Book Review: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Release Date: 1968
Publisher: Doubleday
Audience: Everyone
Pages: 210
Buy the Book: Amazon
Book Rating: 2/5









As I am a big fan of Blade Runner I have always been interested in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which is the book the movie draws from. However, upon reading it, despite going into it knowing it was quite different from the movie, I found the book to be rather flat.

The book follows Deckard, a bounty hunter working for the police, as he tracks down six androids who have escaped to earth. Deckard must not only destroy six dangerous robots, but also come to terms with his own humanity, and the apparent humanity the androids seem to exhibit. This problem comes to the fore for Deckard as he encounters Rachel. Rachel, a representative for the Rosen Corporation (the company that makes the androids) is an androids herself and Deckard must either come to terms with his empathy for androids, or destroy that empathy along with the androids themselves.

My main problem with the book is that it seems to just flounder around, giving over little time to any one thing. This results in many of the issues being explored by the author to be explored only skin deep. You have Deckard's relationship with his wife, with the few people left on the planet, with Rachel, with Mercerism (the religion), his own concerns about his humanity, the android's mission to prove human empathy is a myth, and several other issues all crammed into a relatively short story. At the end of the story I felt that there was little resolution to any of the issues raised in the story. While the floundering of the story and the lack of resolution can be said to reflect the main characters own failings in living a successful/happy life, I'm not buying it.

Another example of the Dying Earth genre (both earth and mars are near barren wastelands with few people living on either planet, entropy and decay slowly destroying everything.) this book, despite being the book that created Blade Runner, is just, well, ok. While I did put my expectations at the door when picking this up, it just seems the quantity of issues was chosen over quality and depth of those issues. I can't particularly say I would recommend it, but I will give a hesitant recommendation to check it out if you are a fan of the movie.