“You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at all. I mean before they came here I could stand it... But now it has changed. You can't go back, he thought. You can't go from people to nonpeople."

¡Tremendo libro! Mi primero de Philip K. Dick y estoy seguro de que no será el último. Me encantaron los personajes, la historia y la escritura, que a pesar de su simplicidad va al punto y no escatima en detalles esenciales. Me fascinó la idea del mundo en constante decadencia y los sobrevivientes de su declive sufriendo la locura, la soledad y el abandono (que viene acompañado por un esfuerzo desgarrador por conectar con otras personas), como también esta visión profética de Dick acerca de la valoración excesiva hacia los objetos y su posterior humanización a través de nuestra empatía y, valga la redundancia, humanidad. Este libro es un recuerdo de nuestra naturaleza, un camino en ascenso hacia lo que significa ser humano en un mundo agonizante. El final es fantástico.

Un gran bel libro che mi ha tenuto sveglio fino all'una di notte, ma del cult movie che ha ispirato, film che adoro e che vedo e rivedo almeno una volta l'anno c'é ben poco.

Nel libro di Dick la Terra é stata devastata da una guerra nucleare e la maggior parte degli esseri umani sono migrati nello spazio.
Gli animali si sono quasi del tutto estinti, e possederne uno non artificiale conferisce uno status quo superiore ai proprietari, cittadini che fondono quotidianamente le proprie coscienze tramite una macchina in nome della religione Mercer.
Alle affollate e piovose metropoli multietniche del film cyberpunk di Ridley Scott subentra quindi una distopica sensazione di vuoto che ci accompagnerà per tutta la lettura del libro.





Rick Deckard non é il duro detective alla Marlowe interpretato da Harrison Ford, ma un rubicondo e calvo poliziotto che si preoccupa di portare a casa lo stipendio, tornando a fine giornata da sua moglie, fanatica seguace del Mercerismo, e dalla sua pecora elettrica, animale artificiale il cui possesso lo fa soffrire relegandolo in uno status sociale di seconda categoria.



Ci sono poi tante altre differenze: J.F. Sebastian qui é Isidore, un mutante "testa di gallina" dall'intelletto rovinato a causa delle polveri radioattive, la Tyrell Corporation si chiama Rosen Industries, e soprattutto il ruolo di Rachel e degli altri androidi.



n  La candela che splende il doppio del suo splendore, brucia in metà tempo… E tu hai sempre bruciato la tua candela da tutte e due le parti.n

Mentre nel film infatti ci troviamo a simpatizzare con gli androidi Nexus-6, i quali fanno quel che fanno a causa del loro brevissimo ciclo di vita, nel libro questi sono semplicemente dei freddi e cinici killer e l'aspetto umano ne viete completamente sminuito.
La stessa Rachael é qui una vera e propria femme fatale che prova a ricattare Deckard offrendogli un gufo, se lo porta a letto, lo distrugge psicologicamente rivelandogli di averlo fatto in precedenza con altri cacciatori di androidi per proteggere i Nexus-6 ed infine gli uccide la capra che si era comprato spendendo tutti i soldi guadagnati uccidendo i 6 androidi fuggiaschi al termine di una lunga ed estenuante giornata di lavoro.



Infine Roy Beatty, il carismatico capo degli androidi interpretato nel film da un immenso Rutger Hauer, si limita qui a comparire per poche pagine , venendone liquidato in due verso la fine e risultando privo del carisma e delle poliedrici sfaccettature della sua controparte cinematografica: non a caso il Roy del libro si chiama Baty e non Beatty.



Nonostante quindi libro e film siano quindi quasi completamente diversi e viaggino su binari opposti, "Blade Runner. Cacciatore di androidi" é comunque un gran bel libro di fantascienza distopica che si lascia leggere quasi tutto d'un fiato fino alla fine.

