We Can Build You - Softcover

Dick, Philip K.

3.54

4,221 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 067975296X ISBN 13: 9780679752967

Publisher: Vintage Books, 1994

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Louis Rosen and his partners sell people--ingeniously designed, historically authentic simulacra of personages such as Edwin M. Stanton and Abraham Lincoln. The problem is that the only prospective buyer is a rapacious billionaire whose plans for the simulacra could land Louis in jail. Then there's the added complication that someone--or something--like Abraham Lincoln may not want to be sold.

Is an electronic Lincoln any less alive than his creators? Is a machine that cares and suffers inferior to the woman Louis loves--a borderline psychopath who does neither? With irresistible momentum, intelligence, and wit, Philip K. Dick creates an arresting techno-thriller that suggests a marriage of Bladerunner and Barbarians at the Gate.

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Review:

'The fact that what Dick is writing about is reality and madness, time and death, sin and salvation - this has escaped most critics. Nobody notices that we have our own homegrown Borges.' Ursula K. Le Guin

'No other writer of his generation had such a powerful intellectual presence. He has stamped himself not only on our memories but in our imaginations' Brian W. Aldiss

From the Back Cover:

"In his top form, Philip K. Dick rivals Kurt Vonnegut." The New York Times

In this lyrical and moving novel, Philip K. Dick intertwines the story of a toxic love affair with one about sentient robots, and unflinchingly views it all through the prism of mental illness which spares neither human nor robot. The end result is one of Dick s most quietly powerful works.

When Louis Rosen's electronic organ company builds a pitch-perfect robotic replica of Abraham Lincoln, they are pulled into the orbit of a shady businessman, who is looking to use Lincoln for his own profit. Meanwhile, Rosen seeks Lincoln's advice as he woos a woman incapable of understanding human emotions someone who may be even more robotic than Lincoln's replica.

PHILIP K. DICK (1928 1982) wrote 121 short stories and 45 novels and is considered one of the most visionary authors of the twentieth century. His work is included in the Library of America and has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. Eleven works have been adapted to film, including Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly.

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