Ειλικρινά με το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο δεν μπόρεσα να συνδεθώ σε κάποιο ουσιαστικό επίπεδο.

Ίσως να είμαι κι εγώ ένα ανθρωποειδές εξελιγμένο μεν αλλά μέχρι ενός σημείου, καθώς δεν κατάφερα να νιώσω ενσυναίσθηση για τους ανθρώπους και τα ζώα που αναφέρονται στην ιστορία.

Δεν μπόρεσα ούτε στο ελάχιστο να ταυτιστώ με τον πρωταγωνιστή - εξολοθρευτή-
δεν μου έδωσε το έναυσμα να βιώσω τον κίνδυνο που διέτρεξε πολλές φορές και να αγωνιώ, τον άφησα με τη ρηχή λεκτική και φυσική αντίδραση του προ τους γύρω του χωρίς να με ενδιαφέρει συναισθηματικά.
Όλες οι συγκρούσεις συμφερόντων και επιχειρημάτων καθώς και η επικύρωση βασικών θεμάτων στο βιβλίο είναι απολύτως επίπεδες.

Το νόημα του μυθιστορήματος επικεντρώνεται στην αγάπη για το ανθρώπινο είδος και το ζωικό βασίλειο γενικότερα.
Για έμβια όντα που έχουν αναπαραχθεί και γεννηθεί, εδώ υπεισέρχεται πολύ άκομψα η διαχωριστική γραμμή ανάμεσα στους γεννημένους και στους κατασκευασμένους.
Άνθρωποι και Ανδροειδή.
Τα ανδροειδή είναι εξελιγμένοι κατασκευασμένοι άνθρωποι που τους λείπει ως ενα σημείο το πλεονέκτημα της ενσυναίσθησης.
Γι’αυτό το λόγο χρησιμοποιούνται ως σκλάβοι και έχουν προσδόκιμο ζωής τέσσερα έτη.
Θέτονται επίσης λεπτομέρειες σχετικά με φιλοσοφίες και θρησκείες του μέλλοντος και εμμονές σχετικά με τα ζώα.
Ο κάτοχος ηλεκτρικού ζώου ε��ναι υποδεέστερος κοινωνικά σε σχέση με άλλους που επένδυσαν περιουσίες και έχουν υπό την κατοχή τους αληθινά ζώα.

Ο πλανήτης γη μετά τον τελευταίο πυρηνικό πόλεμο είναι μια ζοφερή κόλαση.
Τα ζωικά είδη έχουν εξαφανιστεί, σχεδόν όλα τα ζώα έχουν αφανιστεί, εξού και το σύμβολο καταξίωσης σύμφωνα με το κατοικίδιο σου.

Το μυαλό και το σώμα των ανθρώπων εκφυλίζεται απο τα πυρηνικά απόβλητα και η μετακίνηση σε άλλον πλανήτη δεν είναι επιλογή ζωής μα επιβίωσης για όσους έχουν πνευματική ενάργεια και οξύνοια για να το κάνουν.

Οι υπόλοιποι, οι εκφυλισμένοι, μεταλλαγμένοι, ψυχικά ασθενείς, «Κοκορόμυαλοι»και κάποιοι ρομαντικοί με την τραγωδία της κόλασης παραμένουν στη γη.

Ζούνε σε περιοχές που καθημερινά σκεπάζονται απο σκόνη και βροχή ραδιενέργειας, δεν υπάρχει τροφή, επικρατεί ερημιά και εγκατάλειψη και μαυρίλα αποσάθρωσης στα πάντα.

Παρόλα αυτά το πρόβλημα έγκειται στο γεγονός πως τα ανδροειδή που κατασκευάζονται απο τεράστιες επιχειρήσεις εκατομμυρίων που εδρεύουν στη γη στέλνονται στον Άρη ως δώρο για τους νέους αποίκους.

Τα πολύ εξελιγμένα πλέον ανδροειδή δεν διαφέρουν σε τίποτα απο τους ανθρώπους εκτός απο τη συναισθηματική νοημοσύνη.

Κάπου εδώ αρχίζει η ασυνέπεια μέσα και πέρα απο την πεζογραφία ακόμα κι αν πρόκειται για επιστημονική φαντασία. Δεν γίνεται να πλασάρεις εύκολες λύσεις επειδή απλώς δεν εξηγούνται.

