Book Review – Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

Today I finished reading the classic science-fiction story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.

First published in 1968, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a story that follows a bounty hunter who is assigned to kill (a.k.a. “retire”) six advanced androids who are hiding in the general area.  As the bounty hunter pursues his targets, it becomes more and more of a question of what really separates human beings from advanced humanoid machines, if anything.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? takes place in a post-apocalyptic 1992 (set 24 years after the publication of the story).  The world has experienced a devastating nuclear war in World War Terminus (a.k.a. World War 3), and a large portion of the global population has been killed.  It’s a perpetually darkened world as clouds of radioactive dust are still a lethal threat.  The radiation has caused many of the world’s animals to have become extinct.

Since many of the animals are now extinct, owning a live animal is seen as a status symbol.  Some live animals, such as sheep and goats, can be prized possessions.  Of course, people also own electronic versions of the animals, but they tend to keep that as a secret to themselves.  The prices of such animals, both real and electric, are continually referred to in Sindey’s Animal & Fowl Catalogue, an annual publication.

Because of the radioactive fallout and heavily damaged planet, people have been encouraged to migrate into space to off-world colonies, from Mars to locations deeper in space.  To help people migrate, each emigrant is given a servant android.

The androids have become more advanced and harder to detect from human beings.  These are machines with human tissues, and to the untrained eye, are nearly impossible to detect.  Separating an android from a human being involves a complicated psychological examination through an empathy test.  Because of their sophisticated nature, androids are not allowed on Earth even though many of them seek the planet for a variety of reasons.  When androids are detected on Earth, bounty hunters are sent to “retire” / destroy them.

Those people who remain on Earth are susceptible to radiation poisoning and damage to their genes.  People with radiation-damaged genes have a lower I.Q., are referred to as “chickenheads,” have low-paying and menial jobs, and are not allowed to emigrate to off-world colonies.

On Earth, the dominant religion is Mercerism, a process that has people using Empathy Boxes to link people to a collective consciousness based on the endless suffering of a man named Wilbur Mercer.  Mercer continually walks up a mountain as people throw rocks at him, and those people linked to him through the Empathy Boxes feel his pain, from the endless uphill walking to the pain of the rocks striking him.

The Empathy Boxes can also help fine tune a person’s feelings and help them through situations, whether it’s when searching for a particular feeling or seeking help for solving a problem.

Primarily set in the San Francisco metro area, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? primarily follows experienced bounty hunter Rick Deckard as he goes through a day in the life of working in the police force.  His wife is Iran, a depressed woman who continually needs emotional help through Mercerism and the Empathy Boxes.

The story begins as Rick Deckard begins another average day.  His wife needs help though the Empathy Boxes, and his neighbors debate over their pet animals, electric and real.  Deckard receives a call and meets with his boss, Police Inspector Harry Bryant.  Bryant informs him that eight of the advanced Nexus-6 androids have recently arrive in Northern California.  Experienced bounter hunter Dave Holden had destroyed two of them before they attacked and put him in the hospital.  Bryant wants Deckard to quickly locate and “retire” the remaining six androids as soon as possible.

To learn more about the Nexus-6 androids, machines so lifelike that they’re nearly impossible to separate from human beings, Deckard first travels to Seattle, Washington to Rosen Industries, the company that manufactures the androids.  Deckard believes that the Voight-Kampff Empathy Test is still capable of detecting androids, and he tests it against Rachael Rosen, the niece of the company’s president.  Deckard determines that she is an android, and it’s confirmed that she’s part of the Nexus-6 line of androids.

When Deckard returns to San Francisco, Harry Bryant informs him that he is to meet with an agent from the Soviet Union, and use his assistance to track down the androids.  It turns out that the agent is really an android, one of the renegades, and Deckard successfully kills him.  The real police soon arrive and take away the machine to confirm it being an android.