Se peró volevate leggere come me per l'ennesima volta il monologo finale di Beatty/Baty , interpretazione monumentale di Rutger Hauer che suscitó applausi e lacrime nella troupe cinematografica ed in milioni di spettatori, sappiate che non lo troverete qui.
Questo é uno dei rari casi dove, a mio parere, l'adattamento cinematografico é di gran lunga superiore al racconto che lo ha ispirato.


« Io ne ho viste cose che voi umani non potreste immaginarvi:
navi da combattimento in fiamme al largo dei bastioni di Orione,
e ho visto i raggi B balenare nel buio vicino alle porte di Tannhäuser.
E tutti quei momenti andranno perduti nel tempo,
come lacrime nella pioggia.
È tempo di morire. »

✔️ Exceptional writing
✔️ Mind-blowing world building
✔️ Master storytelling
✔️ Insanely rendered sci-fi capitalism


Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is THE book of baffled expectations and skewed realities. Of fake-dom, or, colonised authenticity. Of chillingly overlapping parallel worlds.
↪️ Where the blurred boundaries between human and android are confounded to the power of infinity, and you will have to question whether you're sufficiently human, after all.

The movie is better than the book, of course, though I wish Riddley Scott had found a way to include Mercerism. Then perhaps other people don't enjoy fictional religions as much as I do. I still thought this was one of the most memorable ones.

Philip K. Dick has packed his fabulous Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? with all the phobias and anxieties of the sixties: the third world war, the post-apocalyptic bleakness, nature in the state of the ultimate decline, collapse of ecology, degradation of mankind and the desperate fighting to keep one’s identity.
The novel is a cat-and-mouse game but the protagonist stands before the problem of moral choice: which one is a cat and which one is a mouse?

The old man said, “You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.”

Wherever one is and whatever one does the most important thing is not to lose one’s human qualities.

4,5 Sterne ( die restlose Begeisterung fehlt für 5)
Da waren ein paar tolle Ideen drin.
Stimmung des Buches: Schwermut, Melancholie
Hauptsächlich hab ich darin den Mythos des Sisyphos erkannt. Über den Sinn und Unsinn der Aufgaben und dem Gedanken, dass es besser ist eine unsinnige Aufgabe zu haben als gar keine, was im Widerspruch dazu steht sinnstiftend sein zu wollen.
Ganz große Liebe für Herrn Isidor

Do Androids is one of the most famous novels by P. K. Dick, probably due to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, which was loosely adapted from it. I was quite surprised to see that, apart from the general plotline and a few character names, the movie has very little to do with the novel.

A couple of things that are fascinating in PKD's work (not depicted in the film) are (i) the relationship between men and (mostly robotic) animals in a post-nuclear war environment where most animals are extinct, and the human population has migrated to Mars, and (ii) the religious-like experience of "mercerism" where people get fused, through an Empathy Box (a sort of game console), with a mysterious man called Wilbur Mercer, who endlessly climbs a hill, while being stoned by surrounding onlookers... Perhaps some kind of Sisyphus or Jesus walking towards the Golgotha?

An android walks into a bar.

"Hey!", the bartender says, "Only people with feelings are allowed in here! You need empathy in order to be in a joke like this, or at least have something people can relate to."

"Oh, don't worry", the android replies, "I definitely feel empathy."

Relieved, the bartender invites him over to the bar. "What are you having?"

"A beer would be great!", the android replies. The bartender, evidently approving of this fine choice, gladly obliges and goes on to cater for the other guests.

The android sits there for a while, drinking, looking, thinking. He decides he wants more of that beer.

"Hey bartender!", he shouts, "Come give me a refill, my glass is empathy!"

___

The title of this edition, "Blade Runner", is very fitting as it shows to which great extent my reading experience tied in to the movie. This might seem strange because plot-wise there are very few similarities between this book and the film. And despite them being so different, I can only say both are supremely good. It's impossible for me to say which I prefer. One element where the book wins it over the movie is the title, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", which was used as a subtitle in this edition of the book. The contents remain the same as in the original book, but the cover work is evidently made with the movie in mind.

