Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
Written by Philip K. Dick
Narrated by Scott Brick
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
By 2021, the World War has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remain covet any living creature, and for people who can't afford one, companies build incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep. They've even built humans. Immigrants to Mars receive androids so sophisticated they are indistinguishable from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans can wreak, the government bans them from Earth. Driven into hiding, unauthorized androids live among human beings, undetected. Rick Deckard, an officially sanctioned bounty hunter, is commissioned to find rogue androids and "retire" them. But when cornered, androids fight back-with lethal force.
Praise for Philip K. Dick
"[Dick] sees all the sparkling-and terrifying-possibilities . . . that other authors shy away from."-Rolling Stone
"A kind of pulp-fiction Kafka, a prophet."-The New York Times
Philip K. Dick
Over a writing career that spanned three decades, Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned toward deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film, notably Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and in 2007 the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than 25 languages.
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Reviews for Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
156 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Weirdest, most amazing, stunning, eccentric, imposing, sci-fi fiction I've ever read
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the best in this genre. Deeply profound while being entertaining. P.K.D. nailed it again, if you enjoy his style check out A Scanner Darkly.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Strangely not too out of step with imagined future! A classic sci fi novel and included on the 1001 books to read before you die lists.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very different work than the movie. The two share some (not all) characters and plot events, but they operate on entirely different levels, backed by fundamentally different worldviews and concerns. The movie is an atmospheric action flick, with the desire for freedom as a main theme; the book is altogether more complex and clouded. I'm not sure what conclusion Dick meant the reader to reach, but I can see at least three possibilities:(1) That androids have as much claim to dignity and intrinsic value as the people. With each new model, they are becoming increasingly indistinguishable from biological people, in the same way that electric animals are becoming hard to distinguish from real animals. To the extent that the androids are different, it doesn't matter, because if real humans can't accurately distinguish an android from another human (a la the Turing test), from an ethical perspective, the humans ought to treat any given 'other' as a human. The androids are oppressed, and much of the coldness Deckard (and others) perceive in the androids is the very human anger that burns in the heart of anyone subjected to racism, sexism, etc; it proves their 'humanity' at the same time it ultimately blinds Deckard to it. In this light, the book is best understood as a tragedy.(2) While 'empathy' is the explicit normative focus of human society on Earth - that is, everyone joins in a religious ritual built around empathy; androids are less than human because they lack empathy - in fact, society is just as centrally organized around status. From Deckard's first conversation on the roof with his neighbor, to all the human characters' interactions with each other, what really drives human behavior is not empathy, but anxiety about social status. The humans think they care about empathy, but what they really care about is seeming to feel empathy; they are generally horrible to one another. In this interpretation, the book is really a fable about human hypocrisy, how our efforts to rank people by worth are really about gaining status relative to those around us. To the extent the androids approach personhood, they begin to illustrate these tendencies as well.(3) The androids really are different, lacking in empathy, and as such, the conventional human wisdom about them is entirely correct - they are virtual psychopaths, and Deckard is doing what is right, or at least what is necessary, by killing them. The last third of the book can be read to confirm this interpretation, or at least to show that no interpretation will be able to make moral sense of the entire story: that humans and androids are, in fact, unable to share a common worldview, set of values, or ethic. The fact that, as mentioned relatively late in the book, the androids only live for four years, tends to undermine this interpretation - given their short lives, it's hard to see how the androids would present any real competition or threat to the human characters if the humans would just leave them alone.Two of these three interpretations are deeply discouraging, offering little hope for the future. None do a good job of explaining two surreal passages late in the book, when key characters appear to be hallucinating. I'm guessing that there's a good bit more I didn't understand, but I appreciated the careful crafting and layers of thought built into the story.
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? opens with one of the funniest first chapters I have ever read. I'm typing that and I haven't even dialed 888. The laughter Dick evokes acts like a palate opener leaving the reader defenseless against the horrors within this exploration of empathy.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One is more impressed when one reflects upon the fact that this novel was first published in 1968. The sense of post-apocalyptic destruction was real for me; quite depressing. I had just finished Kevin J. Anderson's "Ground Zero". Fallout that creates chickenheads. It hits too close to home. I think that radioactive dust is here today, only it's not radioactive dust—it's of a varied nature and borne from the muderous Android logicians in power. In our Universe, they won, so to speak.I believe Mercerism was the World Religion Dick based upon Christianity. Was it the Antichrist's religion or the Returned Christ's religion? Very interesting about Buster's revelatory news expose. Something in me suspects the latter, giving Dick's alleged real-life trip to the Roman Empire. Mercer told Deckard that it was the curse, the defeat of Creation that caused men to do bad, knowing it was bad. Mercer speaks of the sin nature; he nearly directly quotes Romans 7:15. I wonder if Dick had read Romans, as he claimed to not have read Acts. When Buster proclaimed Mercer fake, showing brushstrokes, he revealed not that Mercer did not exist, but that Mercer was only a man in a leading role with a greater power guiding him. Pure preaching and great stuff.The Androids you must feel...empathy for. It was an epiphany when the Nexus-6 Rachael drunkenly stated that she felt empathetic towards herself. That is consciousness in the midst of evolving. I suspect that Earth and Mars will be transformed by the next generation of the Rosen Association's products.I loved the animal quest side-scenes. It was so novel! Yet, like the entire novel, it was quite dark and depressing, as the setting of a post-nuclear world war should be.
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