This year I resolved to read more classic science fiction and fantasy, hopefully making a dent in that stack of books I really should have read by now. Mostly because they should be good books, but also to be better informed about my genre and its history. I decided that this meant reading six science fiction and six fantasy books written before 1980 by authors that were completely new to me.
Since I feel weird saying I’m “reviewing” giants like H.G. Wells and T.H. White, let’s just say these will be my reactions to books that have shaped the science fiction and fantasy genres in one way or another.
Up this month is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (2017)
Written By: Philip K. Dick
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 224 pages (Trade Paperback)
Publisher: Del Rey
Why I Chose It: I have a weird relationship with the movie Bladerunner. People I really respect told me how much I would like it and there was this huge buildup, but then I watched it and thought it was confusing, which made me feel left out and like I was missing the point. So, I’ve spent a lot of time watching it trying to appreciate the story and finally come to the conclusion that I really enjoy it for a lot of different complicated reasons. But it took a lot of work and self-awareness to get there. I was hoping that by reading the book that inspired the movie I would understand it and my reactions better.
The premise:
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 built 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.
Minor spoilers ahead. I promise they won’t ruin the book if, like me, you’ve waited this long to read it.
Discussion: I found this one very interesting. Between the moral and ethical questions and the state of the world after war and galactic colonization, I found myself glued to the page. And I was fascinated by both the similarities to the movie and the differences. Bladerunner wasn’t one of those adaptations that basically took the main idea of the book and nothing else, but neither was it a carbon copy. Much of the premise and the circumstances were similar but the entire tone of the story was different.
I told myself I wasn’t going to compare the book to the movie, I was going to go in with a clean slate. Of course, that lasted about three pages. It’s instantly obvious Deckard is just not as cool in the book as he is in Bladerunner. I think part of that is a genre thing as Bladerunner was very much influenced by film noire and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep just…wasn’t. In the book Deckard feels more interested in the money that retiring andys will net him, rather than the justice of hunting down fugitives. And he’s very distracted by the expectations of his society and buying a real animal (hence the need for money). So, yes, he’s not as cool and rugged as Harrison Ford portrayed him, but I also think this made him a little more accessible. Deckard is more of an “every-man”, written to be conflicted and relatable. I understood him, and I even kind of liked him and growth he had to go through. But his character left me with just a little bit of uncertainty.
And I felt the same way about the end. It felt incomplete and unexplained and left me a little uncomfortable. But after sitting with it for a while, I think that’s the point. Deckard is now a person who feels empathy for androids in a world where androids aren’t considered human. And it’s uncomfortable to feel empathy for people in a world that doesn’t recognize the rights of those people, or even that they are in fact people. Oof, how convicting is that? And the worst part is that the book ends without a clear resolution; we don’t know what Deckard does about it. It requires us to fill in the blanks, to look inside ourselves and complete the story. See? Uncomfortable.
I did, however, love the discussions about empathy and feeling for fellow humans. The subtle idea that even characters that are unequivocally human can lack that basic empathy was really compelling. And I loved how Deckard’s change in feelings toward androids makes him somehow damaged. The entire book is an argument about what makes a human alive, what gives them a soul, and what separates them from androids who are so similar to humans it requires a bone marrow test to distinguish between the two.
In Conclusion: I really enjoyed it. I don’t know if I can say I like it better than Bladerunner. It’s really hard to compare visual with written media, especially when the visual side is so deliberately stark and beautiful and the written side is so powerful emotionally. But I do think the book is still very relevant today and has a lot of really interesting things to say about humanity, and reality versus things manufactured. I’m looking forward to watching the movie again to see how the story has changed for me. Will I see Deckard the same way? Will I understand the “is he an android or isn’t he” debate any better? I guess we’ll see.
Next up we’ll be heading into the seventies with Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz. I’m really looking forward to this one.
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