The way the novel influenced the movie probably goes without saying. The central theme has been picked up: man managed to create an "inferior" version of man in order to make use of that product for their own benefit: as slaves, as company. In essence, what would happen if Dr. Frankenstein's patent would expire and his creation would be mass-produced, made more aesthetically pleasing and completely void of emotions. Inferior is relative though, because the androids are generally more intelligent and agile. And most look very attractive, which helps.

That's where the philosophical aspect comes in: What is it that makes us so different from these creations that makes us essentially human?
According to society in this book, it's empathy. The ability to feel for others, to manage to go through what they're going through by some mystic group connection. The androids can't do that and are thus considered subhuman and when on the loose, dangerous.

This story progresses by questioning that central statement. For starters, not all humans have empathy, or at least they don't act upon it. And when they have it, it's selective at best. The difference between "human" and "humane" is more signifcant than what their similar spelling would suggest. How else to explain the treatment of so-called "chickenheads", by which society allows the elderly, the weak and the stupid to be stranded on a dying planet? Additionally, hints are given that the androids could possess more emotions than they were intended to have. So where on the humanity spectrum does that leave the man who has to kill them for a living? That's what this story is about.

This book offers some insights on how Dick himself intended his book, which was essentially an anti-establishment novel during the war in Vietnam. His line of thinking was that when we go fighting, we become what we're fighting against. In his vision the androids truly were evil. Any sympathizing I have been doing with them, and with me many others, was not intended by the author and maybe partially due to the movie's influence. Admittedly, it becomes much harder to like them near the end of the book, especially if you like animals. Dick's focus was not on how human the in our eyes inhuman are, but on how bounty hunters themselves became devoid of emotions the longer they were doing their jobs. How those who claim to be human can turn into the monsters they fight quite easily. I personally like to regard it from both its perspectives.

The atmosphere created in the book is supreme. When I had read it last year, I rated it three stars. Yesterday, 4. Now, after having given it careful thought, 5. Why the hesitation? There are some segments that don't seem to make sense, like the operation Garland had set up or Mercer manifesting himself at certain occasions. But then, that's part of it. The "nightmare" feel of the book is part of what makes it so great and these fluid elements in the story where there are unexplained shifts between dreamworlds and reality are part of what constitutes the nightmare experience.

My reading-experience of this book was amplified by the influences of the other media it appeared in, both the movie and the videogame (which was based on the movie). The artwork in those was simply sublime and provided the perfect framework in which the story could be set, also in my mind. Dark and always foggy streets, trash everywhere, cheap neon the only source of light and a musical score to round it all off. It's a dreary place, but somehow, I can't explain it, very appealing.

According to the additional notes in my edition, Dick, who sadly could not see the completed movie due to his untimely demise, was positively surprised when he saw the first 20 minutes of the movie, saying that it felt Ridley Scott had held a mirror to his mind. I do wonder if that's entirely truthful, since I doubt Harrison Ford saw a balding, slightly overweight man when he looked in his own mirror. I think it's safe to say that Ridley Scott and his entourage really added something to the experience of this story, as well as offering a completely new narrative.

In conclusion: This is one of those instances where the franchise in its entirety can be strongly recommended. Like PKD himself predicted in a letter to the movie-makers: Blade Runner has proven to be invincible. I hope the Blade Runner 2049 movie will demonstrate that further.

Read it, watch it, play it and ... feel human :-)

This novel is where Blade Runner has its provenance or beginnings.

"You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity."



Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a science fiction masterpiece by Philip K. Dick (PKD) that also served as the inspiration for the movie Blade Runner. It was first published in 1968.

The story is about Rick Deckard, an android killer. He works for the police in San Francisco, where the deadly radioactive dust from World War Terminus still covers the city like a grey cloud, blocking out the sun. Nearly all the animals in the world have died, and most people have emigrated to Mars, where the government gives them androids to work as servants. But some androids escape and return, illegally, to earth.

There are six escaped androids on Rick's list. He must search for them through the dusty, half-desrted city, use "Voight-Kampff" tests to identify them as non-human, then shoot them down with his laser gun. He earns $1000 for each killing. Perhaps, he thinks, he'll soon be able to buy a real living animal with his earnings, instead of the electric sheep he owns now.