Και επειδή οι άνθρωποι φοβούνται την εξέλιξη των ανδροειδών που τείνουν να είναι πανομοιότυπα δικά τους σαν απο διαφορετικές φυλές ή εθνικότητες, υπάρχει η αστυνομία που εξολοθρεύει τα ανθρώπινα ρομπότ χωρίς καμία ενσυναίσθηση επειδή αυτά δεν έχουν ενσυναίσθηση. ...Ταυτόχρονα το να σκοτώσεις μια αράχνη που επίσης δεν έχει συναισθηματική νοημοσύνη θεωρείται μεγάλη παρανομία και ιεροσυλία.

Μισούν τα ανθρωποειδή που ξεφεύγουν απο τον Άρη και φτάνουν στη γη να ανακατευτούν με τους ανθρώπους και δε θέλουν άλλο απο το να αντιμετωπίζονται οπως και οι κανονικοί γήινοι.

Η βασική διαφορά είναι η συμπάθεια, η συμπόνοια που έχουν μόνο οι άνθρωποι και έχει δημιουργηθεί μια ολόκληρη θρησκεία γύρω απο αυτήν.

Είναι το λογικό και ηθικό δίδαγμα που υπερέχει.
Κάθε μορφή ζωής προϋποθέτει σεβασμό και μέγιστη αρετή. Δεν σκοτώνουμε ούτε κατσαρίδα επειδή έχουμε συμπόνοια
μα εξολοθρεύουμε άλλα πλάσματα για τον ίδιο λόγο.

Τέλος, αφού η γη είναι μια πλανητική σαβούρα γιατί τα ανδροειδή δραπετεύουν απο τον Άρη και έρχονται στη γη που κινδυνεύει η ζωή τους;

Οι τεράστιες επιχειρήσεις κατασκευής ανθρωποειδών που στέλνονται σε άλλους πλανήτες γιατί κατοικοεδρεύουν στη γη;

Μέσα σε όλη τη ζοφερή θανατερή και πνιγηρή ατμόσφαιρα που επιβιώνουν οι κάτοικοι της γης υπάρχει τοσο αναπτυγμένος πολιτισμός ώστε να υπάρχουν θέατρα και μέγαρα μουσικής;

(Ένα ανδροειδές δολοφονήθηκε επειδή τραγουδούσε υπέροχα στην όπερα ανάμεσα σε ανθρώπους).

Μέσα σε μια φωλιά ανθρωποειδών που έχει την βάση της στη γη πως εξηγείται η βασική παρουσία και η καίρια θέση ενός ανθρώπου; Που αποσκοπεί; Πως εξηγείται; Και γιατί δημιουργεί πραξικόπημα ;

Σύμφωνοι, η επιστημονική φαντασία γεννήθηκε για να δημιουργεί ερωτήματα, όχι όμως ασυνέπειες, ανοησίες και έλλειψη συναισθημάτων. Πόσο μάλλον σε ένα βιβλίο που πρεσβεύει την ανθρωπιά και το συναίσθημα.

Βασικά η διαφορά θα μπορούσε να είναι όπως σε ένα μουσικό κομμάτι.
Ξεκινάει με ακουστική κιθάρα και συνεχίζει με ηλεκτρική. Τότε η μελωδία γίνεται πιο έντονη και η αίσθηση πιο επιθετική και δυνατή απο πριν με την ατμοσφαιρική και ήσυχη μουσική της ακουστικής κιθάρας.
Το ανθρωποειδές ειναι το ισοδύναμο ολοκλήρου του μουσικού κομματιού που παίζει το ακουστικό.

Αξιολογώ με τρία αστεράκια διότι συμπάθησα και ένιωσα τον κοκορόμυαλο οδηγό ασθενοφόρου σε μια εταιρεία επισκευής ηλεκτρικών ζώων. Αυτός ήταν ότι πιο γλυκό σεμνό και σεβαστό δημιουργήθηκε ως αντιήρωας. Καθώς επίσης και για την εμμονή του συγγραφέα με τα ζώα.

Το βιβλίο έχει αρκετές ενδιαφέρουσες ιδέες για την κατηγορία που ανήκει και κατατάσσεται στα κλασικά του είδους. Μα λυπάμαι για μένα ήταν λογοτεχνικά απογοητευτικές.


Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.

I'm worried that most people will misunderstand the intelligence behind this book. I have met a few people who have said, "that book? I read that in high school." My response is "did you understand this book in high school?"

Am I wrong in saying that first, one should read Kafka; second, one should understand how Kafka's fiction functions as a blend of anthropology, theology, and philosophy, among other things. Then, read Phillip K. Dick again, and notice the themes of paranoia, identity crisis, and near-psychotic breakdown while doing one's business in "normal" society. With _Do Andriods Dream..._ consider that PK Dick is writing in 1968, and that his invention of scheduled moods and Mercerism (a kind of Sisyphisean religion and internet-religion) has more sociological commentary than most so-called literary fiction today. Le Guin is right: PK Dick is an American Borges. At least someone read this book after high school.

