A review by arellareads
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

adventurous fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

The book poses some interesting questions about empathy and the human condition. It takes place after a great World War that led to mass global extinctions; in response, synthetic animals and humanoids were developed. This creates tension as androids live indistinguishable among the remaining humans, and bounty hunters are appointed to take certain androids down… Until the leading bounty hunter develops affection for a female android.
 
Unfortunately, I’ve found a lot of male fantasy & sci-fi authors have this habit of describing female characters in terms of their sex, hyper-fixating on their breasts and whether or not they have “childlike” features — which is entirely bizarre. While I pushed through the first half of the novel, Dick takes the infantilization to a creepy level when the leading bounty hunter begins lusting over the youthful female android, describing her figure as “definitely that of a girl, not a woman.” All this focus on physical appeal isn’t only dehumanizing – ironically, considering this is a story about androids – but also very detached. As the book went on, I got the feeling that Dick just wanted to write smut about sexy female robots and found a way to sell his fantasy as a sophisticated dystopian novel.

The narration also feels disjointed and mundane. It’s set in third person but will switch to first in the middle of a paragraph with no conventional indicator, such as italics. The characters lack depth and there just weren’t any emotional stakes. This book presents a unique vision of the future, but at the end of the day, the writing is flat and full of too much underlying lust.
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