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

Rating: ***** (5 out of 5)

Review: I’ve seen many movies that were inspired by Philip K. Dick’s stories, but had never actually read one of them. That will definitely change now that I’ve read this book. Once I finished I immediately felt like getting into another story like this, one that defies and faces the future and presents its possibilities in a chillingly believable way.

It’s sometime in the future and Earth has been ravaged by nuclear war. The animals are all but extinct, and most humans have emigrated to other worlds to escape the radioactive air that eats away at them and turns them into “specials” (aka, degenerates). Androids that are virtually indistinguishable from humans are made for slave labour, despised and given no rights because they are machines, even though they are programmed to act and “feel” like human beings. The only thing they cannot feel is empathy, which has become so important that a religion has been founded on it. Humans are empathic to each other, and specially animals – everyone is expected to care for a real animal, but those who cannot afford it buy an electric replica. Yet this empathy isn’t extended to androids, who are promptly killed if they escape the colonies and try to come to Earth. This job is done by the bounty hunters.

So that’s the story. But this book delves deep into many issues. What is empathy, and why do humans show it to each other and to animals (and even to electric animals!) but not to electric humans, aka androids? What’s the difference between a human brain and a brain programmed to work like a human’s? What is a human being, then?

This is an amazing book, one I can hardly believe was written so long ago. I recommend it to everyone.

Book Video: Terry Pratchett – Science Fiction or Fantasy?

I came across Terry Pratchett’s books a few years ago (I think it’s been almost a decade now!), with The Colour of Magic, and I’ve been a fan ever since. His writing is funny, imaginative, original and insightful, and I would recommend his Discworld series to anyone who loves fantasy and is looking for great characters and world-building, with a stint of satire in their stories.

I decided to share this video because even nowadays we see so many books being blatantly misclassified in bookstores that it’s almost funny (bordering on sad). Classifying a book into a genre might be a difficult and sometimes completely superfluous and arbitrary task, but it’s needed for organizational purposes, and I just don’t understand how little thought people seem to put into it. In some cases it gets downright silly, like seeing the Portuguese version of The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases on the Self-Help section of a bookstore, or adult-themed graphic novels in the Children’s section.

Another interesting point he mentions is that even if a book in the Science Fiction & Fantasy section is a best-seller, they don’t show it on the Best-Sellers list. This might have been a few years ago, but even nowadays these are looked down upon as second-rate book genres. Again, a very sad prejudice, but as any prejudice, one that will probably take years to change.