About this title: World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade replicants who were his prey. When he wasn't 'retiring' them with his laser weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal -- the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life. Then Rick got his chance ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Very Good. 1570420521 **Cassette Tape Version**-exactly as described, Exact UPC match. Includes Box/Case, and has been previously Gently Used, though the box/case may have some shelf wear and rubbing. *Not* an ex-rental or library item, only been listened to once or twice at most. Tapes all are functioning and it plays well, though they may not arrive rewound. -Ships Quickly! All our items are IN STOCK. read more
Description: Good. [ No Hassle 30 Day Returns ] [ Underlining/Highlighting: NONE ] [ Writing: NONE ] [ Torn pages: NO ] [ Broken Seams: NO ] Publisher: Del Rey Pub Date: 5/28/1996 Binding: Paperback Pages: 256. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Del Rey, Westminster, Maryland, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780345404473ISBN:0345404475
Description: Fair. Cover has marks, bumping, heavy chipping, stickers, edgewear, hole punch at back cover-Bumped / dogeared pgs-Marks on edge-Highlighting-Few marks. read more
Edition: First Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: London: Granada, 1982, 3rd Printing---1st Movie Tie-In Edition and 1st...
ISBN-13:9780586036051ISBN:0586036059
Description: Movie Tie-in Edition. Very Good. ----------paperback, a solid Very Good copy, crease along spine on front cover, small ink name, faint spine crease, movie tie in edition containing Dick's complete story, not a movie screenplay but Dick's original novel, no store stamps, ny image directly beside this listing is the actual book and not a generic photo. read more
Description: [0-345-40447-5 30129] [date not known], later printing., later printing. (Trade paperback) About fine. Filmed as: Blade Runner. (Science Fiction, Mystery) read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Voyager
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780006482802ISBN:0006482805
Description: Good. Ex library Page colour-Slightly discoloured in accordance with book age. The spine is slightly damage **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Del Rey
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780345404473ISBN:0345404475
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
"Blade Runner is one of my favorite scifi movies, but a movie absolutely faithful to this book should also be made. I rarely read a book twice within a short period, but I did, this one. Dick is a superstar."
"It took me a while to warm to this book. At first I found is quite distant and Deckard was difficult to relate to. However, as the chapters went on, I became completely enthralled in it. The world which Phillip K. Dick (P.K.D) has greated is so bizarre and so twisted that you begin to develop a rather peculiar fascination for it.
The characters can seem quite harsh and difficult to empathise with, but I was gradually sucked into the world of radiation and illegal androids and electric animals.
The earth has become barren, with radioactive fallout always hanging in the air. Many animals have died and those who are alive are valuable commodities. Humans must protect and care for an animal of their own..thus displaying empathy. Animals have become status symbols.
Most people have re settled on Mars, where there are androids to help the people with menial tasks. On Earth, there are only the chickenheads - people who have been damaged by the radiation and are not allowed to leave; and those who are too stubborn to leave. Deckard is stubborn. He is a bounty hunter who captures and "retires" androids on earth, as they are not allowed to live and work masquerading as human.
The main difference between android and Human is empathy. Deckard issues a VoigtKampf test to those who he suspects to be androids. This measures emotional responses to moral and ethical questions.
Because of their lack of empathy, Deckard detests androids... however, he is also the owner of an electric sheep. This moral dilemma is behind many of Deckards actions and problems in the novel. He knows that he is a fraud, and he covets a real animal above all else.
I don't want to go into further detail for fear of giving too much away. The book is a fantastic read and draws you into a terrifying carriacature of life on earth. It has much more happening in it than the film and will certainly give you something to think about."
"Ooooooh, i think i get it now! The title "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Is intentionally ambiguous. It wants you to think of "dream" as the notion of sleep, when it's "dream" as palpable hope. The incisive plot threat in the book revolves around a set of androids with the ambition to outlast human beings. It seems like they only want to survive, but their leader--Roy Baty--alludes toward a propagandized theme he led the group with, that Mercer is a fake and without empathy human beings are not worth saving. Their endeavor is impractical, because they are so few, depend on human beings to be constructed, and are hunted. But the symbolic, allegorical aspect is when the world is so bereft of empathy, we all act like robots anyway. What's the sense in caring about life or death? The soul is beat.
In the end of the book, one of the andys is cutting legs off a spider. It's the last of its kind. It's going to die anyway. This is a justification for torture. That's what the book is about, the anguish of being near the end. Of course, as was written in other reviews, much of the logistics of life are not accounted for...food? water? despite the dust, they get electricity? Will human beings survive? With no vegetation, there'd be no oxygen? No circle of life? Isn't death just around the corner?
This book is about the absurd man. What, in fact, is the Absurd Man? In the words of Camus: He who, without negating it, does nothing for the eternal. This book is about a question, that between preserving a dying life system, or letting it fall to its naturally disabling evolution (it's called kipple here, and the metaphor for it is useless junk, pretty genius). Camus writes about a man who goes on doing in the face of "God's" letting him alone. Not to be disheartened by the unintelligent vacuum of space, but to be delighted in the complicity of any consciousness. The Absurd man says:
"This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction."
Not that nostalgia is foreign to him. But he prefers his courage and his reasoning. The first teaches him to live without appeal and to get along with what he has; the second informs him of his limits. Assured of his temporally limited freedom, of his revolt devoid of future, and of his mortal consciousness, he lives out his adventure within the span of his lifetime. That is his field, that is his action, which he shields from any judgment but his own.
This book is a testament to an absurd idea: in the event of a world that is dying, do we give up hope or preserve. The world has already made its choice in a remarkably sad, even obscene remorse: trying to preserve every single living thing, and if not that, then the representation thereof. And also, to kill any sentient being who could threaten that kind of hospitality. Those who do not empathize with the absurdity, must be killed. The biting edge here, is that that endeavor to kill those who are not absurd is its own absurdity. The world engulfed in flagellating tears, it seems. The only prevention for sadness is to condemn the wicked.
Rick Deckard's existential crisis is his awakening to a despair, a real despair, above this false hope presentation of preservation. He sees that killing even those that are not real, the androids, is still killing. And in the plight to preserve all life, is fake life still life? The immortal android question! His resolution: I think a frighteningly sad but noble one--go on with the hopeless drive for life and the killing of those who try to stop it. Because, inevitably, the alternative is no life at all. He steps out of the cave and comes back; but rather than revolt, in willing complicity he resigns to his duty. He is the absurd man. A very solid, very depressing theme."
"I'm worried that most people will misunderstand the intelligence behind this book. I have met a few people who have said, "that book? I read that in high school." My response is "did you understand this book in high school?"
Am I wrong in saying that first, one should read Kafka; second, one should understand how Kafka's fiction functions as a blend of anthropology, theology, and philosophy, among other things. Then, read Phillip K. Dick again, and notice the themes of paranoia, identity crisis, and near-psychotic breakdown while doing one's business in "normal" society. With _Do Andriods Dream..._ consider that PK Dick is writing in 1968, and that his invention of scheduled moods and Mercerism (a kind of Sisyphisean religion and internet-religion) has more sociological commentary than most so-called literary fiction today. Le Guin is right: PK Dick is an American Borges. At least someone read this book after high school."
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