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literatureleaf's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Reading time: 14 days
Difficulty level: 3/5
Rating: 2.75/5
In a dystopian future, a world war of catastrophic proportions has led to the death of millions, mass extinctions, and the migration of humankind to the vast unknown of outer space. Earth has become a desolate wasteland, where a class of humans known only as “specials” are shunned and isolated, and the few who continue living normal lives desperately seek the status of owning a sentient being. Reserved only for the wealthy, tech companies have stepped in to fill the void for the poor, creating advanced robots that perfectly imitate animal life.
These companies have also created androids, robots so sophisticated that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from flesh and blood men and women. While these androids are easily accessible on other planets, Earth’s government has banned them, terrified of what these AI machines are capable of. Forced into hiding, illegal androids blend in with humans, living and working among them while simultaneously evading the bounty hunters who are sent to end them.
When Rick Deckard, a career bounty hunter, is hired to retire a group of even further technologically advanced androids known as Nexus-6, he finds himself on a wild goose chase throughout his city, forced to not only fight for his life, but to confront his own conceptions about the duality of androids, humanity, and what it really means to be alive.
Evenly paced and chock full of action, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep packs a punch that will keep you turning pages well past your bedtime. Taking place over the course of a few days, Philip K. Dick masterfully achieves a riveting and compulsive sense of suspense that refuses to let itself be limited by the painfully short timeframe that is given to us to come to know these characters and their stories.
Because of the time constraints woven throughout the plot, character motivations and consistency suffer. The cast undergoes massive moral change and emotional upheaval within the span of minutes, and at times with no discernible reason, leaving the reader in a tailspin. Forced to reconcile what we have come to expect from the characters against what their words and actions are telling us, we are left to wonder if there is any greater purpose to what we are reading at all.
Told from two different viewpoints, the overarching plotlines gradually come together to form a satisfying conclusion for Deckard, but the secondary POV of Isidore feels lackluster and forced. He felt as though he was only a part of the book to further the plot, his story was rushed, and there was no true “end” for his character, lending to a feeling of a good portion of the book being shoe-horned in for no other purpose than cheap plot advancement.
Jumping between advanced literary technique, clinical and standoffish writing, and choppy, disjointed flow, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a confusing reading experience. Blending it all together, it quickly becomes clear that it is not the prose, the characters, or even the plot itself that caused this novel to leave such a profound mark on the science fiction world, but rather the thematic elements that the book centers around.
A brutal look at the impact of consumerism and the commodification of life itself, Philip K. Dick paints a bleak and terrifying picture of a world where emotions are false, power is only achievable only through increasingly immoral means, and life is only as sacred as money says it is. Harrowing and propulsive, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep lays bare the blurred lines between sentience and consciousness and forces us to ask ourselves if we are only as alive as we think we are.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Ableism, Animal death, and Murder
Moderate: Violence, Misogyny, and Sexism
Minor: Sexual content, Cursing, Mental illness, and Infidelity
jetix's review against another edition
funny
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
1.0
ah, i see why it's considered sci-fi classic. it's pretty nice for a book written by a man.
"I like her; I could watch her the rest of my life. She has breasts that smile." is an actual quote from this book. this, along with "her breasts bobbing with agitation" from a different story by him, leads me to a conclusion that dick (what a fitting last name) was one of the original men writing women. so he's got that going for him, i guess.
p.s. marking this as funny because it's hilariously bad.
"I like her; I could watch her the rest of my life. She has breasts that smile." is an actual quote from this book. this, along with "her breasts bobbing with agitation" from a different story by him, leads me to a conclusion that dick (what a fitting last name) was one of the original men writing women. so he's got that going for him, i guess.
p.s. marking this as funny because it's hilariously bad.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Ableism, Animal cruelty, and Sexism
zombiezami's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Gun violence, Classism, Sexism, Ableism, Animal cruelty, and Misogyny
Minor: Racism
twig_cat's review against another edition
I'm sure this book was cutting edge when it came out, and I appreciate some of the ideas and themes it's going for.
But those concepts have been explored better since, and so between the dated style of the book, and some very dated attitudes in places, it just became a chore to keep going.
But those concepts have been explored better since, and so between the dated style of the book, and some very dated attitudes in places, it just became a chore to keep going.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism and Ableism
baccoamon's review against another edition
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Avid readers and fans of the Blade Runner series will undoubtedly come across this book when in need of another brooding scifi story to satiate that craving. But one would find themselves either pleasantly surprised or underwhelmed, depending if the reader is looking for a new story or a familiar one, to find that "Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep" is very much the corner stone of niche scifi that it is heralded as while also very much not living up to some of its more established inspirations.
Philip K. Dick in this book seems to stumble upon larger questions around collective identity vs individuality, worship culture, mental health, and empathy that tend to lead to more open answers rather than a definite perspective. I did come away wondering if this book was written to be more of a introspection for the reader to dissect for themselves or if simply the language he was afforded was not able to directly correlate some of these ideas in a more precise way due to the time period and this very much being a speculative future where a writer from 1968 is looking into a world overcome by class elitism and techno-ethic dilemmas. For fans of speculative fiction and brooding scifi you will find yourself at home as Decker reflects on what self fulfillment, empathy, and identity means to the human experience.
My largest negative to the story is the inability to truly humanize the Androids as it creates a strange conflict of interest when it comes to the ethos that I believed Philip to be leaning towards and the outdated understanding of Schizophrenia, as a reminder that this book is from 50 years ago, is a bit annoying to overlook while reading.
Contemplative and interesting this book is worth your time but do not expect a literary Blade Runner.
Philip K. Dick in this book seems to stumble upon larger questions around collective identity vs individuality, worship culture, mental health, and empathy that tend to lead to more open answers rather than a definite perspective. I did come away wondering if this book was written to be more of a introspection for the reader to dissect for themselves or if simply the language he was afforded was not able to directly correlate some of these ideas in a more precise way due to the time period and this very much being a speculative future where a writer from 1968 is looking into a world overcome by class elitism and techno-ethic dilemmas. For fans of speculative fiction and brooding scifi you will find yourself at home as Decker reflects on what self fulfillment, empathy, and identity means to the human experience.
My largest negative to the story is the inability to truly humanize the Androids as it creates a strange conflict of interest when it comes to the ethos that I believed Philip to be leaning towards and the outdated understanding of Schizophrenia, as a reminder that this book is from 50 years ago, is a bit annoying to overlook while reading.
Contemplative and interesting this book is worth your time but do not expect a literary Blade Runner.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, and Mental illness
itsnicholaslashay's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I’ve never watched Blade Runner so I didn’t have many expectations coming into this other than what I’ve heard about PKD. Unfortunately, he did not deliver for me and I couldn’t get myself to be interested in this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Misogyny and Ableism
Minor: Infidelity
louisallama's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Read if you enjoy:
- Misogyny
- Sentences that don't make sense the first time you read them
- Action scenes that are over in two sentences
Infidelity
The protagonist sleeping with an 18 year old
The protagonist who kills androids for a living sleeping with an android
Sleeping with someone the day you meet them
Falling in love immediately after having sex with someone
Power imbalances
The stuff about specials was fucking gross, a person doesn't need a certain IQ to be seen as human good grief
I don't understand why this is a classic. I've heard the film is only loosely based on the book which is good because this is garbage. I liked the stuff about animals.
I don't understand why this is a classic. I've heard the film is only loosely based on the book which is good because this is garbage. I liked the stuff about animals.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Misogyny, and Infidelity
teainthelibrary's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism and Violence
muffinunchained's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Violence, Medical content, and Animal death