Curiously, this one has always fit on my very small list of books which have been surpassed by their adaptations. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is indisputably a classic, and a remarkably important work within the genres of science fiction and dystopia, but it never really struck a chord with me.

There is little doubt that Philip K. Dick was one of the most innovative writers in speculative fiction of the 20th century. His ideas were brilliant, and he gave the world a whole series of questions worth pondering, many of which are still being pondered today. However, I revere him primarily for writing something that gave birth to not one, but two of the greatest cinematic masterpieces ever to hit the screens.

Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner is one of my favourite movies of all time. Given the genre and the time of its release, it contends with the original Star Wars movies and Scott’s own Alien for the crown of early sci-fi, and in many ways I would argue that it comes out favourably in that comparison. Blade Runner, although rather different from the book, added so much depth to the debate about artificial intelligence, gave significantly more nuance to the plot and the characters, and truly shone in the aspects that a book can never benefit from: visuals and sound.

And while the 1982 film faced tough competition in its time, it is my firm belief that Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 is the greatest sci-fi movie of the 21st century so far. The visual perfection alone makes it an artistic wonder, and the soundtrack is not a bit worse than Vangelis’ calming tones. All in all, it was a pure joy to watch everything from the bleak and dusty streets of futuristic Los Angeles, to the utterly glorious fistfight between Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford to the backdrop of a holographic Elvis singing ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’.

I hold these films in the highest regard as far as art goes. Philip K. Dick’s novel never gave me any of the same feelings, but of course the man deserves high praise for igniting the artistic spark that created them.

If I hadn’t known the background of this book I would have thought it to be satire. I am amazed by the fact that this is considered to be among the best science fiction.

Here’s a list of the main reasons why this book should be left to collect dust:

● The writing is unbelievably bad. The text does not flow well, the jumps between paragraphs are often jarring, the dialogue is unrealistic, clichéd and a bit ridiculous. The writing, on the whole, has an awkward, almost stiff quality. On top of this, the “twists” in the story are handled so poorly they fall almost completely flat. Instead of an “OOOOH NO, really?!” reaction, they produce an “I see, ok” reaction. But to be honest, I’m not quite sure if this happens because the writing itself is incredibly weak and therefore incapable of building up any excitement or because the twists are not very clever nor at times even remotely logical.

● There is no way I can get past the sexism in this book. At first a few passages made me raise my eyebrows. Then, after a while, I started to feel annoyed. However, by about half-way through the book it all started to seem comical: I began highlighting the sexist passages and sharing them with my boyfriend for giggles.

There is certainly a rich spectrum of sexism to be found in this book. I would divide it into levels like so:

Level 1: The women/female androids are often described as either attractive, “with a nice figure” or … he refers to one unattractive lady as a monster in such a way: “an ancient monster from the Jurassic swamp, frozen and sly, like some archaic apparition fixated in the tomb world”. This is the ONLY time this woman was even mentioned in the book, just to say this sentence. What for?

Level 2: She breasted boobily to the stairs equivalents:

“She strolled toward him, her bare upper body sleek and trim, without an excess gram of fat.”

“Amanda Werner and several other beautiful, elegant, conically breasted foreign ladies, from unspecified vaguely defined countries…”

“She glared at her husband, her small, high breasts rising and falling rapidly.”

“She has breasts that smile.”

Level 3: Already in the first chapter I had some sense of what was to come when Rick uses his wife’s mood organ to dial her a mood of “pleased acknowledgment of husband’s superior wisdom in all matters” when she is upset.

Level 4: The entire interaction between Isidore and Pris. When he first meets her, apparently “caught by surprise, the girl wore pajama bottoms and nothing more” - this is of course necessary so he can mention her boobs several times during the interaction. Then barely minutes go by until he asks her to cook dinner for him when he returns from work. And although she refuses, he still thinks she might change her mind given he buys fancy enough ingredients from the store as, ultimately, all women like to cook - it’s an instinct!

Level 5: The big revelation half-way through the book  is that Rick has empathy towards androids. Ah, but no, sorry, only towards female androids. Because, you see, it’s about sex. And he is given advice that instead of worrying about it he should just sleep with the female androids first and kill them after. Wonderful. But not really.   First of all, why is the author putting an equation sign between sexual attraction and empathy? And doesn’t this just feel like a justification of not feeling empathy towards unattractive women or other men?
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Level 6:   The sex with Rachael Rosen: first of all we get to know what her boobs look like of course but, more disturbingly, while Rick describes her as childlike, more girl than woman, he decides to sleep with her anyway. Also for some reason the author decided to have Rachael plead for Rick to go to bed with her, even having to bargain, which is really out of place because the only reason Rick even invited her there was to go to bed with her.  Sounds like a dynamic created just for some male fantasy insert.
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Level 7:   Rachael reveals that she has been sent to sleep with bounty hunters for years to get them to stop killing androids. As it’s only sex and sexual attraction that can make the male bounty hunters empathetic to androids. Pretty nice spin to the classic trope of women only having power when it comes to sex. But, hey, it’s ok, since she is not even a real woman, she is just an object in this scenario anyway.

