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Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0-345-40447-5 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 28 May, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.14 (152 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Philosophy somewhat different - an interesting book!
Comment: Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" describes the aftermath of a nuclear war that left the earth devestated and thus forced its inhabitants to build up colonies on Mars. Some of the remaining corporations develop human androids destined to serve as slaves on Mars, who/which, however, sometimes kill their masters and escape. On Earth, these androids are trapped down by bounty hunters such as Rick Deckard, who is assigned the task to "retire" 6 extremely intelligent androids of the Nexus-6 type.
While telling the story of Rick Deckard's hunt, Philip K. Dick also discusses big philosophical questions and uses metaphors to illustrate his ideas. Central metaphors that recur throughout the course of the novel are the kipple and the nuclear dust that seem to be omnipresent. Both the kipple and the dust seem to be an active force covering not only objects but human beings as well. Thus the dust in particular extinguishes life and makes it even harder for the remaining people to distinguish between artificiality and reality. Moreover, the dust rules feelings, emotions and life itself, and one cannot escape from it. Throughout the book the dust creates a mysterious atmosphere and forces the reader to not only concentrate on appearance, but rather take a closer look at the inherent character and someone's genuine emotions.
One of the most important androids created by the Rosen Association (one of the corporations that manufacture androids for the use on the colonies) is Rachael Rosen, who ironically seems to accompany Rick Deckard on his hunt for the artificial human. Although he clearly detects her as an android (using the Voigt-Kampff test) in the beginning of the novel, he develops emotions and empathy for her and even considers the possibility of quitting his job because of the attraction that he feels towards her. Furthermore, her beauty and perfectly human features mislead him in the way that he fails to view her merely as an android prototype. Thus it becomes clear to the reader how closely connected human and artifical life with both their advantages and downsides really are.
Equally interesting is the role that animals play in the world Rick Deckard lives in: His greatest dream is to own a real animal, the ultimate status symbol in a society that is characterised by the coexistence of human and artificial life. Since many animals are already extinct due to the nuclear dust, artificial animals are given a great importance. Thus the reader is asked to draw parallels between the influence of artificiality in both human and animal life, and to, one more time, appreciate the value of authenticity and true emotions.
On the whole we (who are not big fans of science fiction) considered the novel to be interesting, because it made us think not only about futuristic but also present life by raising big philosophical questions, such as "What defines life?" Furthermore, Rick is a character that one can easily identify with, because he is questioning the system (e.g. the concept of Mercerism) and shows genuine emotions and empathy. The ending of the novel rounds up the topic, that is discussed, in a very realistic way, and at the same time serves as a warning of the ethical consequences that technical progress (such as genetic engineering etc) might bring about. Therefore we can recommend the novel to everyone who is willing to learn more about a futuristic society and the conflict between artificial and human life.
Rating: 4
Summary: A book to recomment
Comment: "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Is that kind of book every reader is looking for. The author knew exactly what and how to write, to make this book interesting, exciting and that way keep the attention of the reader. As I started to read the book, I was not sure if I was going to understand it, because the language was not easy to understand. But after I had read a few chapters, this did not matter; I was fascinated by the story and did not longer pay attention on words I didn`t understand. I could not drop the book, I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I think that Philip K. Dick is brilliant since he created a science fiction story like this. try to imagine the World destroyed by mankind, almost no animal`s left and so advanced technology, that machines are trying to take control over human life. P. K. Dick makes you live in his world with his rules, not every writer is able to do this. But there are some things I didn`t understand, small details which weren`t made clear, for example who "the killers" were. Besides of that it is a wonderful book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Idios to Koinos Kosmos: Attraction, Empathy, and Androids
