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

adventurous dark hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

He had never thought of it before, had never felt any empathy on his own part towards the androids that he killed. Always he had assumed that throughout his psyche he experienced the android as a clever machine - as in his own conscious view. And yet, in contrast to Phil Resch, a difference had manifested itself. And he felt instinctively that he was right. Empathy toward an artificial construct? he asked himself. Something that only pretends to be alive? But Luba Luft had seemed genuinely alive; it had not worn the aspect of a simulation.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is easily one of Philip K. Dick’s best novels. It’s also one of his most serious; while many of his books were humorous satires or Kafka-esque farces, Electric Sheep treats its world and subject matter with the significance it deserves. This is because Dick had something to say, something he was desperate to share about how he felt humanity was going wrong, something that comes through in every aspect of the novel.

That something is the struggle between entropy and empathy for the future of the human species. On the side of entropy is a crumbling world beset by environmental devastation and persistent nuclear fallout, a world increasingly abandoned for the off-world colonies. And, of course, the androids, emotionless constructs who live just a few years and seem incapable of imparting meaning to their allotted time. Dick’s androids represent where he saw humanity going in the insecure and uncertain world of the late 1960s.

On the side of empathy is Mercerism, a new religion whose adherents share the experience of WIlbur Mercer, a mysterious figure they watch climb from the decay of the “tomb world”, up a mountain to its peak where he is inevitably thrust back down. Mercerites feel everything Mercer feels, and everything everyone else tuned in feels too, allowing for an empathic fusion sorely lacking on this future Earth. And, of course, there’s the animals. With most of the planet’s biodiversity destroyed, there is great social status connected with owning a real animal. But even caring for an ersatz “electric” animal brings people pleasure and allows them to practise empathy outside of the fusion of Mercerism.

Anyone coming to the novel from its outstanding film adaptation Blade Runner will likely be surprised by how different the book is, but should also get a lot out of how the film takes that basic idea of “entropy versus empathy” and reconfigures it for the visual spectacle of science fiction cinema. Both novel and film deserve their vaunted places as classics of the genre.