Empathy, Androids and Enigmas
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The book is a masterwork but do not expect the Bladerunner film. The same ideas and themes are there but they are developed in a different way. The book is more subtle. It explores how empathy is used as the defining test of androids. They are more intelligent than humans but they do not get empathy and so they are dumb. But the interesting thing about empathy is how it affects the "blade runners".
The story is as complex as the film with a parallel world of police and bounty hunters that do not know of each other but that been infiltrated by androids and here for me there is a plot problem, but maybe it isn't maybe Dick meant something else, maybe he meant people to come to the same conclusions as the film but he is not around to ask.
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blade runner ?
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i watched blade runner as a young boy and loved the story , so i thought i would give electric sheep a go , the vision of dick i found is amazing and some of the ideas in the book are starting to come true, but all that said i was disappoint with the book , it was my own fault because i wanted blade runner and got k dicks vision of it . ridley scotts story i found was far developed from the k dick , which is easy really i suppose. but before reading be awhere that this is not blade runner? but with an open mind give it a go.
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one of his best
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Forget the film of this book 'Blade Runner'. The book is far stranger, less concerned with style and generally more cerebral and satisfying.
This is to me one of his best novels ('A Scanner Darkly' being the other). It doesn't delve into the religious metaphysical stuff that his later novels do, instead conventrating on the authors usual themes of :
what is reality? how do we recognise or define it? how do i know i am real?
this book almost transcends SciFi, and delves into philosophy.
Essential SciFi.
Highly recommended to everyone.
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A gem of a book
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I hadn't read a SciFi of the traditional variety in years, but this was chosen for our bookclub and it was an excellent choice. It should be said that the film (Blade Runner - also a classic) is nothing like the book. The book is really a novella with a futuristic "cowboy" plot - a simple story of bounty hunter searching for outlaws. The depth of the story is in the bleak picture that the author paints of a post-apocalyptic earth where real animals are seen as the ultimate status symbol. Most humans have emigrated off world and those remaining are damaged in some way either physically by the radiation/pollution or emotionally. Very thought provoking. I also enjoyed reading in hindsight about the author's vision of the future 40 years after he wrote it. I loved the idea of a world where androids are so advanced they are almost indistinguishable from humans, but the reports are still typed on carbon paper and the bounty hunter has to call in to base using a coin phone!
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Revelation
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Having never read sci-fi, or seen the film, before, this novel was somewhat of a revelation to me. While I had trouble keeping track of the details, I loved the big ideas: interplanetary immigration, religion/cult, empathy boxes, the value of a real living animal...and of course the moral debate of whether bounty hunter Rick Deckard should retire (read: kill) androids simply because of what they are. My favourite character was Luba Luft; she's such a funny bugger. But perhaps the funniest thing was that the novel is set in 1992, but you can blame hindsight for my chuckles. While overall the novel was probably too intelligent for dim me to fully comprehend, I'm definitely interested in seeking out more sci-fi, particularly by this author. If you know of any books in particular you think I'll enjoy, please send the recommendations my way. This was fun!
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