Rating: š
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a novel by Philip K. Dick. The movie Blade Runner is an adaptation of this book.
The book is excellent. It’s the first audiobook that I’ve consumed in a while, and I was engaged throughout the listening experience. Set in a post nuclear fallout (“World War Terminus”) Earth where a fatal dust coats everything, most humans have emigrated to Mars. Mars is sold as a paradise free from the worries of Earth, but the few glimpses you get into life on Mars seems fairly bleak.
The story is set on Earth. John Isadore, a gullible and kind-hearted man, is one of the two main characters. Isadore has been deemed a “Special” - the dust has degraded his intelligence to the point where he now fails the IQ exam required to emigrate to Mars. He is stuck living in an empty, dilapidated apartment building, working for an electric animal repair shop as a driver. Isadore is extremely sensitive and empathetic towards others, and is an avid follower of Mercerism, the primary religion and philosophy of the time.
People connect with Mercer – an old man who perpetually climbs and re-climbs a hill, all the while being pelted with rocks – through devices called empathy boxes. One grips the handles of an empathy box and becomes one with Mercer’s consciousness and all others who are using the empathy box at the same time.
Our other main character is Rick Deckard, bounty hunter for the San Francisco police department. Deckard is a hunter of escaped androids, or “andys” – humanoid robots that are increasingly difficult to distinguish from biological humans. The best test of the day is the Voigt-Kampff Empathy Test, which is a lie-detector-like test measuring emotional response to disturbing situations. Androids have greatly reduced empathetic capacities.
In retiringāi.e., killingāan andy, he did not violate the rule of life laid down by Mercer. You shall kill only the killers, Mercer had told them the year empathy boxes first appeared on Earth. And in Mercerism, as it evolved into a full theology, the concept of The Killers had grown insidiously. In Mercerism, an absolute evil plucked at the threadbare cloak of the tottering, ascending old man, but it was never clear who or what this evil presence was. A Mercerite sensed evil without understanding it. Put another way, a Mercerite was free to locate the nebulous presence of The Killers wherever he saw fit. For Rick Deckard an escaped humanoid robot, which had killed its master, which had been equipped with an intelligence greater than that of many human beings, which had no regard for animals, which possessed no ability to feel empathic joy for another life formās success or grief at its defeatāthat, for him, epitomized The Killers.
Society’s attitude towards animals is fascinating. Real (non-electric) animals are extremely rare, and essential to the moral and social code of the time. The highest status thing you can do is to own and care for a real animal. Killing or harming an animal is against Mercerism and looked down upon greatly. There’s even reference to mandatory care for animals just after the war. Animals are one of the highest expenses for the average human, and most people carry around “Sydney’s” booklet with the latest prices for different animals.
The book explores a number of themes, with some of the chapters feeling like explorations of different “what if?” scenarios given the setting. “What if the CEO of the company that makes androids creates an android who believes herself to be the CEO’s own human daughter?”. “What if there is a parallel police department with equal focus on bounty hunting androids, but it’s run primarily by undercover androids themselves?”. “What if an electric cat that Isadore picks up for repair is actually a real cat, and it dies?”.
Throughout, there is an exploration of what distinguishes human from “special” from animal from android. The line regularly blurs. Deckard is disgusted at himself for feeling actual empathy guests. Isadore is delighted to find friends in harboured androids, despite them being abjectly cruel towards him. Androids demonstrate mastery of Opera, appreciation for science fiction novels, but torture a spider just to settle a bet. Humans reprogram their own emotional states by dialing codes into a “mood organ”.
The philosophy is bleak, but compelling. There’s no reference to the phrase Blade Runner throughout the book. I’ve only seen Blade Runner 2049, which I enjoyed, and am looking forward to watching the original now. I’d strongly recommend this book.