Thursday, May 22, 2008

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

I am really waffling on giving this a 2 or 3 out of 5. I'd give it a 2 just cause I was glad when it was done, and parts of it I little said (out loud even) "now this is just dumb." I'll give it a 3 though just out of charity. I'm amazed that the movie Blade Runner came out of this book, though now I have a greater understanding of why the films script was a tad muddled.

While I understand what the author was going for with the whole future folks' obsession with living animals, it just seemed so silly to me. The whole android psychology aspect was fairly interesting, but Mercerism didn't do anything for me at all. In the end it was hard to care about any of the books characters, and I always see that as the worst mark any story can have against it.

Oh and one final thing that bugged me the entire time. Why would the android producing corporation be hell bent on making replicants that are indistinguishable from normal humans? Would it be so much easier to just make all androids so they have an easily distinguishable feature to show they aren't a normal human? I'm thinking no belly button.

Then instead of making everyone take a stupid question and answer game, the cops just say show me the belly button. Quick, simple, and there ya go. Besides I never really got the point of hunting down the androids in the first place. Not like they're going to live very long anyway, just leave them be. Granted if they killed someone you'd just treat them like any normal crook.

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