My first PKD and I don’t think it’ll be my last. Reading a book that’s supposed to be set in the future, but that future is 2021 and it’s now 2024…that’s a bit weird, but I don’t think PKD skimped in any way on its science fiction-y components or its even bigger themes.
Here’s more about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard’s assignment–find them and then…”retire” them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn’t want to be found!
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My thoughts
I started reading the book out of sheer consternation when watching the movie. It was my second time watching it, but somehow I didn’t like it as much as I did the first time. The reason? It made no sense. As someone with little-to-no context as to what the book is about, the movie doesn’t make it any better. Who is Rick Deckard? Why are androids so dangerous? Where does Roy Batty find a dove and why is he holding it like a knife? The movie left me with way more questions than answers and it was high time I did something to find relief; so I decided to read the book.
And let me tell you, I found those answers. The book is most definitely way better than the movie and it provides the much needed context you need to understand the movie. First off, this is a world that has seen its end. Most people have emigrated off-planet to Mars because the planet is covered in a mysterious dust that killed off all the animals. Those who live on Earth either choose to live there (which is rare) or they don’t past an intellectual test or physical that deems them worthy to live on in the new world (levels of frustration in this world, let me tell you). When people emigrated to Mars, everyone was given an android to help them out with stuff on the new planet. Some were put there to support the families that they went to live with. Others were straight up turned into slave workers who had no rights of their own and no benefits for helping the humans. Because of that, some of the androids killed humans and escaped Mars to return to Earth and hopefully find peace living among the humans there.
And that pretty much brings you up to speed with what happens in the movie. Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter who is tasked to finding, testing, and “retiring” (aka killing) any rogue androids that escape to Earth. The current plot is he has to find and retire six androids who had recently come down to Earth. However, this book is way more than its plot. While yes, you see the exact events from the movie in this book where he finds and retires these androids, there’s so much more happening here that dives deeply into themes of morality and mortality.
They live in a world where there are no animals, so obsession with owning an animal is pretty high on the list. If you own a real animal, then you have some privilege in the world. You’re rich, you can afford an animal that’s practically extinct. Then on top of that, there’s this obsession with mood. There are “mood organs” to tap into an emotion that you are trying to feel or don’t want to feel and there’s this bigger religious phenomenon called “Mercerism” which is basically a way to feel empathy for other people. It’s funny because one of the defining traits of humans against androids is their ability to feel empathy, so knowing that there’s mood stabilizers and empathy machines basically means that the humans in this world aren’t too far off from the androids. There was even debate if schizophrenic humans would be able to past the Voight-Kampff test if they took it. As the story progresses, the lines between human and android do blur a bit, but it isn’t until the end that it becomes much clearer that they are different species and the level that the androids exist on is truly something else.
Oddly enough, this book doesn’t have the same vibe as the movie. The movie is dark, gritty with a neo-noir feel to it and while I know that PKD was trying to capture that noir-style feel with this book, I didn’t feel it. In fact, I found it cute? I mean, the man was sad he had to buy a fake sheep because his real one died, that’s hard to turn into a hardboiled investigator out looking for his man no matter the consequences. I found the book charming but thought-provoking and slightly disturbing, but I didn’t get the same feeling I did when I was watching the movie. Maybe it’s because it’s more contextualized. Maybe because I myself am an android…
I really loved this book. There were so many little details and things that I could go back and reread this book and find something else I like about it. It’s dystopian and sad, but chock full of bigger themes on human connection, identity, and existence in general. I think this is a book that I will read a few times in my life and continue to mull over for years.
Simone and Her Books 
I’m not a fan of science fiction but this book looks like an interesting read
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