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A review by kergo
Blade Runner: Träumen Androiden von elektrischen Schafen? by Philip K. Dick
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
This book is quite interesting for me - having watched the movie almost 10 years ago and not remembering it clearly, having watched the second movie 2-3 times and loving it dearly - I wanted to visit the world as it was envisioned by Dick himself.
There are 2 Perspectives - one of a Bounty Hunter that is hunting Androids and one of a delivery driver for a synthetic animal clinic - which is categorized as a "special" person because he is infertile and therefore not deemed human and also he has low intellectual abilities.
And thats already where the problems arise.
I think the main subjects in this book want to be the philosophical question about what empathy entails and how this affects every one of us. The book is seeped through with classism, religious propaganda of a made up religion, and ableism but I am not sure if the book is trying to point out that the ableism in that world is something unjust, but as there is no resolution to the theme I will think of it as a weird form of ableistic representation of someone disabled.
The "special" people are almost excluded from every form of life and live in ruins in this distopic world. The person we follow missed the intelligence test just barely, which would've enabled him to at least partake in certain aspects of the communal life of those who stayed behind on the destroyed remains of earth. He was lucky enough to score a job where he could drive, something not everyone labled like he is is able to do. Through the book we learn of many moments of exklusion for him and he makes friends with the antagonists of the book - which lead to an disappointing ending of that arc but more of that later. The only thing he can partake of is the religion of the world, where people can connect thorugh an "empathaor" with the religious figure of Wilbur Mercer, a person who is reincarnated again and again and walks a path of struggle, combined with all the other people that are connecting through those devices at the same time. Thats the only sense of community that person percieves and that is also one the androids are prohibited from.
The hunted Androids are basically personal slaves that have fled from being used like that and only seek freedom and not being opressed anymore. In the book it is revealed that they only have a life span of about 4 years and still they are considered rogue and dangerous to all society. The ones we encounter in the book are a group of 8 friends which fled the colony of mars together, some seeking shelter, some to finally express their own personalities. At the beginning of the story 2 of them were already hunted down and the other six are on the hitlist of a higher ranked bounty hunter which was incapacitated by the third target, so our main protagonist takes that list over.
This character feels like the clicheed film noir PI, doused in his own scandals (he has an electric pet although society wants everyone to keep an alive animal to shelter them, scandalous) and a marriage that is kinda in shambles. He does nothing to mend that relationship, instead they bought a device that sets their moods to certain values and after a fight he put the value of his spouse to "appreciate the husband" or something like that. really scummy and weird (but thank god she changed that value (but why to depression)). We follow this twisted person, his only drive being owning a real pet and gathering the money for it what he will only achieve by "disabling" lots of androids. In the beginning he deemed that possibility impossible because his superiour must be down for that and lucky enough 10 pages later he is! what great suprise! After a while of the story he realises that he feels empathy for the androids, which does not hinder him from doing his job. Another bounty hunter tells him he should enter sexual relations with one of them and then shoot them, which he later kind of does, still not respecting their partner or any social code he has. The conflicting topic for him still is his drive to get an animal and how to do his job with his newfound empathy for androids (but he does the job for ages mind you!) and all other aspects of life seem kinda empty regarding him.
The main conflict results in him inexplicably merging with the religious figure, disgarding the other main character which after meeting the bounty hunter just vanishes and is nowhere to be seen again and him having an epiphany about his own resurrection and finding an animal in the wild (which are all deemed extinct, particularly that kind of animal) And the spouse ordering him electronic companions for his found animal.
None of the issues of the book are really resolved apart from the main storyline andhim killing all the androids wow who would've thunk . There are no consequences whatsoever. The only choice that had a reaction felt pretty disconnected - He kills 3 androids, buys an animal with the money, sleeps with another "good" android, she gets jealous of that animal because he loves it more than anything else, after he killed all the other "rogue" ones he comes home to find it killed by her. She thought she stopped him from killing Androids in the future by sleeping with him (worked with others) but he relentlessly did.
If you read the whole thing as an adventure it was a pretty lame one, with a few physical struggles but no real dilemma or something that drives him apart from the resolution - his empathy for androids was always more an afterthought or a suspicion than a consequence, he says repeatedly that he cannot kill anymore, only for him not hesitate at all. He wants to quit but he only takes one day off.
He is not a charakter to be liked, not one to be inspired from, and noone who really impacts the reader.
The main themes of classism, (minor) effects of colonialism, ableism and the results of the war were the main driving force for me to wanting to read more of the book - I thought about certain scenes of the second movie, some of the first movie, which had more satisfying moments to be honest and I was really thinking about that worldbuilding.
