Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) - Softcover

Dick, Philip K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345350472 ISBN 13: 9780345350473

Publisher: Ballantine Books Inc., 1987

Synopsis

Here is the classic sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, set nearly thirty years before the events of the new Warner Bros. film Blade Runner 2049, starring Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, and Robin Wright.

By 2021, the World War has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remain covet any living creature, and for people who can't afford one, companies build incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep. They've even built humans. Immigrants to Mars receive androids so sophisticated they are indistinguishable from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans can wreak, the government bans them from Earth. Driven into hiding, unauthorized androids live among human beings, undetected. Rick Deckard, an officially sanctioned bounty hunter, is commissioned to find rogue androids and "retire" them. But when cornered, androids fight back--with lethal force.

Praise for Philip K. Dick

"[Dick] sees all the sparkling--and terrifying--possibilities . . . that other authors shy away from."--Rolling Stone

"A kind of pulp-fiction Kafka, a prophet."--The New York Times

About this title

Product Description:

Title: Blade Runner( Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) <>Binding: Mass Market Paperback <>Author: PhilipK.Dick <>Publisher: DelReyBooks

Review:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a book that most people think they remember, and almost always get more or less wrong. Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner took a lot from it, and threw a lot away; wonderful in itself, it is a flash thriller where Dick's novel is a sober meditation. As we all know, bounty hunter Rick Deckard is stalking a group of androids returned from space with short life spans and murder on their minds--where Scott's Deckard was Harrison Ford, Dick's is a financially over-stretched municipal employee with bills to pay and a depressed wife. In a world where most animals have died, and pet-keeping is a social duty, he can only afford a robot imitation, unless he gets a big financial break. The genetically warped "chickenhead" John Isidore has visions of a tomb-world where entropy has finally won. And everyone plugs in to the spiritual agony of Mercer, whose sufferings for the sins of humanity are broadcast several times a day. Prefiguring the religious obsessions of Dick's last novels, this asks dark questions about identity and altruism. After all, is it right to kill the killers just because Mercer says so? --Roz Kaveney

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books Inc.
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0345350472
• ISBN 13: 9780345350473
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 216