Blade Runner

Asking the important questions 50 years on

Philip K Dick is one of the most overlooked writers of the mid 20th Century in my view. He has continually asked the interesting and disturbing questions about what is reality. In this, his best known book (albeit known to most under this title and not its more accurate and provacative release title, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?") he asks it with a callous disregard for the answer, so long as it is the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts and bad things need to be done; Dick doesn't shy away from either.
I enjoyed listening to this for the bit parts, too. A by-product of familiarity perhaps, sometimes text can become banal. Not this text. The entrophy of the society it depicts, and which Scott Brick captures well in his performance, is never lost because the "bits" sustain the whole. JR Esidore (Brick sounding like William Sanderson as F B Farnum in "Deadwood") is a treat. His faltering "chicken head" wisdom is as ironic as it is insightful. Buster Friendly (perhaps a foerunner to the caller in Hunger Games) is annoying but unforgettable. Rachael is beautiful and (as herself and as Pris) callous as can be imagined. And for all of that, Deckard is as complex, and flawed and believable as he was 50 years ago, (30 years ago, when I first read this, at least).
I think this is an important book. It is a signpost for The Terminator which was to come and a reminder of the ease with which we can slip into genocide, the worship of false idols and belief in our own superiority which has gone, but is never really lost. This is serious and entertaining science fiction for a person who likes to think about why we do the things we do.

46 of 46 people found this review helpful

This is the original Do Androids Dream of Electric

It has almost no relation to the movie but makes some very interesting points in its own right. In some ways I like it even better than the movie. There is a whole subplot in the book about people needing to care for the remaining animals on the planet only alluded to in the movie with the one line asking if the owl is real. In the book people that cannot afford real animals to take of get electric ones to keep face with the neighbors. The commentary on this and how culty people can be might turn some off but I thought it made the story more relevant to the real world.

82 of 84 people found this review helpful

Quirky, Ominous, Immersive

First, rest assured this is a recording of Phillip K. Dick's book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and not a novelization of the film. However, this is one instance in which the book compliments the film. Phillip K. Dick, who didn't live to see the film completed but did see production stills and read the script, also felt the film complimented his work: one can add to the appreciation of the other. Having seen the film before reading (or listening) to the book, I feel like I have a better understanding of both and can appreciate each on its own merits.

On a near-future earth ravaged by the radioactive fallout of the last World War, the remnants of humanity who have stubbornly decided to stay (instead of emigrating to the off-world colonies) occasionally have to contend with androids--escapees from their lives as servants on the off-world colonies. Much of humanity has reached a state of relative peace thanks to a religion based on empathy (sympathizing and then identifying with another), but the androids lack empathy and are thus dangerous to other humans, so its up to bounty hunters like Rick Deckard to find out who is human and who is machine and "retire" the androids.

Phillip K. Dick's books often have wacky premises, but the reason readers and film producers keep coming back to his work is that he creates a compelling internal logic and structure of feeling for his characters to act within. Deckard comes to question how he defines his humanity and the perils/limits of empathy, for example. This book isn't action-based (although there is some of that), but really based around tense moments (and to Dick's credit, they are tense moments) where Deckard is having crisis of conscience or is questioning who is a real person, who is artificial, and what that distinction means. This led to several moments that put me on the edge of my seat. The ominous atmosphere of post-nuclear earth, the inhuman threat of the androids, and the other strange elements of the story come together to form a quirky but immersive atmosphere for Deckard's inner struggles with himself and outer struggle with the androids.

I would summarize Scott Bricks typical narrative style in two words: broody and languid. He draws out words and creates an almost hypnotic rolling effect with his voice that is enjoyable if you are in the mood for that. Brick doesn't read, he performs, but that performance may not be to everyone's taste (so do listen to the sample clip). Still, it fits well with this book: his almost melancholy narration highlights the gloom of post-nuclear Earth and the broodiness of the characters themselves.

40 of 41 people found this review helpful

Where does man end and machinery take over?

