Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Cover of first hardback edition
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| Author | Philip K. Dick |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction, philosophical novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
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Publication date
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1968 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 210 61,237 words |
| OCLC | 34818133 |
| Followed by | Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human |
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (retitled Blade Runner: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in some later printings) is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. First published in 1968, the novel is set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, where Earth's life has been greatly damaged by nuclear global war. Most animal species are endangered or extinct from extreme radiation poisoning, so that owning an animal is now a sign of status and empathy, an attitude encouraged towards animals. The book served as the primary basis for the 1982 film Blade Runner.
The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who is faced with killing ("retiring") six escaped Nexus-6 model androids, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids. In connection with Deckard's mission, the novel explores the issue of what it is to be human. Unlike humans, the androids are claimed to possess no sense of empathy.
In post-apocalyptic 1992 (or, in later editions, 2021), after "World War Terminus," the Earth's dust-irradiated atmosphere leads the United Nations to encourage mass emigrations to off-world colonies to preserve humanity's genetic integrity, with the incentive of free personal androids: robot servants identical to humans. On Earth, owning real live animals is a status symbol, because of mass extinctions and the accompanying cultural push for greater empathy that has motivated a technology-based religion called Mercerism. Poor people can only afford realistic-looking electric animals, including Deckard, who owns a robotic black-faced sheep. Mercerism uses "empathy boxes" to simultaneously link users to a collective virtual reality of communal suffering, centered on a martyr-like character, Wilbur Mercer, who eternally climbs up a hill while being hit with crashing stones.
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