Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a book that most people think they remember and almost always get more or less wrong. Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner took a lot from it, and threw a lot away. Wonderful in itself, the film is a flash thriller, whereas Dick's novel is a sober meditation. As we all know, bounty hunter Rick Deckard is stalking a group of androids who have returned from space with short life spans and murder on their minds--where Scott's Deckard was Harrison Ford, Dick's is a financially strapped municipal employee with bills to pay and a depressed wife. In a world where most animals have died, and pet keeping is a social duty, he can only afford a robot imitation, unless he gets a big financial break.
The genetically warped "chickenhead" John Isidore has visions of a tomb-world where entropy has finally won. And everyone plugs in to the spiritual agony of Mercer, whose sufferings for the sins of humanity are broadcast several times a day. Prefiguring the religious obsessions of Dick's last novels, this book asks dark questions about identity and altruism. After all, is it right to kill the killers just because Mercer says so? --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill.
Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard's assignmet--find them and then..."retire" them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn't want to be found!
Card catalog description
In the year 2019, lifelike robots clash with their human makers in an effort to alter the destiny for which they have been programmed.
From the Publisher
The classic novel behind the cult film classic directed by Ridley Scott. As atmospheric and even more compelling than the film. A dystopian tour de force.
--Fred Dodnick, Vice President, Director of Trade Production
From the Inside Flap
It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill.
Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard's assignmet--find them and then..."retire" them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn't want to be found!
Blade Runner: (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) ANNOTATION
In the year 2019, lifelike robots clash with their human makers in an effort to alter the destiny for which they have been programmed.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill.
Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard's assignmetfind them and then..."retire" them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn't want to be found!
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Philip K. Dick is the most consistently brilliant SF writer in the world. John Bruner