Audible has misleadingly titled this book "Blade Runner", but it's not a novelization of Ridley Scott's 1982 movie. It's actually the original 1968 Philip K. Dick novel on which the film was based, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" I'm calling attention to this because there are huge differences between the film and PKD's book.

Though it's been a long time since I've seen Blade Runner, I think the two works complement each other and both deserve to be checked out. The movie has a prescient cyberpunk flavor and a gorgeous soundtrack, while the novel feels more rooted in the upheaval of the late 1960s, with its consciousness-altering "mood organs", empathic religious cult of Mercerism, and themes of post-WWIII environmental devastation. Dick’s undramatic, conversational writing style gives it all a creepy hyperrealism.

As in the movie, the protagonist, Richard Deckard, is a bounty hunter whose job is to "retire" androids, who have escaped forced servitude on space colonies and returned to an Earth that's gradually sinking into ruin. The androids have been designed with actual flesh exteriors, so they pass for human on cursory inspection. In some cases, they have implanted memories and actually think they're human. The only reliable way to recognize them, short of a bone marrow scan, is to subject them to a test that measures natural empathy, which androids lack. Of course, this is also an issue with some humans, as we come to find out.

In typical PKD fashion, the story muses about what's "real" and what isn't. A significant theme has to do with the owning of live animals as status symbols, since radioactive "dust" has pushed most species to the edge of extinction. Many people can't afford real animals, though, so manufacturers of fake replicas do a brisk business. There's also an "empathy" device that puts users in psychic contact with a being called Mercer, who might or might not be a hoax. And, at one point, a plot twist calls into question Deckard's own humanity.

The creators of Blade Runner were probably wise to push the weirder, Dickian stuff out of the story and just focus on the human vs android angle, but I enjoyed Dick's more philosophical vision and the questions he asks about the artificiality of modern human existence. While his ideas of the future are showing their age (we have androids, but still need human operators to connect a phone call?), some of them are prescient. Is sitting at home using an empathy box all that different from sitting at home aimlessly reading facebook? What happens when the fake world overruns the real one?

This probably isn't my favorite PKD novel (so far, that would be The Man in the High Castle), given that its ideas are no longer as mind-blowing or future-proof as they might have been back in 1968. Still, Blade Runner (the film) remains an important cultural touchstone among sci-fi geeks and the source material is interesting to compare and contrast. Audiobook narrator Scott Brick does a decent job, but he has a tendency to Spit. Out. His. Syllables. Which is a little distracting.

17 of 17 people found this review helpful

Pleasantly Surprised

Great Book. Please understand that you are not getting Blade Runner at all. This book was actually titled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and the movie Blade Runner was VERY loosely based on the novel.

After seeing negative reviews for this book I was a bit dubious, but being a huge fan of Blade Runner I gave it a shot anyway. I was very happy to find that the novel, while being pretty much an entirely different story, was very entertaining and thought provoking. I had never read Dick before and I will most certainly explore more of his work in the near future. The reading by Scott Brick was great as well... as usual.

72 of 77 people found this review helpful

Odd that there are so many negative reviews

I found it very strange that there were so many negative reviews on this book and the reader. If you are a Philip K. Dick fan, I don't see how you can react negatively to this reading. The book explores many rich themes that the movie does not have time to develop. I offer the opinion that you could enjoy the movie and the book as two complementary works exploring the same basic question, "what does it mean to be human?". However the book asks other questions dealing with religion and empathy and what they mean in the context of being human. Deckard's epiphany in the desert gets to the heart of the answer. It is this self-exploration of what matters (and what should matter) that differentiates the humans from the androids. This is not Hollywood science fiction, this reading is science fiction from an author unafraid to look into the future and tell us about ourselves as we will be.

32 of 35 people found this review helpful

Top shelf Philip K Dick

Top shelf Philip K Dick exploring a tangled web of heavy themes like: what it means to be human, the nature and limits of empathy, love, religion, God, entropy, animals, decay.

