Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter on a futuristic earth, destroyed by war. His bounty is for androids, escaped from colonies by killing their masters and returned to earth to live amongst humans. The latest model, the Nexus-6, are near impossible to differentiate from man but for one flaw. The androids are lacking in empathy.

PKD's vision of the future (or to be exact, 1992, which we've managed to survive) included a religion based on empathy, Mercerism. After World War Terminus, the war to end all wars, many animal species became extinct and it became a duty to own an animal and take care of it. The animals become a bit of a status symbol but unfortunately, Deckard's sheep died and he was forced to replace it with an electronic replica. Real animals don't come cheap. When San Francisco's number one bounty hunter is injured, Deckard sees this as an opportunity to earn enough to buy a new animal for himself and his depressed wife.

The extreme empathy towards animals is in contrast to the hatred for androids. The theme of the novel is one we have become familiar with over the years, at what point does something become alive? Considering artificial intelligence was in its infancy at the time of writing, it's a very insightful book. The androids breathe and are highly intelligent yet they are incapable of embracing Mercerism because they cannot feel empathy. They are technically sociopaths. Though a sociopathic human would be allowed to live until they committed an unforgivable crime, the android's crime is to exist without a master. Admittedly, we are told the only way they could have escaped is by murder, but this never seems like a concrete fact.

I went full circle with my feelings, very much like the story itself does. There are things that the androids do that make you sympathise with them yet others that justify what happens to them.

It is a classic science fiction read and it always feels a bit hard to criticise something that has inspired so much. However I did start reading it and think, “oh no, what's all this sci-fi gobbledegook?” I had to re-read a few parts to quite get what they were talking about. Maybe the introduction of how empathy fits into their world could have been done better but do keep reading. After the first chapter or so, it becomes unputdownable. Honest.

I did find it slightly amusing that Deckard's wife wanted to experience depression through her mood organ, although all signs point to her suffering with it anyway. I also liked the idea that there was an option to make you feel like watching TV for hours without caring what's on.