In summary, is a book really worth a read if I can highlight countless more sexist instances than genuine insights into the topic the book was actually supposed to be about?

● Plot holes. The plot has the quality of a first draft that no one bothered to read through again before publication. For example, parts of previous storylines are often conveniently forgotten. This is probably done so that the twists in the story would seem more shocking. No one would see them coming! But it’s easy to make a surprising twist and have no one see it coming if the twist makes no sense at all and contradicts the information given before.
There are so many examples of this but here are 2:


Plot hole 1: The action takes place in the space of a day. In the morning, Rachael Rosen finds out she is an android. But she is able to handle this revelation with extreme calmness as by the evening not only does she take part in a mission to prevent Rick from retiring the rest of the androids on his list but also admits to having done so with many bounty hunters before! But… you just found out you were an android in the morning? Hm. Even if this somehow was a lie on the part of the android producing association and she always knew she was an android, it is an extremely cheap way to make sure no one sees the later twist coming.

Plot hole 2: When Rick is taken into the “alternate” police station no one there knows about the real police department. Afterwards, Rick is told that the “alternate” department is run by androids, that it is a closed loop, isolated from the outside. But if this alternate police station has only a handful of androids in charge with most of their employees human, how come they have never heard of the official police force in town??? Have they never questioned why the department is a closed loop? There are many more plot holes associated with this particular part of the story.


● Very minimal actual speculation about AI, life and consciousness. I was hoping that a discussion about this would at least give some merit to the book and make it a - somewhat - worthwhile read. But I found nothing. Lots of topics went completely unexplored and in the end the author just randomly went off on a magical-realism-like tangent which was discordant with the rest of the book. It almost seems like the author had a slight fear of having to actually conclude something and instead made his “hero” go nuts.

● It is ironic that empathy is considered as the one human trait that androids do not possess yet the main character has very little empathy towards anyone unless it’s convenient. Of course, he has empathy for a female android (or two) when the plot requires it but otherwise he only thinks of himself. The empathy that he supposedly has for the androids doesn’t stop him from killing them. He doesn’t care about his wife who he cheats on, who he wishes he had “gotten rid of” (his words) a few years ago and who he basically abandons to go walk around in a desert while she worries about him. He is exactly as cold as the androids he so judges for the same trait. He has an obsessive need to possess a real animal but only for the sake of gaining a status symbol. You could say that this might have been the author’s point, that this human lacks empathy just like the androids do. But if this is so, why would he have spent considerable time to contrast Rick to Phil, a human who indeed lacked any empathy?

In summary, I won’t be reading any more of Dick’s books. Glad I read this on a Kindle instead of buying a hardback - whew!

Meet humans. Meet specials. Meet animals. Meet androids.
Gage their empathy and retire them. Practice Mercerism.
Dial your moods. Love your animals.
Have fun in this wonderful world!

Plot holes that I disliked:
- Why employ a 2nd pair of andy killers instead of making some andys pose as such?
- 2 police precincts?
- 2 sets of andy tests. Osencibly both effective? Why not make a bogus one and be done with it?
- The animals thing - underdeveloped.