I had mistakenly put off this novel because HELL I already saw the movie. How can you improve upon THAT movie? Well, the book is better. A cliché, certainly I know, but it is spot on with this book. The movie captures a piece of the PKD mad genius, but it is a 2D representation of a 3D Dick. IT is an android, an artificial sheep of a movie that moves, bellows and behaves perfectly but doesn't have the spark the sizzle or the depth of the novel and IT was a HELLUVA good movie.

Anyway, I'm caught up in a PHDickathon and just ordered a bunch more of his novels off EBay, so I should at least have room to softly land my tattered soul after this amazing novel. Next up? 'Ubik' or 'a Scanner Darkly'.

23 of 26 people found this review helpful

A scifi touchstone

What did you like best about this story?

There is so much packed into this short novel it is hard know where to begin a review. To keep it concise, here’s what I liked: This novel does what only scifi novels are able to do: ask the Big Questions. No, I don’t mean questions like “what is the meaning of love?” (although it asks that question, too) but even more profound questions like “what does it mean to be human?” and “why are we afraid of anything that is different?” Anyone who has seen and loved some of the best Star Trek episodes (Measure of a Man, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield) has seen later flowerings of the seeds planted by this 1968 novel. Which brings me to the things I didn’t like. A major element of the novel was a quasi-religion called “Mercerism” that involved people hooking themselves into machines to dial up whatever emotions they wanted to experience. Sounded a lot like a 1960’s fantasy of a culture with government-sanctioned drug trips. That part of the book’s plot felt dated and extraneous, and not because I know this thread is missing from the movie based on the book. If I have ever seen Blade Runner, I do not remember it at all. So for me, this book stands on its own. I salute it for being a visionary piece of science fiction and for its place as a touchstone for so much of modern scifi. And I really loved that the eponymous question is never outright asked in the book. What do I think is the answer? A definite “yes.”

Have you listened to any of Scott Brick’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Scott Brick is one of my favorite narrators. I think his reading style goes well with science fiction. He can make things sound just – a – little – bit – off, which is just what was called for in this case.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

The Title Is A Question

I wish the publishers had just stuck with the original title of this book (Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?). Although, I understand that sales are most likely increased because of its increased association with the popular movie, Blade Runner. Still, the original title is so much better! It literally poses a question, and it is so satisfyingly frustrating because by the end of the novel, you have no answers; only more questions.

The questions that this book tackles are difficult, and the way Dick attempts (and just manages to attempt) these questions is well-rounded; topics such as atheism versus theism and reality versus unreality (or perhaps surreality). They're handled with elegance and the beauty of imperfection and incompletion. The attempt to answer only leads to more questions. And such fantastic questions.

For a science fiction novel, it's also pretty accessible. Dick takes a lot of pointers from the noir and detective fiction genres; there's a lot of satisfying action alongside the difficult, intellectual subject matter.

As for the audiobook, the narrator is much too slow. Listening to him on 3x speed sounded like the normal speed of most narrators. But he was good, otherwise. Don't let it deter you from listening.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Greatly Surprised

Please understand that you are not getting 'Blade Runner' at all. This book should be titled 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', and the movie 'Blade Runner' was VERY loosely based on the novel.

People tell me that it sucks because their expecting 'Blade Runner' and I think Audible should change the name and stop putting 'Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep' in small writing and make it the main title with 'Blade Runner' below it. Its deceptive if you ask me and my explain the low ratings.

I got this book because someone told me that like 'Dune' the real story was so much better. I listened to this book while a family member read it and we both agree this is much better.

I almost didn't read this book because someone told it was 'Blade Runner' and I wanted the original book. Glad I didn't listen. Because here we have the details of the story that 'Blade Runner' doesn't give us. Here we get a real feel for what was really happening in the future. We see how unintended consequences of our actions can come back to bite us in the rear. 'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.' - Salvor Hardin in "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov. If we had learned this then we would not have the basis of this story.

16 of 18 people found this review helpful