But these are Nexus-6 androids. They breathe, move, look, sound like humans; they have ten million electrical connections in their brains and think faster than many people. They're intelligent, dangerous, and hard to kill.

Rick Deckard will earn every cent of his $6,000. If he lives.

This is my first introduction to PKD, and it won't be my last. PKD is an awesome writer. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is about a post-apocalyptic world seeking resurrection through the rediscovery of empathy. But who is more empathetic - humans or androids? What is the dividing line?

The book constantly explores how far human ideas of life, death, religion and love could survive in a dark, uncaring world, and the need for people who are human to reinforce other people's humanness...to rebel against an inhuman or android society.

The themes in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? compare in some ways with T S Eliot's "Waste Land" where sympathy and compassion are the measures of our existence; that really living involves making ourselves vulnerable, caring about those around us enough that we give them the power to hurt us. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Dick literalized this connection between emotional connectedness and being human by inventing a protagonist who tests humanness through empathy.

There was sadness in this book. One element of the story that was portrayed in an eloquent and effective way was depression. Depression is something that is misunderstood, and can sometimes drive people to take drastic and often tragic actions. This quote, in particular, really hit me: it is Decker speaking to his wife.

n  “Maybe it could be depression, like you get. I can understand now how you suffer when you’re depressed; I always thought you liked it and I thought you could have snapped yourself out any time, if not alone, then by means of the mood organ [device that can change emotions with the dial of a number]. But when you get that depressed you don’t care. Apathy, because you’ve lost a sense of worth.”n

It is a well known fact that PKD himself suffered from deep depression....

Philip Kindred Dick was born in Chicago in 1928, but lived most of his life in California. From 1952 to his death in 1982, he published 36 novels and 5 collections of short stories, and his science-fiction writing is still hugely popular. He had a painful emotional life, starting with the death of his twin sister 41 days after birth, and continuing through several bad marriages, to a long period of drug addiction. A turning-point came in Canada in 1972. He tried to kill himself, but stopped in time, and then began working with teenagers to help them give up drugs. This eventually brought him out of his depression.



Much of PKD's personal experience appears in his writing. As he said,

n  "I am, by profession, a science fiction writer. I deal in fantasy. My life is fantasy."n

If you're someone who just wants to read a great sci-fi book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is recommended. It provides a starting point for new readers to see where PKD’s genius lies. Although it may be his most commercial work, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? captures the magic of this intense author, with profound consequences.

I am now a true Dickhead! I want more of PKD.

And for all GR readers out there, a philosophical thought...

maybe literature is our Voight-Kampff test, and it helps us to be more human.

Brilliant!

Many questions arise when one reads Philip K. Dick’s 1968 sci fi classic. But one question I specifically had to ask myself was, Why on earth did I give this a four star rating when I joined Goodreads? Am I completely nuts? I leave it up to you, dear Goodreads friends, to answer that question. But thanks in advance for your encouraging words.

Personally I’m going to put it down to circumstances. I was reading this book for the first time while I was on vacation in Barcelona. It took me about a week to read it, even though it’s only 193 pages, because I simply didn’t have much time to read. And therefore most of my reading was done in short spurts, often while I was standing in crowded places or even not been standing at all, but walking to some other place. That’s really not how a book like this should be read.

Even though it is a fairly easy read, and possesses the qualities of a page-turner, your mind will be working overtime. Trying to figure out what is, and what is not, and what it all means.

There is much more in the book than there is in the movie. Mood organs, empathy boxes, Wilbur Mercer and Buster Friendly, an electric sheep, of course. There’s much for you still to discover, if so far you‘ve only seen the movie(s).

But the main point is the same as it was when in 1982 Blade Runner finally got onto the big screen. As androids have become so similar to us that it is increasingly hard to tell if they are androids in the first place, and they might not even know it themselves, then what is it that differentiates us from them? And is one worth more than the other? What if we have decided on a certain quality that distinguishes us from them, but then we realize that some people don’t possess that quality? Or maybe they possess it to a lesser extent than the average person does. Are they not humans then? Are they lesser humans? Are they? Are we? What are we?