Comment: This book, known for its tie-in to the SF blockbuster film Bladerunner, is a distinct beast. One of Dick's best, most fully developed, and imagined novels, it takes place on a radioactive wasteland-Earth in the not-so-distant future, after a war that killed virtually all animals (whose prices, even when no specimens are available, are kept in auction guide-like catalogues called Sidney's Animal and Fowl), and necessitated lead codpieces to protect the human germ line in the minority not turned into "specials"-radioactive rejects such as one of the book's two male protagonists, Jack Isodore. The main, tough male character is Rick Deckard, a married bounty hunter who steps up to the plate after his senior colleague is killed in the line of fire. One thing that I don't think comes through in the film, but which is a major focal point of the book, is the metaphorical, metaphysical status of the weak, the feminine, the loving-emotional-animal axis so central to our mammalian human being. As always in Dick, it helps to look beyond the action to the philosophical or metaphysical verities that are being expertly explored through the condensed tool of his nonpareil fiction. Here it occurs to me that the "being-a-man" coolness (i.e., emotionlessness) of the prototypical-and ideal-1950s male is here what is being taken to task. In non SF pulp forerunners to a book like Androids-in the works of Raymond Chandler and his hardboiled ilk, that is to say, in detective fiction-the desirable femme fatale is resisted as the detective (the "private dick," as the slang goes) solves the crime. In Androids-which is a kind of metaphysical detective story-the Deckard character makes a mistake of falling for Rachel Rosen, an attractive young female with attractive small "Irish" buttocks, large grown up-woman eyes, and a Jewish last name. She at first appears to be the daughter of the head of The Rosen Association, a rich corporation at the forefront of extraterrestrial android manufacture. The Voigt-Kampff test, however-a sort of polygraph that asks pointed questions trying to stir human-style empathy, such as what would one think about a couch made of human hide-reveals that she is a Nexus 6, the most advanced type of organic robot. It is interesting both that Rosen is given a Jewish name and that the Voigt-Kampff test is thought in the book to be ineffective in detecting certain schizophrenic patients. For Dick's true topic is not technology and hovercar chases but empathy. With his bounty money Deckard replaces his electric sheep with a real goat, bought from the Rosen Association at considerable expense. This is a huge status symbol. The book opens with a marital dispute over a Penfield Mood Organ, a device that can program emotions, even rather exotic ones such as 481, "awareness of the manifold possibilities of the future," 888, "the desire to watch TV, no matter what's on it," and 594, "pleased acknowledgment of a husband's superiority in all matters." Moreover, the main religious figure, and the number two personality on the planet after TV celebrity Buster Friendly, is Mercer, an old man whose experience of climbing up a rocky hill while stones are thrown at him can be accessed by anyone with an "empathy box"-a black box with two handles that somehow conveys not only the experience of being with Mercer, but his actual wounds as he makes his Christlike trek. When Deckard must wrangle with his mission-to kill other AWOL Nexus-6 andys, some of them females with the same alluring form of Rachel Rosen, with whom the bounty hunter makes the plunge-the reader is forced to contemplate what it is that truly ties him to others, what makes him better (or not) than an animal, a what-who-by turns insures and interrupts his essential loneliness. He is a detective on a mission to kill that which he loves-a difficult proposition, and one that all life in principle faces. The woman, the goat, the sexy android, his wife, the escaped androids, and even a spider with its legs being torn off all provide the opportunity for reflection on the status of life's common unity, and its ability to recognize itself in itself. Near the book's end Deckard finds a toad-it may be the last one on Earth-and brings it home to his wife, who discovers it is electric. Of course, we too are, in a sense, electric, although our maker(s) are not corporations we can locate by browsing through the Yellow Pages. As biologist Jean Rostand wrote, "Biologists come and go. The frog remains." The beauty and sadness of Dick's world is he presents us with a believable scenario in which the frog is gone. Metaphysics disguised as science fiction: a meditation on loneliness, solipsism, and empathic connection in a vast universe where, ultimately, we must take on faith that the idea of what the Greeks called a Koinos Kosmos (shared universe) when all we can feel directly is our own, individual, Idios Kosmos (private universe). The Hebresque paramour, Rachel Rosen, is the killable other, identified as such by signs so subtle, we might, as any private dick knows, be guilty of displaying them ourselves. When you consider that the trait sought for that separates the android organic machine from the "real" human is precisely the capacity to empathize, you realize that this is a major work by a master.
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Title: Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0375421513 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 05 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Ubik by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0679736646 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 December, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0679740678 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 30 June, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Neuromancer by William Gibson ISBN: 0441569595 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: January, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0679736662 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 December, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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