Deckard then goes to an opera house where it’s reported that another android can be found.  He finds the android and tries to administer the Voight-Kampff Empathy Test, but she becomes concerned and calls the police on him.  The police arrives, but Deckard is surprised when it’s a different type of police force, one that operates below the radar.  They haul him away to a secret police facility.

At the secret police facility, Deckard meets up with a bounty hunter named Phil Resch, and they determine that the police facility had been infiltrated by androids.  They kill the android chief of police and another android police officer before escaping from the facility.

After successfully killing three Nexus-6 androids, Deckard receives his bounty money and uses it as a down payment for a live goat.  He takes his prized pet home and proudly shows it to his wife.  The live animal brings joy to the two of them.

Before hunting down the last three androids, Deckard calls Rachael Rosen and asks her to come down to San Francisco to help him.  Since she knows how the androids function, she can provide tips and assistance to defeat them.  However, instead of providing help, Rachael meets with Deckard in a hotel room and uses her body to seduce him.  The two of them have sex even though it’s forbidden for a human to be intimate with an android.  Rachael confesses that she has slept with several bounty hunters in the past and used her body to convince the hunters not to “retire” their android targets.

Rick Deckard isn’t going to allow that to happen to him.  He orders Rachael to return to Seattle so that he doesn’t kill her himself.  He then hunts for the last three illegal androids.

In another part of San Francisco, John Isidore, a “chickenhead” of lower intelligence lives alone in an abandoned apartment building.  One day he meets a young lady named Pris Stratton.  Isidore seeks her friendship and convinces her to move in with him.  It’s later revealed that Pris is a Nexus-6 android, and she looks similar to Rachael Rosen.  Later, two of Pris’s escaped android companions, Roy and Irmgard Baty.  The three androids hide in Isidore’s apartment from bounty hunters.

Deckard ultimately makes his way to the apartment building and confronts Isidore, who confirms that the androids are hiding inside.  He heads upstairs and begins searching for them.  First he shoots and kills Irmgard in a hallway, and then he finds the apartment and defeats both Roy and Pris.  John Isidore is overwhelmed with the loss of his companions and has trouble coping with his loneliness.

Rick Deckard has now killed six Nexus-6 androids within 24 hours, earning himself a citation from the police department.  He decides to fly away in his hovercar until he reaches a desert in northern Oregon.  There Deckard has a Mercerism moment (without using an Empathy Box), and his consciousness becomes fused with that of Wilbur Mercer.  Although the Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends television show tried to prove that Mercerism was a fake, Deckard knows for a fact that it’s real.

When Deckard returns to his home in San Francisco, he discovers that his pet goat is dead.  A woman matching Rachael Rosen’s description was seen taking the goat to the edge of the roof and throwing it over the side.

When Deckard was in the desert, he discovered a toad that he thought was extinct.  Finding an “extinct” animal would give him a substantial reward involving fame and fortune.  Unfortunately, Iran discovers that the toad is really electric and not a live toad.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ends with Rick Deckard satisfied with knowing that the toad is electric.  He goes to bed and peacefully sleeps without the need of the Empathy Box.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So is Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? a good book?

Yes.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a fantastic sci-fi story that asks questions about what it really means to be a human being versus a machine.  The main reasoning is that the primary difference between humans and machines comes down to empathy — feelings.  It’s that emotional connection between a human being and whatever has that human’s interest, whether it’s another human, an animal, a plant, or even an android.

It’s interesting how this subject matter is presented in a story involving a bounty hunter and his android targets.  Rick Deckard finds himself questioning the moral principals of his job and whether or not it’s right to kill an android that tries to be a real human being.

Although Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? may seem like a short story, this is a story that has some deep messages with it.  You can spend hours discussing the main points of this novel and whether or not Rick Deckard is really an android himself, complete with a false memory.

The 1982 science-fiction / action film Blade Runner was influenced by this book.

Fans of both science-fiction and philosophy should definitely read this classic novel.  Make it a point to read and try to understand the meaning of life in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?