We follow bounty hunter Rick Deckard on his assignment to retire six rogue androids, as he wrestles with those questions himself. He will come across some persons that could be androids or could be humans. Deckard will not know initially. And neither will the reader. At some point the reader might even ask if Deckard himself is an android. The ambiguity of the text, in spite of PKD’s easily flowing and easily understandable prose, is a real treat.

The other POV is that of J.R. Isidore, a special, meaning someone with a below average IQ that was not allowed to leave for Mars, as most of mankind did after World War Terminus, and is now degenerating because of the radioactive fallout. He’s living all by himself in a deserted apartment building and basically only comes into contact with other people while he’s at work. That is, until one day he discovers that an android has moved into the building and he tries to befriend her (it?).

At some point the paths of these characters will inevitably cross and all of them are about to lose something in the process.

And then there’s the matter of Wilbur Mercer and Buster Friendly, of course. Find out for yourself. ;)

Thanks to my pathetic memory (or the circumstances – remember the circumstances?) I tremendously enjoyed this re-read. And honestly, I think there’s so much here in the text and also between the lines that I’m quite certain I’m going to read this again in the future. And I might enjoy it equally as much then or even more than I did during this second read.

I’m finally moving this to my favorites shelf now.

Highly recommended!

Brilliant!

(Book 390 from 1001 books) - Blade Runner (Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? #1), Philip K. Dick

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968.

The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, where Earth's life has been greatly damaged by nuclear global war.

Most animal species are endangered or extinct from extreme radiation poisoning, so that owning an animal is now a sign of status and empathy, an attitude encouraged towards animals.

The book served as the primary basis for the 1982 film Blade Runner, and many elements and themes from it were used in its 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز شانزدهم ماه اکتبر سال 1988میلادی

عنوان: آیا آدم مصنوعی‌ها خواب گوسفند برقی می‌بینند؟ - روشنگران

عنوان: آیا آدم مصنوعی‌ها خواب گوسفند برقی می‌بینند؟ نویسنده: فلیپ کی دیک؛ مترجم: محمدرضا باطنی؛ تهران، روشنگران، 1385؛ در 300ص؛ شابک9648564566؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

دغدغه‌ ی هویت، برای انسان علم‌ زده و در جامعه‌ ی مدرن است؛ هر چند فضای داستان، دنیای فرامدرن آینده است، اما دغدغه‌ ی بحران هویت انسان امروز، در جهان فاقد عشق، هم‌دلی، و آغشته به خشونت، و تهی از بیشتر جلوه‌ هایی که انسانهای سده های پیشین، به آن می‌بالیدند، دستمایه‌ ی اصلی نویسنده است؛ آنجا که انسان به انسان بودن خود نیز شک می‌کند

این داستان به دغدغه‌های مردی به نام «ریک دکارد (دکارد، جایزه بگیری است که برای پلیس شهر سانفرانسیسکو کار می‌کند؛ کار او یافتن و بازنشسته کردن آدم مصنوعی‌هایی است که به صورت غیرقانونی وارد زمین شده ‌اند)» می‌پردازد؛ زمان رویدادن داستان در نسخه اصلی سال 1992میلادی بوده که در نسخه تازه آن به سال 2021میلادی بدل شده ‌است؛ داستان بر روی کره ی زمین، که پس از آخرین جنگ جهانی گرفتار آلودگی‌های رادیواکتیو فراوان شده رخ می‌دهد؛ بیشتر انسان‌هایی که زنده مانده‌ اند به سوی سیارات دیگر گریخته‌ و بازماندگان، با مشکلاتی فراوان درگیر هستند؛ بحران هویت و تردید در شناخت کار صحیح از جمله مشکلاتی است که «ریک دکارت» را در این داستان درگیر کرده‌ است

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 05/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 20/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی