Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) is a science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. It tells the story of bounty hunter Rick Deckard, stalking almost-human "Nexus-6" androids (referred to derogatorily as "andys") through the gloomy, partially deserted streets of a future San Francisco. It was adapted very loosely into the screenplay for the 1982 film Blade Runner.

Warning: Plot details follow.

The plot and characterizations of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? are different in a number of ways from that of Blade Runner. The novel is both more surreal and complex than the movie, as the movie was based on the themes rather than the plot of the novel.

The future portrayed is a bleak one, in which the Earth is dying after a nuclear war, and many people have emigrated "off-world" to the space colonies. Animals are extremely rare, and hence extremely valuable. In fact, owning an animal is something of a status symbol. For many, an artificial animal is the only affordable alternative. Rick Deckard himself owns an electric sheep, a replacement for a living one which had died some time ago. His peers are ignorant to the change, and it is a source of shame to Deckard.

The androids are given as slaves as an incentive to colonizers of Mars, but their presence is illegal on Earth. They can be differentiated from true humans in only a few ways: the Voigt-Kampff empathy test, an inferior and obsolescent "Boneli" test based on timing reflex responses, and a bone marrow scan. Strictly speaking, the term android is an accurate one as the term suggests biological composition; the beings in the novel are genuinely organic. (In modern SF, the term has come to refer to machines instead, as in the Star Wars movies, which in a strict sense might be inaccurate. Excessive debate on such finer details is likely to encounter deep complications, the very issues which Dick - and Isaac Asimov before him - explored along the human-mechanical boundary.) The androids live a maximum of roughly four years, since their cells cannot be replaced as they deteriorate. The novel states that this is a shortcoming of the android technology; in contrast, the film Blade Runner depicts the four-year lifespan as a safety feature, deliberately included so that the android beings could not grow into fuller humanity.

Unlike the film adaption, Deckard is not an android; he passes the Voigt-Kampff test. He is however, alarmed to find that unlike another bounty hunter, he has started to develop empathy for androids. At one point Deckard proclaims that the androids are alive, in meaningful if not legal ways.

Another significant feature of the novel, entirely absent from the movie Blade Runner, is the religion of Mercerism. Founded by Wilbur Mercer, a man who had the power to reverse the decay process and restore life into dead animals, Mercerism blends the concept of a life-death-rebirth deity with the scientific theory of entropy. Worshipers use an empathy box, an electronic device which instills in its user a hallucination of sharing Mercer's sufferings. Androids, even the advanced Nexus 6 models, cannot participate in Mercerism, as they lack the necessary trait of empathy. It can be assumed that asking a suspected android to use an 'empathy box', as they are called in the novel, would be a simple way to determine if they are indeed an artificial human.

Another feature of the scenario is the 'Penfield Mood Organ', which induces emotions in its users. The user can dial a setting to obtain a mood. Examples include setting 481, "awareness of the manifold possibilities of the future", 888, "the desire to watch television, no matters what's on it", and 3, the "desire to dial." Many users have a daily schedule of moods to which they adhere.

ISBN numbers

• ISBN 0345404475 (paperback, 1996)
• ISBN 0783895186 (hardcover, 2001, Large Type Edition)