I would be intrigued how the lifes of upstanding people in that world could function, the whole society is pushing people of "worth" (their words not mine) to go to colonies and if you arrive there you get your own personal android! how convinient! The main entertainment of that world is done by another android which is advocating against the main religion and those themes, the world shining through, were so enriching and nicely done that i overall found the book quite okay. It didnt blow me away, It didnt change my view of things, the main discussion of people talking about the story - if the bounty hunter is an android or not did not seem feasible to me and was not that interesting of a topic honestly.
Going to read another book of Dick's in the future, maybe I didnt understand his style of story quite yet, but i hope he can immerse me more and suprise me with a compelling tale.
There are 2 Perspectives - one of a Bounty Hunter that is hunting Androids and one of a delivery driver for a synthetic animal clinic - which is categorized as a "special" person because he is infertile and therefore not deemed human and also he has low intellectual abilities.
And thats already where the problems arise.
I think the main subjects in this book want to be the philosophical question about what empathy entails and how this affects every one of us. The book is seeped through with classism, religious propaganda of a made up religion, and ableism but I am not sure if the book is trying to point out that the ableism in that world is something unjust, but as there is no resolution to the theme I will think of it as a weird form of ableistic representation of someone disabled.
The "special" people are almost excluded from every form of life and live in ruins in this distopic world. The person we follow missed the intelligence test just barely, which would've enabled him to at least partake in certain aspects of the communal life of those who stayed behind on the destroyed remains of earth. He was lucky enough to score a job where he could drive, something not everyone labled like he is is able to do. Through the book we learn of many moments of exklusion for him and he makes friends with the antagonists of the book - which lead to an disappointing ending of that arc but more of that later. The only thing he can partake of is the religion of the world, where people can connect thorugh an "empathaor" with the religious figure of Wilbur Mercer, a person who is reincarnated again and again and walks a path of struggle, combined with all the other people that are connecting through those devices at the same time. Thats the only sense of community that person percieves and that is also one the androids are prohibited from.
The hunted Androids are basically personal slaves that have fled from being used like that and only seek freedom and not being opressed anymore. In the book it is revealed that they only have a life span of about 4 years and still they are considered rogue and dangerous to all society. The ones we encounter in the book are a group of 8 friends which fled the colony of mars together, some seeking shelter, some to finally express their own personalities. At the beginning of the story 2 of them were already hunted down and the other six are on the hitlist of a higher ranked bounty hunter which was incapacitated by the third target, so our main protagonist takes that list over.
This character feels like the clicheed film noir PI, doused in his own scandals (he has an electric pet although society wants everyone to keep an alive animal to shelter them, scandalous) and a marriage that is kinda in shambles. He does nothing to mend that relationship, instead they bought a device that sets their moods to certain values and after a fight he put the value of his spouse to "appreciate the husband" or something like that. really scummy and weird (but thank god she changed that value (but why to depression)). We follow this twisted person, his only drive being owning a real pet and gathering the money for it what he will only achieve by "disabling" lots of androids. In the beginning he deemed that possibility impossible because his superiour must be down for that and lucky enough 10 pages later he is! what great suprise! After a while of the story he realises that he feels empathy for the androids, which does not hinder him from doing his job. Another bounty hunter tells him he should enter sexual relations with one of them and then shoot them, which he later kind of does, still not respecting their partner or any social code he has. The conflicting topic for him still is his drive to get an animal and how to do his job with his newfound empathy for androids (but he does the job for ages mind you!) and all other aspects of life seem kinda empty regarding him.
None of the issues of the book are really resolved apart from the main storyline and
If you read the whole thing as an adventure it was a pretty lame one, with a few physical struggles but no real dilemma or something that drives him apart from the resolution - his empathy for androids was always more an afterthought or a suspicion than a consequence, he says repeatedly that he cannot kill anymore, only for him not hesitate at all. He wants to quit but he only takes one day off.
He is not a charakter to be liked, not one to be inspired from, and noone who really impacts the reader.
The main themes of classism, (minor) effects of colonialism, ableism and the results of the war were the main driving force for me to wanting to read more of the book - I thought about certain scenes of the second movie, some of the first movie, which had more satisfying moments to be honest and I was really thinking about that worldbuilding.
I would be intrigued how the lifes of upstanding people in that world could function, the whole society is pushing people of "worth" (their words not mine) to go to colonies and if you arrive there you get your own personal android! how convinient! The main entertainment of that world is done by another android which is advocating against the main religion and those themes, the world shining through, were so enriching and nicely done that i overall found the book quite okay. It didnt blow me away, It didnt change my view of things, the main discussion of people talking about the story - if the bounty hunter is an android or not did not seem feasible to me and was not that interesting of a topic honestly.
Going to read another book of Dick's in the future, maybe I didnt understand his style of story quite yet, but i hope he can immerse me more and suprise me with a compelling tale.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Animal death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Terminal illness, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: War