A final, apocalyptic, world war has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending the majority of mankind off-planet. Those w...
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Nov 05, 2011
Scott
rated it: 
I Love Dick. There I’ve said it. No, not a “Mood Organ” or blood filed 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 the intelligent androids seek out to destroy anything that threatened their existence or tried to control their thoughts?
A Goo More...
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 the intelligent androids seek out to destroy anything that threatened their existence or tried to control their thoughts?
A Goo More...
May 19, 2008
Don
rated it: 
Since "Blade Runner" has been one of my favorite movies my entire adult life, it's odd I never read this until now. I expected it to be pretty different from the film, but still, it's not like I don't read SF by the metric ton anyway. I think I just never happened across a copy until recently.
If you've read a lot of SF from the 60s and 70s, you'd know this was written in the late 60s by the end of the first chapter. It has the smell of that period all over it - everyone " More...
If you've read a lot of SF from the 60s and 70s, you'd know this was written in the late 60s by the end of the first chapter. It has the smell of that period all over it - everyone " More...
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Dec 17, 2009
Colleen
rated it: 
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 re More...
Along with being the only geek who made it through puberty without re More...
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Jan 09, 2012
Sath
rated it: 
The last nuclear world war has left the world changed, the population is only a fraction of what it once was, so many rooms lie empty and deserted just cluttered with the junk that people left behind. Many animal species are exctinct or close to exctinction, and every household is morally obliged to keep an animal. Many people emmigrated to mars, where android companions and servants are popular. Androids are outlawed on earth, but they sneak in anyway and try to pose as human, until they're
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(5 people liked it)
Jul 05, 2008
Shannon
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Apr 10, 2008
dead letter office
rated it:
chris's fish died here at work and he seems down. everyone else was mean to the fish (not to its face mostly, just made fun and tapped on the glass) but i always came to see it and i think chris appreciated that for some reason. i've never seen him look so down before. this is one of those things that makes me sad out of all proportion to the scale of the incident, like when i made katy think she was wrong about kansas bordering colorado or when my brother saved his allowance for months and boug
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(24 people liked it)
May 18, 2008
Werner
rated it:
While Dick was always a professed Episcopalian, his writing began to take a more distinctly Christian turn only after his spiritual experience in the early 1970s. Here, his outlook is still shaped more by postmodernism, strongly suggesting that simply believing something can make it true. (Paradoxically, it also exudes the strong skepticism, which informed his writing all through his career, as to whether our ordinary human perceptions actually come anywhere close to seeing reality as it actua
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(6 people liked it)
Jan 03, 2008
D_Davis
rated it:
Book/Film essay...
What is free will? If we were forced to, or programmed to have free will, would it really be “free”? What are memories? Are memories proof of our existence, our reality, or are they merely tokens of places, people, situations and things that may or may not have existed. Is an android (a synthetic human) programmed to have free will and to have memories any less human than the real thing? After all, aren’t we all to some extent created humanoids with “pre-programmed” More...
What is free will? If we were forced to, or programmed to have free will, would it really be “free”? What are memories? Are memories proof of our existence, our reality, or are they merely tokens of places, people, situations and things that may or may not have existed. Is an android (a synthetic human) programmed to have free will and to have memories any less human than the real thing? After all, aren’t we all to some extent created humanoids with “pre-programmed” More...
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Oct 06, 2007
Morgan
rated it:
I've seen "BladeRunner" so many times I could puke and watch it again (hell, I even wrote a 15 page critical analysis of it as a neo noir film). And it's an amazing, beautiful film.
I read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" when I was a junior in highschool, after having grown up with "BladeRunner." And it was fabulous.
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and "BladeRunner" are not the same thing. At all. Which is co More...
I read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" when I was a junior in highschool, after having grown up with "BladeRunner." And it was fabulous.
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and "BladeRunner" are not the same thing. At all. Which is co More...
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Jul 26, 2010
Andy
rated it:
I'm worried that most people will misunderstand the intelligence behind this book. I have met a few people who have said, "that book? I read that in high school." My response is "did you understand this book in high school?"
Am I wrong in saying that first, one should read Kafka; second, one should understand how Kafka's fiction functions as a blend of anthropology, theology, and philosophy, among other things. Then, read Phillip K. Dick again, and notice the theme More...
Am I wrong in saying that first, one should read Kafka; second, one should understand how Kafka's fiction functions as a blend of anthropology, theology, and philosophy, among other things. Then, read Phillip K. Dick again, and notice the theme More...
