Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 

By Philip K. Dick

ISBN: 978-0-345-40447-3

Page Count: 224 (average joe but ain’t no joke)

Genre: dystopian, cyberpunk, science fiction, philosophical

Book Bites: 3 Sentence Intro About What This Story Is

Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter for the San Francisco Police Department, gets an assignment to “retire” (kill) escaped androids on earth. In a society where owning a real animal is highly coveted, due to the extinction of animals years prior from radioactive fallout, and morally the right decision, Rick is motivated to earn the bounty hunter payment from retiring these androids so that he could finally replace his electric sheep with a real one. As he goes through his assignment, he begins to question the humanity of androids, society’s morals and rules, and his ability to do his job.

*As usual, to see the official book teaser/summary of this, go to anywhere books are found and read up more about what this book is about.

Now on to My Commentary (**May Contain Spoilers: Read at Your Own Risk)

I was first turned onto this book after watching the anime show Psycho-Pass (only season 1 though) when Shogo Makishima referenced this book to illustrate to Choe Gu-sung of its parallels to their world. As a huge fan of Shogo Makishima’s character, I hustled to get my hands on this book. If you haven’t watched Psycho-Pass yet, it’s a worthwhile and interesting cyberpunk, dystopian anime. Or you may have heard of this book through the popular Blade Runner movie, which was based off this.

How is this a review of Philip K. Dick’s (PKD) book? Well hold your horses, I’m getting there.

I wanted to emphasize the impact this story had on other creative works. And PKD is iconic in the science fiction genre (a genre I’m still acclimating to and excited to get to learn more about). The examples I named above were a fraction of the works out there that had similar elements to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I’m sure there are plenty of others that I haven’t come across yet.

So let’s go to it!

The Good

In the opening of the book, Iran, Rick’s wife, brings up very controversial points during her conversation with him about striving to have independent feelings, in a world where its unfortunate inhabitants must rely on an empathy box to regulate their emotions, to combat the loneliness of life on their abandoned radioactive earth.

This is a great setup to introduce one of the central themes in the story: human feelings and empathy. Especially when the use of empathy in Rick’s job to discriminate between humans and androids can become a fatal distinction between exterminating android fugitives and saving humans.

And talk about those empathy boxes that regulate a person’s emotions! WTF, of all the times I could have used that (*cough – breakups, road rage, etc. – cough*). It makes you ponder of the dangers of using a machine to force you to feel a certain way. You lose the organic nature that makes humans equally lovable and frustratingly annoying. Thereby extinguishing the very aspect that animates a human. Huh, who really are the androids in this case if the humans in Rick’s world don’t feel unless they are programmed to?

If I had to pick a character that I empathized with, my heart goes out to John (J. R.) Isidore, who carried the label of “chickenhead” and “special”. Due to this, he was left on this disintegrating earth rather than having the option to move to the improved, modern colonies like the rest of the humans. I believe John Isidore was the purest and most highly moral person out of all the characters. You’d have to read the book for yourself to find out more about him since I don’t want to spoil too much. But I will say, Isidore’s morality and heart shine in a particular scene towards the end of the book.

I’m also a sucker for philosophy and human behavior analysis so this book was a good cocktail mix of my favorite things. Also, my love for Shogo Makishima. No arguments there! Had to read a book he recommended!

The I’m-Not-So-Sure-About-That (AKA constructive criticism)/Parts I Don’t Like

When Rick Deckard was first introduced, I didn’t enjoy his character. His dismissiveness towards his wife and her thoughts and feelings turned me off. From the start, he was solely obsessed with replacing his electric sheep with a real living animal. Though we learn to understand why he had this odd fixation. On this dystopian earth where your neighbors and others look down upon you for not having a real animal, I can sympathize with Rick’s motivation to perform his job well and quickly so he can earn enough money to bring home a worthy possession (the living animal) for the sake of his pride.

As I learned more about Rick, I found his actions questionable. I wasn’t sure if he was being authentic or playing games part of the time. Maybe that’s just my feelings toward him. Beyond that, I did find him to be an intriguing character and I came to sympathize with his growing emotional and moral conflict as he is met with challenges, particularly in his job, throughout the story. He started to feel more human to me. More than just a merciless, calculating bounty hunter.

On another note, the Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends show was the bane of my existence. I just visualized his creepy, overly theatrical talk show persona with the too-wide-car-salesman smile and I cringed at the fact that the citizens on earth were brainwashed to watch his show 24 hours a day since nothing else was on like they were his devoted cult followers, which in a sense they were. Despite my repulsion towards Buster Friendly’s show, it served its purpose. Buster Friendly was a distraction. He served to emphasize that these humans aren’t really human anymore. The remaining citizens of this barely inhabitable earth were basically, spiritually dead inside. They just went through the motions and didn’t seem to have a purpose as to why there were there. They felt more robotic than their metal counterparts. All their “smarter” peers had emigrated to a different planet or colony years ago.

Even though, the over-the-top Buster Friendly irritated me and I believed he was nothing more than a brainless puppet, I guess his character was the last person I had expected to reveal an important plot twist at the end. So that was pretty cool!

Then there was the concept of Wilbur Mercer, the founder of Mercerism, which was the belief system of the remaining humans on earth. Okay, to be honest, I had a hard time understanding what this belief system was. I found the descriptions too vague and sporadic that I couldn’t fully grasp why people followed this guy. This could be a result of my first impressions of the book. Sometimes with complex concepts like this, I have to re-read it a few times for clarity. I do want to re-read it because I obsess over details until I can fully understand what someone’s trying to communicate, so fingers-crossed for the future me to better comprehend the philosophy of Mercerism.

Final Thoughts

I was floored when I finished the book. It took me a few minutes to remember the events all happened within the timeframe of one day. So much had changed! Rick had undergone a transformative experience while working on his largest assignment. As I read through the story, in my head, this scenes seem to have been a gradual progression through days or even weeks when the last few chapters brought me back to the present and reminded me the impact this particular day had for Rick.

As with many books that include philosophical themes, personally, I wouldn’t say this is an easy read. Again, the complex ideas made me love the book, but with that, I need time to immerse myself in it. It’s a short book and it’s quick to read if you just want to get the basic storyline and message. But if you really want to dissect and analyze it, you might have to re-read it a few times.

Regardless, I found it to be entertaining and hope you do too!

Check out this book if it piques your interest. Hope you enjoy it as your next read or a re-read!

And remember, “Every story is worth the read. Someone (some poor, overworked, ink-stains-on-the-clothes lovely soul) took the time to write it.”