I finally got around to reading "Do androids dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K Dick this week. the book had long been on my meaning to read list but factors including apathy and the fact I'd not chanced upon it second-hand meant it has remained unread since I first watched Blade Runner in the Eighties. The reason I have finally got around to it is the life changing habit of now having e-books on my Iphone to be able to read. Something I didn't really think I'd take to but the convenience of having the book you are reading with you constantly is fantastic. I have ditched Ibooks and started to use the Stanza app.
Do Androids dream of electric sheep is a 1968 scifi novel that was filmed as Blade Runner in 1982. It is officially described as the inspiration for the movie and not a direct depiction. it is hard reading a story that is the basis for a film that you are already very familiar with. You can't help making plot assumptions, comparisons and may even eventually leave it unfinished as the familiarity destroys the entertainment. This was a great surprise though should have read it years ago.
The plot is based around a bounty hunter who hunts androids, retiring them (killing) at the behest of the San Francisco police department. The novel is set in 1992 (although in later adaptions this is moved further into the future) after the great world War Terminus which has blocked out the sun and the stars and left the Earth a cold dead place covered in deadly fallout dust that has killed almost all animal life. Humanity is divided into those who emigrate to the colonies of other planets, those who stay and the specials who have been effected so badly by the radioactive dust that they are classed as a sub species. Our hero Deckhard, however is not the ruggedly handsome Harrison Ford coolly eating Chinese food from a zeppelin type Chinese take away but an insecure over burdened regular guy with a artificial mood enhancer that he dials into just to make it through the day. He is married to Iran who uses the mood enhancer to dial into despair so she can feel something. The mood enhancer is one of my favourite parts of the book. If you don't feel like dialling in a feeling you can dial in number 3, 3 is the setting which makes you feel like dialling in a feeling. Perfect.
The owning of an animal is the ultimate status symbol, keeping them on the rooftops of their apartment building they are the ultimate symbol of empathy and empathy is the ultimate symbol humanity. This to me was the most interesting part of the book. Deckhard's animal, a sheep had died a year before of disease. He had replaced the animal with an electric sheep which he still resentfully cared for daily as if it were real rather than face the shame of everyone knowing it was electric.
Lower than the specials on the pecking order are the androids, these are common on the colonies even given away free to emigrating humans but are illegal on Earth. Androids that kill their owners and return to Earth are hunted down. Which is what Deckhard does for a living. The plot follows him as he tracks 6 of the latest models the Nexus-6 that have taken up refuge in the San Francisco area as well as John Isidore a special who lives alone in an abandoned building who befriends the androids hiding there.
I loved the whole story and I won't give away the ending even for those who saw the film. I'm checking out Ubik next.
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