Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Review
Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Author: Philip K. Dick
Date Purchased: 7/31/2018
Price Paid: $2.11
Date Finished: 7/11/2021
Rating: 3/5
I struggle with old science fiction. When I was a teenager it was a lot easier to read the old “classics”, but I think a lot of that can be credited to lack of exposure. I hadn’t really read a lot of the genre, so I was thrilled to wade through something like Dune where the author was clearly saying deep things about the politics of humanity and so on.
Older science fiction seems to follow a trend – the author is using the setting and the story to speak to an issue that we deal with in the present day…or at least the present day at the time of writing. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (I’m not typing that out again. Hereafter it will be DADoES.) is not an exception to this, and speaks on a deeper level about identity, mortality, and society.
My problem is that I’m not sure this is the type of book for me.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m fine with deeper meaning in books, and enjoy a novel that really makes you think about your place in the world. But a lot of the older books in both sci-fi and fantasy tend to skirt so far around the issue that you really have to dig to get to the author’s message. In some ways I understand this. Often by examining when the book was written you can shed a ton of light on why it was written the way that it was.
I don’t know – however you can try to explain away the differences between something written today and something written 60 years ago, I’ve just learned that it’s not for me.
Looking at the story, I’m noticing a trend with the last few books I’ve read. There will be more than one point-of-view, and I only really care about one of them. So it was with DADoES. I enjoyed the parts about Deckard, and felt that the story moved along nicely throughout most of those chapters. When he moved over to discuss Isidore’s life? I checked out.
There are aspects that I really enjoyed, especially Deckard’s struggle with his own humanity and the aftermath of his work. But all in all I think this is one I could have happily skipped.
Final Thoughts: A quick read, but one that failed to grab me.