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Dec 15, 2011
Emanuela
rated it:
Philip K. Dick costringe a fare letture geometriche. In "La svastica sul sole" per piani paralleli, invece, in "Ma gli androidi sognano pecore elettriche?" si deve procedere in orizzontale, poi in verticale e se non bastasse anche in diagonale.
Orizzontale: ci sono uomini e i loro animali che rappresentano solo uno status symbol, per loro gli umani non provano nessun sentimento affettuoso. Poi ci sono gli androidi e gli animali meccanici, questi ultimi sostituiscon More...
Orizzontale: ci sono uomini e i loro animali che rappresentano solo uno status symbol, per loro gli umani non provano nessun sentimento affettuoso. Poi ci sono gli androidi e gli animali meccanici, questi ultimi sostituiscon More...
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(6 people liked it)
Aug 25, 2008
Kristjan
rated it:
I saw Bladerunner when it came out and knowing that it was based upon this story, and not really enjoying the movie much, I didn't pick up the book until it became a Book Club selection; hearing that the book was significantly different then the movie helped. While it was not a 'fun' book, I did enjoy many of the concepts PKD started to explore in the story ... especially now given how far science has come in explaining how the human 'machine' works (and fails). Asimov's I, Robot does a bette
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Jun 02, 2011
Yulia
rated it:
This is a novel to be patient with: it takes 60 pages to build up its momentum, but once it really begins, it doesn't stop till the (somewhat hurried) end. I admit it took me four different attempts o get into it and finally had to have it read to me by Frank to see what it had to offer, not because it was poorly written per se, but because much of the opening dialogue is tell-y and woud be better served explained in pieces by an omniscient narrator. As it is, it often frustrated me with its,
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(2 people liked it)
Dec 05, 2007
Justin
rated it:
I've been saying for years that this book is boring. But it's more than that, it's not excusable in the way that a purely boring book can be. Instead, it's a tremendous idea told badly.
It seems that when Dick wrote this he didn't have a good grasp on translating his big ideas into an engrossing--or even active story. It's not that there's no movement in the story. Things happen, but even when they do, even in the throes of the final confrontation, when Deckard is retiring three More...
It seems that when Dick wrote this he didn't have a good grasp on translating his big ideas into an engrossing--or even active story. It's not that there's no movement in the story. Things happen, but even when they do, even in the throes of the final confrontation, when Deckard is retiring three More...
Jul 27, 2008
Jessica
rated it:
I've been on a PKD kick lately, so I picked this up to keep me occupied on a recent work-related trip to Milwaukee. It didn't disappoint!
One of my co-workers kept asking me questions about how the characters and events lined up to those in Blade Runner, and the truth is: I have no idea. (But I am now very eager to find out!)
I was more fixated on a) following the story, which moves quickly, and b) comparing the androids described here to the cylons [subclass: skin job] on More...
One of my co-workers kept asking me questions about how the characters and events lined up to those in Blade Runner, and the truth is: I have no idea. (But I am now very eager to find out!)
I was more fixated on a) following the story, which moves quickly, and b) comparing the androids described here to the cylons [subclass: skin job] on More...
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(4 people liked it)
Feb 20, 2009
Arlene
rated it:
I don't read sci-fi normally, but this just rocked my boat. Wonderful surreal landscape and situations. The mood organ and the zany portrait of marriage in the first chapter is priceless. The ending is much better, or at least more realistic, than in the Bladerunner movie — which has little to do with the book.
The title took an interesting turn for me, too as the story progressed. The question wasn't about if androids dreamed of electric sheep, but if androids were able to "des More...
The title took an interesting turn for me, too as the story progressed. The question wasn't about if androids dreamed of electric sheep, but if androids were able to "des More...
Jan 04, 2009
Madeline
rated it:
Meh. Still not sure about this one. I'm going to talk about the movie, because I can't review a book that's been made into a movie without comparing the two versions, but in this case it's pretty hard. (by the way, when I say the movie, I mean the final director's cut - I've never seen the original) The book, obviously, has a lot more detail about the world that Deckard lives in, including a lot more information concerning everyone's desire to own an animal - Deckard and his wife (oh, and he's m
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(6 people liked it)
Feb 11, 2010
Dan
rated it:
The setting is around 2020, after the World War, when most of the humans have emigrated to Mars. The humans who remain on earth face the dust, a nuclear fallout that renders men sterile, necessitating that they wear lead codpieces. To entice humans to emigrate, the government promises them servant androids who can fulfill their every need. The latest model of android, the Nexus-6, is almost indistinguishable from a human being. Only an empathy test, administered by a trained police bounty hunter
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(1 person liked it)
Aug 16, 2011
Aloha
rated it:
“Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the emphatic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.” so states a passage in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The setting of the book is San Francisco in 2021, after World War Terminus have spread radioactive dust over earth. Most of the living creatures have become extinct through exposure More...