Q:
What do you do, roam around killing people and telling yourself they're androids? (c)
Q:
"Phil Resch, Rick Deckard. You're both bounty hunters and it's probably time you met. ©
Q:
"The androids… are lonely, too." (c)
Q:
If you set the surge up high enough, you'll be glad you're awake; that's the whole point (c)
Q:
"My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression," …
I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair. …
"So I put it on my schedule for twice a month; I think that's a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything, (c)
Q:
At his console he hesitated between dialing for a thalamic suppressant (which would abolish his mood of rage) or a thalamic stimulant (which would make him irked enough to win the argument) (c)
Q:
Despair like that, about total reality, is self-perpetuating. (c)
Q:
A 481. Awareness of the manifold possibilities open to me in the future; new hope … (c)
Q:
"I can't dial a setting that stimulates my cerebral cortex into wanting to dial! If I don't want to dial, I don't want to dial that most of all, because then I will want to dial, and wanting to dial is right now the most alien drive I can imagine; I just want to sit here on the bed and stare at the floor." (c)
Q:
"My horse … is pregnant." …
"What do you say to that?" ...
"I say pretty soon you'll have two horses," (c)
Q:
Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one. (c)
Q:
"But," Rick interrupted, "for you to have two horses and me none, that violates the whole basic theological and moral structure of Mercerism. (c)
Q:
“Can you believe we really pulled this off?” ...
“Not really. I’m waiting for the next helicopter to land.” (с)
Q:
If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me,
time after time. (c)
Q:
Your long jet-black hair is one of your best features, but the high ponytails and dramatic updos you currently favor convey a look of aggression. When you enter a room, the ladies immediately think, “This woman is either going to steal my husband, my baby, or my yoga mat.” (c)
Q:
I will provide you with an essential oil made from ylang-ylang, sage, and other secret ingredients that will make you smell like you have been baking apple tarts all morning. (c) Ok, this is unbelievable. Ylang-ylang is one of the most striking aromas that are totally unlike apples. Hmmm…
Q:
"An android," he said, "doesn't care what happens to any other android. That's one of the indications we look for."
"Then," Miss Luft said, "you must be an android. (c)
Q:
The thing about rabbits, sit, is that everybody has one. I'd like to see you step up to the goat-class where I feel you belong. Frankly you look more like a goat man to me. (c)

I don't read a lot of science fiction but I find when I do that it's not easy to comfortably label, almost like there's a wide variety of science fictions, a big-tent genre that can range from almost realistic fiction to way, way out there (pick a planet and plant it with worms on steroids, for instance).

This one is more Earth-bound. It owes a bit to the cop thriller genre. In this case, our San Francisco "cop" is a bounty hunter looking for "andys" (a.k.a. androids) of a new, more sophisticated variety -- one tougher to identify, more wily, and thus more dangerous to bounty hunters.

It's a post-apocalyptic world and the Golden Gate Bridge is more a Dusty Gate one. Almost all animal life has vanished, and those that survived are as valuable as Taylor Swift tickets (which are worthless to me, but worth big bucks to most, so I'm told).

It shows its 60s bloodlines at times, but the novel is interesting because it has some nice suspense as the protagonist goes for his list of rogue androids one by one. The extra wrinkle is provided by author Philip K. Dick, who blurs the line so well between human and android that the line becomes a philosophical one. In what ways are humans like machines? And, of course, in what ways are machines becoming more human (hello, AI, well in advance!)?

Meaning: There's old-fashioned plot pulling you through the book with a bit of thinking man's heft at the same time. I enjoyed that.

Finally, it should be noted to movie fans that this book is the basis of a film called Blade Runner. I haven't seen it, so really don't get where the title comes from. No blades that I know of in the book. Android sheep, sure, but blades?

What differentiates humans from androids, if there is any difference at a certain point of technological progress, is the main question of this botchy novel.

Very personal opinions fans of Dicks´work might find offending and nasty.

Prodigy or overrated
There are two options, to see Dick as an ingenious literary prodigy, writing novels so densely packed that they can´t be understood without rereading and diving deeper into the complexity of the stories. Others think that he is completely overrated and I am standing somewhere between the lines, but instead of talking about positive things such as the immense influence Dicks´interest in philosophy in young years and his drug consumption had on writing quite a kind of Lovecraftian Sci-Fi, similar egocentric and weird, but packed with deep thoughts and very difficult to understand innuendos, a kind of writer philosopher in the footsteps of all those bearded thinkers of the past, I want to focus on the aspects I didn´t like so much and didn´t have to think of when reading other Sci-Fi classics.

I read „A scanner darkly“ by Dick years ago and had similar thoughts, so here they are again in full redundancy. I promise (lie!), I don´t recycle genre specific realizations as if it was nothing. No, but seriously, I´m somewhat trying to get a more objective view on a writing style I just can´t get warm with. So let´s pimp the old thoughts.

An idea what people with different tastes might like about him
One can see everything in this writing, it´s so vague that one can do any kind of subjective interpretation, it´s an intellectual riddle to find the hidden meaning and everyone can see something else in it. That´s a bit like with special music tastes, subjectively heaven or hell, although there are the universally acclaimed megahits close to everybody loves and other genres that make the ears of most listeners bleed. Asimov, Clarke, Lem, Capek, etc. are multi selling platin global evergreen hits, Heinlein (some works, not all) and Dick are more like strange Scandinavian death metal or industrial instrumental progressive construction noise. Or take food, everybody loves a pizza or (veggie) burger, but who eats Haggis or English food in general? See?

