Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: 1800 Headwords
Product DescriptionSan Francisco lies under a cloud of radioactive dust. People live in half-deserted apartment buildings, and keep electric animals as pets because so many real animals have died. Most people emigrate to Mars – unless they have a job to do on Earth. Like Rick Deckard – android killer for the police and owner of an electric sheep. This week he has to find, identify, and kill six androids which have escaped from Mars. They’re machines, but they look and sound and think . . . More >>
I have to say this book had a some what weak story line. This is a very recycled story line that has been used in so many, longs drug store quality paper backs. This Just happen to be one that had an imaginative setting and decent dialoged between characters. This book is better then most of its class but still, there are betters out there.
Rating: 2 / 5
We are told below that this “one of the best books ever written by man”, comparable presumably, then, to The Odyssey, The Bible, Canterbury Tales, Hamlet, Don Quixote, Walden, Critique of Pure Reason, The Sun Also Rises, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Let’s assume, however, out of hand, for the sake of argument, that it really is “one of the best books ever written by man”: How does it compare to the best books written ever by rooster, drake, or bull (speaking of bull)? What? Was its author awarded the Nobel Prize in Quasi-literate B Science-fiction Pulp? Is this a new category? Let’s assume, however, out of hand, for the sake of argument, that it really is worthy of a Nobel Prize in Quasi-literate B Science-fiction Pulp: Wouldn’t you still rather read the back of your box of Fruit Loops? (Or, for the that matter, the side panel listing ingredients?) I know I would — that is, if I actually ate Fruit Loops.
Rating: 1 / 5
Here’s the thing: Rick Deckard is an android. Whether Philip K. Dick thinks he is an android is irrelevant. Deckard is an android, and the other androids do not deserve to be “retired” just like no human being deserves to be “retired”. Androids DO dream of electric sheep, and this was an okay book, although I would have liked to learn more about Mercerism, because the conclusion that Deckard comes to is one of the most dissatisfying conclusions to anything I’ve ever read. They are all androids, with the exception of Iran, Isidore, and a few other minor characters. Deckard is a ruthless android who kills other androids and dreams of owning a live animal. I didn’t really like the book, but this stuff is fun to think about. Again, it is irrelevant if Philip K. Dick thinks Deckard is an android, because what one person thinks about another person doesn’t change their identity.
Rating: 3 / 5
This is one of the very rare cases where first there is a book that becomes a movie; and then this movie is so much better than the book. Normaly it’s the reverse (however this rule generally does not apply to books written to appear as additional merchandise with the new blockbuster). The movie (that thankfully did stray very far from this book) is “Blade Runner” – one of my all-time favorites. Maybe even the best scifi-movie ever. But the book . . . . . OK, I don’t really like Dick. But still, this book is a low even for him. So take my advise: dump it, but get the movie ASAP!
Rating: 1 / 5
I’ve a moderate tolerance for flat-footed prose, but I didn’t get far with this before I had to give it up. Possibly it has compensating virtues: I don’t care. Apparently the consensus about Theodore Dreiser, by the bye, is something like this:”Dreiser is not a particularly good writer. His sentences can be clunky, truncated and fragmented. His language is stilted and awkward at times. He has no ear for writing dialogue. But these technical limitations are more than offset by Dreiser’s incredible insight into the interior lives of his characters. ” Still I’d be very surprised (I’ve not read him) to find his novels nearly as badly written as “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” (It seems to me, for that matter, that prose approaches poetry when it is especially felicitous, not when it is especially awkward and inept. )
Rating: 1 / 5