The setting of the book is San Francisco in 2021, after World War Terminus have spread radioactive dust over earth. Most of the living creatures have become extinct through exposure More...
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Jan 27, 2009
Jason
rated it:
Ooooooh, i think i get it now! The title "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Is intentionally ambiguous. It wants you to think of "dream" as the notion of sleep, when it's "dream" as palpable hope. The incisive plot threat in the book revolves around a set of androids with the ambition to outlast human beings. It seems like they only want to survive, but their leader--Roy Baty--alludes toward a propagandized theme he led the group with, that Mercer is a fake
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Nov 05, 2011
Shovelmonkey1
rated it:
This book taught me two thing:
1. I'm not as entirely sceptical about sci-fi as I thought I was.
2. Where the band, "The Killers" got their name from (one of them was clearly a big PKD fan).
However, can someone please answer me this; why is it all sci-fi writers look into the future, scratch their heads and then put pen to paper only to map out the demise of earth and the fall of mankind due to either:
*Disaster (any kind will do - nuclear, chemical, biological, a More...
1. I'm not as entirely sceptical about sci-fi as I thought I was.
2. Where the band, "The Killers" got their name from (one of them was clearly a big PKD fan).
However, can someone please answer me this; why is it all sci-fi writers look into the future, scratch their heads and then put pen to paper only to map out the demise of earth and the fall of mankind due to either:
*Disaster (any kind will do - nuclear, chemical, biological, a More...
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Jul 07, 2011
Benjamin
rated it:
It seems to me that a lot of science fiction writers, even well-known and popular ones, aren’t great writers. They’re great at concept and imagination, but not always that good at conveying their imaginings to the reader. One example would be Larry Niven, whose Ringworld quartet I finished a couple of years ago. As captivated as I was by his world-building, I was equally frustrated by his storytelling. The pacing hitched and jerked like an old truck, racing through some parts while draaaaaaaaggi
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Apr 22, 2011
Jennifer
rated it:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a classic post-apocalyptic thriller. It was the vague (from what I hear) basis for the movie Blade Runner that I did see, but don't remember one scene from. Obviously the book is much more memorable.
Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter, paid to kill androids that are living illegally on Earth. This is more difficult that you'd expect since the only real difference between androids and humans is the ability to feel empathy. As you fake an empathetic re More...
Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter, paid to kill androids that are living illegally on Earth. This is more difficult that you'd expect since the only real difference between androids and humans is the ability to feel empathy. As you fake an empathetic re More...
Aug 04, 2011
Charlie
rated it:
Brain-burstingly brilliant. I read it in two or three sittings, and when I wasn't reading it I was thinking about it, coming up with theory after theory about how it would all work out--"Decker's an android!", "They're all androids!", "None of them are!", etc. Some of the ideas in here were fascinating, and I could definitely see how the author was influenced by Asimov's "I, Robot", building upon some of the concepts barely touched on in the older novel, t
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Jan 11, 2012
Ann
rated it:
Time to start reading more sci-fi. This book was so good. In a post-apocalyptic and nearly-uninhabitable world, many people have left for colonies on other planets, taking with them androids that are indistinguishable from humans except for their lack of empathy. Some humans have remained on earth, and some androids have escaped the colonies and are trying to live in their midst, but bounty hunters are tasked with "retiring" them. Interesting philosophical questions about what makes us
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Dec 03, 2008
Tiffany
rated it:
I don't think this book was quite what I wanted or imagined it to be. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, because I did. Hence, the 4 stars. I wish he would've delved further into some of the subjects he introduced. Maybe then he would have gotten 5 stars. Your loss Philip!
Some questions posed/themes from the book include :
-What does it mean to be human in a digital, mechanized world?
-Where, if anywhere, does one draw a line between the value of real and artific More...
Some questions posed/themes from the book include :
-What does it mean to be human in a digital, mechanized world?
-Where, if anywhere, does one draw a line between the value of real and artific More...
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Jul 24, 2008
Amy
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jun 27, 2008
Lori
rated it:
I never had the slightest desire to read this book having seen Bladerunner when it first came out and loving it so much that to this day it's one of my favorite movies. Usually it's the other way around - I don't see movies of books I have read. Whatever - this book and Bladerunner are so different they can't really be compared to each other.
This is also my first Dick book, which is also remarkable since I'm an avid science fiction reader. What was I waiting for? I thought he'd be on More...
This is also my first Dick book, which is also remarkable since I'm an avid science fiction reader. What was I waiting for? I thought he'd be on More...
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May 28, 2008
Wendi
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