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3.33 AVERAGE
3.33 AVERAGE
A prequel to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep that manages to write PKD into the timeline by reference to my favorite short story Nanny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I did not finish this book, I only got 67 pages in before I gave up. I just couldn't get into it. The premise is pretty ridiculous and the story seemed to be going nowhere.
Not one of my favourite PKD novels but still good. We Can Build You is incredibly pedantic and scattered which is oddly appropriate as it winds up being more about mental illness, obsession, multiple realities and confusion of identity than what it starts out as which is artificial intelligence. I could see this being frustrating to a lot of readers as it ping pongs from plot to plot rapidly, starting with focusing on simulacrum production, then to history recreation, then to examining capitalism and the automation of industry, then to moon colonisation, then to a kind of stalker story eventually winding up in a mental institution. Ultimately it's very unfocused (which isn't exactly uncommon for PKD stories) but still interesting and enjoyable.
Listed as science fiction and set against the backdrop of automata and lunar colonisation, We Can Build You takes a sharp left-turn, throwing the reader into the mind of Louis Rosen, a man in the business of selling electronic spinets and organs. Unable to reconcile his unrequited love for Pris, his business partner's daughter, he experiences mental breakdown and uncontrollably psychotic behaviour, threatening to kill Pris and her new business partner/lover, Sam Barrows. In what is perhaps the most challenging part of the book, Louis has a full-blown hallucination, lasting for several pages. I was so drawn in to his world I had to double-back and check that I had read correctly.
Once on the trajectory of exploring Louis' inner mental and emotional life, the plot points surrounding lunar colonisation and automata become perfunctory. (I had expected, on the contrary, that these would be further developed.) Published in 1972, We Can Build You addresses female autonomy and mental illness. By current standards this may be seen as somewhat problematic, as the two main female characters are either presented as either near-invisible, or mentally unstable. This is somewhat redeemed as Pris, although checked into a mental health clinic, does maintain agency and evade being possessed by either Louis, her father Maury, or her lover Sam.
Once on the trajectory of exploring Louis' inner mental and emotional life, the plot points surrounding lunar colonisation and automata become perfunctory. (I had expected, on the contrary, that these would be further developed.) Published in 1972, We Can Build You addresses female autonomy and mental illness. By current standards this may be seen as somewhat problematic, as the two main female characters are either presented as either near-invisible, or mentally unstable. This is somewhat redeemed as Pris, although checked into a mental health clinic, does maintain agency and evade being possessed by either Louis, her father Maury, or her lover Sam.
There were no androids going insane in this book, in spit of the back copy claims to the contrary. That being said, it was a fascinating exploration into obsession and mental health. Some interesting intertextual stuff with others of Philip K Dicks other novels. In general, one you could probably pass on, though.
so, when i bought Ubik i had at least some of it confused with this book. and then i got this book and it still wasn't the book i had in my head. there is some archetypical Dick novel residing in my head against which i am measuring all of Dick's earthly manuscripts.
3.5 stars
Despite being published after DADOES the manuscript for this novel was written beforehand in '62. With that in mind, it explains why one can feel the sense that it sort of acts as a loosely connected precursor to the Blade Runner book. I like that PKD can weave such strange elements into a story together and make it feel pedestrian one moment and bizarre and surreal the very next.
I'll leave you with a quote I had to write down immediately:
Despite being published after DADOES the manuscript for this novel was written beforehand in '62. With that in mind, it explains why one can feel the sense that it sort of acts as a loosely connected precursor to the Blade Runner book. I like that PKD can weave such strange elements into a story together and make it feel pedestrian one moment and bizarre and surreal the very next.
I'll leave you with a quote I had to write down immediately:
“And, as I watched the Lincoln come by degrees to a relationship with what it saw, I understood something: the basis of life is not a greed to exist, not a desire of any kind. It’s fear, the fear which I saw here. And not even fear; much worse. Absolute dread. Paralyzing dread so great as to produce apathy. Yet the Lincoln stirred, rose out of this. Why? Because it had to. Movement, action, were implied by the extensiveness of the dread. That state, by its own nature, could not be endured.
All the activity of life was an effort to relieve this one state. Attempts to mitigate the condition which we saw before us now.”
Nobody writes quite like [a:Philip K. Dick|4764|Philip K. Dick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1264613853p2/4764.jpg]. His characters oscillate between coldly detached and painfully empathetic. The plot doesn't so much unfold as emerge in erratic and unpredictable flashes and pulses. You can't help feeling that, for Dick, he isn't so much writing this novel as speedily transcribing it as it crystallizes in his imagination.
If you're a fan of Blade Runner ([b:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|7082|Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|Philip K. Dick|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1435458683s/7082.jpg|830939]) then this can be seen as something of a prototype.
If you're a fan of Blade Runner ([b:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|7082|Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|Philip K. Dick|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1435458683s/7082.jpg|830939]) then this can be seen as something of a prototype.