Maybe try out more, longer, and better plots?
The writing style is typical, one red line, no real subplots, the ending is quite kind of unsatisfying (looking at you, Man in the high castle.), it often gets confusing and it´s difficult to differentiate if it´s ingenuity or the authors' illumination or paranoia. All of that are reasons why Dick is more controversial and not so universally acclaimed as a grandmaster of Sci-Fi and I am more on the side of his critics. If one looks at the worldbuilding and complexity of all the other behemoths, Dick seems average, with the only hobbyhorse of dealing with consciousness, reality, and the mentioned topics and some novels feel as if he just wrote them for the money (he needed) without real intrinsic motivation. Not for the art, just for the cash, not even having enough financial space to at least make them good.

Close to fantastic realism, high brow, and Nobel Prize trash.
I would call him, and I hardly ever do that because it is not nice, overrated. In this regard, he is more like the Nobel prize, pseudo-intellectual, overhyped, higher literature stuff and less like pure, true, entertaining fiction. To write not understandable and confusing to seem deep and arcane is much easier than to write entertaining, suspenseful, and yes, true, stereotypical following the rules of the genre. But that´s one of the key elements of why we love certain genres and tinkering around with conventions while writing 60 pages a day under the influence of LSD and amphetamines brings him into the corner of Kerouac and consorts and „first thought best thought“ madness. Who needs stinking editing, rewriting, or even planning and plotting before writing? Completely overrated.

No big picture or satisfying conclusion that glues everything together
Dicks´ novels don´t feel coherent, there are no satisfying resolutions, just more and more mysteries and open questions, and nothing gets answered, and much feels unfinished. It's no bad writing, I just wouldn´t highly recommend it, because it are no fun reads, and if Dick would have been a bit soberer and invested more time in developing satisfying, believable plots, that could have been great. What annoys me the most are the great moments and ideas that are followed by unanswered questions, unreliable protagonist behavior, or completely losing the overview of what´s happening. Not to forget the running get of making the reader angry by ridiculous ends and no conclusions.

Look at the real behemoths
A direct comparison with other grandmasters of Sci-Fi and what they have revolutionized shows the flaws even clearer. Heinlein (his good works) with amazing military science fiction, Asimovs´robots and some of the first space operas, Clarkes unbelievable language and subtility, Pohl with his worldbuilding, Gibson with Cyberpunk, not to name all the newer authors, and especially Stanislaw Lem and Karel Capek who are close to unknown. Especially they would have deserved the same and more attention and appreciation as Dick and should be named in a row with Asimov, Clarke, and, somewhat, Heinlein because they wrote revolutionary brilliant at Clarkes´ level and were really funny in other novels and short stories, it´s highly recommended literature, totally unique. All those authors were able to write entertaining, unique, tropeforming, philosophical, and with metaplots that come all together to a satisfying and logical ending, something Dick was incapable of, because he didn´t construct a universe, just fragments not fitting together and of extremely varying quality.

A final, failing attempt to be more objective
Of course, it may be a question of personal taste and preference, but I have read so much great Sci-Fi, hundreds of novels, that it feels inappropriate to name him in a line with those works and I felt really unsatisfied after having read any of his novels that are all closer to psychological mindf***ing, pardon my language, mind penetrating mystery whodunnit whatever crossover hybrid progressive alternative indie crap than to real Sci-Fi and with less real genre-typical elements in them. All the giants were true intellectuals and able to endlessly talk about any tiny detail of their work and its meaning and sense and it would interest me if Dick would have been able to give answers to complex questions about his novels. If he remembered writing them at all.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

Have you seen Blade Runner, Ridley Scott’s superb ’82 Sci-Fi film? The paperback copy of Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep includes the line, “The inspiration for Blade Runner”. Even though it’s been a long time since I watched the movie, I would agree with the term: inspiration. The bones of the book are in the movie, but it’s only a part of what this book says. And at a page count of just under 250, it is deceivingly image packed tale.

Of Philip K. Dick’s books, “Android’s” is probably his most well known. That’s probably due to Scott’s film. It also seems like many consider it their favorite PKD work. This being my first PKD read, I cannot yet say. I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here’s why this book was so intriguing to me: Dick creates a world that surrounds an atypical, yet extremely engaging plot. It’s like he has taken a thought, or premise and built a world around it. If the story itself wasn’t intriguing enough, the setting certainly was. Our earth of the future is reflected as a broken, nearly desolate place, yet advanced enough to make Androids that pass as humans. When a group of the latest organic Nexus-6 model go rogue, it becomes Rick Deckard job to find them. The problem becomes finding what is nearly human among humans. This sounds like an out-in-out Sci-Fi work, but it is not.

