also am one...