In the film version, I have a vague recollection of a few animals crossing the screen. They are much more prominent in the book. The point of the animals in the story is one of empathy. People love animals in our own real world, but here they are prevalent (mostly) and often taken for granted. In this world, they are a rarity, precious to own. So much so, that replicate machine animals are manufactured and sold at a fraction of the cost.

My initial advice is: get past the first 10 pages. The beginning is not really understood until later. At first this book reads like a catch-the-criminal story. Half-way into his hunt, the tables are turned on Rick, and therefore on the reader. What is real and what is right? By the middle point, and certainly by the end, I found the book had become so much more than its beginning. It was deep-seated human story that questions humanity and compassion.

Here’s how this book went for me:
- first 15%: I am very confused and therefore having a hard time focusing (because I hate feeling dumb and when I do I act out and/or throw a tantrum like a petulant child who is not interested in their first grade arts and crafts activity)
- 15% to 50%: I am, inexplicably and suddenly, VERY interested in the story and having trouble putting the book down
- 50%: Extremely enthused about the idea of what I think is a plot twist. Disappointed by the realization that it is not.
- 50% to 90%: Upset and semi-disturbed at the turn the story has taken.
- 90%-98%: Pleased at a Man in the High Castle-esque turn to Great Meaning and Sweeping Statements. (I think PKD does this so well. Judging by, you know, two books.)
- 99%: Able to determine that I still don’t like this as much as Man in the High Castle.

So. A mixed ride.

But then, Man in the High Castle is a high bar for me.

In other thoughts: I love Philip K. Dick’s voice very much. The way he writes is Fantastic, my guy.

Downsides: Women are a major afterthought in this book. Like, majorrrrr. To the point of one getting cheated on with a robot and still playing the happy little wife role at the end. Which...we’ve all been there. (I’m kidding. I would kick that guy’s ass into next Tuesday.)

Bummer that baseline misogyny is so par for the course in sci-fi that I'm like "cool, yeah, business as usual, back to the android fighting thanks."

Also, I wish the first 15% was just a little longer so I didn’t feel SO STUPID and like I was playing catch up, but this is a selfish wish.

Would appreciate if everyone and everything in the world would cooperate so that I continually feel smart for the rest of my days. Thx.

Bottom line: It’s good...but it’s not Man in the High Castle good.

Also the movie sucks.

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zoo wee mama.

review to come / 4 stars

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if i like this book half as much as i like the title, we're in business

the k. in philip K. dick definitely stands for kicked ass. but not philip kick ass dick. i dont know what that means.

No sé si sea por los temas que trabajo en Filosofía pero, al leer toda una reflexión sobre qué es aquello que nos hace humanos y qué es eso que nos diferencia de cualquier forma de vida similar a la nuestra, me sentí intrigado e implicado tanto profesional como existencialmente con aquello que el relato tenía para compartir. Para Dick, al menos en este texto, lo constitutivo de los seres humanos es la capacidad para sentir empatía (capacidad para posicionarse en los "zapatos" del otro y comprender- no confundir con vivir idéntico o algo así- su experiencia particular). Como parte de mi trabajo, considero que la tesis de Dick es más bien novedosa: al leer los testimonios de víctimas de violencia límite (como las del Holocausto o demás hechos nefastos), lo primero que sobresale como perteneciente al ser humano es su vulnerabilidad: el hecho de saber que, bajo ciertas circunstancias, actos deshonrosos y reprochables a los ojos de aquel que los realiza pueden llegar a realizarse con el único propósito de sobrevivir. Sin embargo, hay un componente que hace que la postura de Dick sea más interesante: la empatía, por sí sola, no basta; también es necesario que exista un componente orgánico (como si el fundamento de la humanidad fuese algo compartido también con los animales, como lo es la organicidad biológica); en vez de la mera similitud fisiológica (esto desbarataría toda la premisa del libro al concebir a los androides como seres cercanos al humano y no como amenazas).

Eso sí, no sé qué tan precisa pueda llegar a ser la tesis de Dick; es más, me atrevo a pensar que está llamada a desbaratarse por la incapacidad de sus premisas para sostenerse conforme a posibles contraejemplos: si algo nos han enseñado los grandes sucesos de violencia, es que muchas veces la empatía es un valor que se deja de lado de manera sencilla; sobre todo cuando ha existido un discurso legitimador (normalmente enraizado en el odio a la diferencia, tesis excepcionalistas y todo un aparato de propaganda destinado a propiciar lo anterior) de la barbarie. Asimismo, la tesis de Dick tiene otro problema (aunque de este tengo aún en mis dudas): ¿de verdad los seres humanos estarían tan distantes de la tecnología? Es decir, ¿acaso no serían capaces de sentir empatía por máquinas biológicas pseudo-humanas pensadas para su servicio? Creo que este sería, más bien, el sueño de muchos.

De ritmo trepidante, la novela de Dick pone sobre la mesa varias reflexiones interesantes. Hasta el momento, creo que no he leído-ni siquiera contando a Julio Verne, autor que me fascina desde que empecé a leer- nada más interesante en ciencia ficción. Sus reflexiones son pertinentes (sin necesidad de que sean acertadas) y su escritura es prolija, sencilla, ligera en su forma mas no en su contenido. Sin lugar a dudas, creo que mis sospechas sobre Dick se cumplieron: al leer algunas de sus entrevistas, sospeché que era un escritor interesante. Ahora, tras enfrentarme a una de sus obras, corroboro mi percepción inicial. Persisto en mi intención de leer algo más suyo.

Признавам си, разбрах, че книгата с това странно заглавие има общо с онзи Blade Runner от ’82 покрай скорошното му осъвременено продължение. Ходих да го гледам на кино с баща ми, не за друго, а защото той си пада по фантастика и нямаше с кого друг да иде. Знаете как е. Имам мъгляви спомени, че някогашният Blade Runner е бил култ в sci-fi средите, но чак много години по-късно разбрах защо. Новата версия е по холивудски излъскана и с претенции, но пък филмите вече отдавна ги правят за пари, не защото някой всъщност иска да режисира точно такава лента. Като бях малка, „Междузвездни войни“ беше може би най-великият филм в детската ми вселена, а след последния не-знам-вече-кой-на-брой-епизод се почувствах малко като че някой се е възползвал от мен и после не ми се е обадил. Безкрайно време е обаче да започна да пиша за андроидите и електроовцете, но нали всичко в крайна сметка е свързано?

Годината е незнайно коя, пада ли, пада радиоактивният прах над Сан Франциско, а обстановката е постапокалипсис сега. Хората вече не могат да различат самите себе си от хуманоидните роботи, които, да, те са си създали. Когато не са заети да си пускат „весели електроимпулси“ (хората де…), емигрират на Марс, защото в тая пустош, която е останала на Земята, не вирее вече почти нищо живо. Вероятно Земята един ден наистина ще свърши така. Всъщност ние ще я свършим. Няма друг вид, който сам да си разрушава хабитата и то с толкова свирепа находчивост като човека. Освен ако първо не се изтребим един друг. Може би това би бил по-приемлив и не толкова мрачен сценарий.

Романът на Филип К. Дик е злокобно предсказание за развитието на човешката емоционалност. Тя вече е направлявана. А това противоречи на самата ѝ природа. Хората от онова незнайно бъдеще са леко истерясали по емпатията. Смятат, че тя е единствената им отлика от андроидите, които, справка по-горе, продължават да си усъвършенстват сами. Честно казано, познавам хора, които притежават по-слаба способност за емоционална идентификация от печен фъстък, знам и такива, които съчувстват и на най-дребната жива твар. Ако само това е начинът някой ден да се саморазпознаваме от изкуствения интелект, горко ни. А ако трябва да си създаваме емпатични устройства, които да ни помагат да изпитваме… нещо заедно с други хора, отсега сме пътници.

Рик Декард е изчезващ вид, който съчувства на така приличащите на хора хуманоидни роботи. Бих казала, че съчувствието е и някаква странна форма на егоизъм. Дали страдаш, защото друг страда и ти е мъчно за него, или защото би страдал, ако си на негово място? Защото си представяш, че ти си онова, страдащото, и всъщност си самосъчувстваш? Андроидът Рейчъл си съчувстваше, а има ли нещо по-човешко от това?
‘The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are.’

Някои добри идеи в романа без съмнение са останали недоразвити, както и образът на Рейчъл, който има огромен потенциал. За съжаление, Рейчъл изигра ролята на привлекателната пробудена съвест на един ловец на роботски глави и премина като мигновен проблясък през нагнетеното ежедневие на Рик. Имаше много кратко загатване, че може би любовта е най-човешкото, което е възможно да бъде намерено у някого, а не съчувствието.
‘There is no Pris,’ he said. ‘Only Rachael Rosen, over and over again.’

„Мечтаят ли роботите за електроовце?“ определено поставя на изпитание понятието за човечност. За логика също. Дори в един отиващ си свят винаги се намират неща, които трябва да направиш и срещу които цялата ти същност се бунтува. Най-страшно е когато се изправиш срещу самия себе си и не можеш да разбереш кой пръв е хвърлил камъка по теб. Дали не си бил ти самият?
‘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.’