“Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the empathic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.”
Rick Deckard makes his living off of murder. Not humans of course, but the androids who live among them. He spends his days meticulously hunting them down and ‘killing them’. He feels no remorse, and why should he given they’re machines. But androids and humans look the same, act the same, and are virtually indistinguishable. Can learning more about this ‘other race’ teach Rick about realities about his own human race?
I’ve been on a bend reading sci-fi or dystopian classic literature, and everyone told me I simply had to read Philip K. Dick. I picked Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? solely because the name intrigued me, it sounded like the long philosophical conversations I have in my head before succumbing to sleep. I enjoyed it more than I expected, and I really liked how this character who is practically a hitman can have such an interesting mind. I especially liked the reflection that this book puts onto the human race itself, mirrored in their creations the andriods. While this might not be the first book to include robots, I think it definitely helped paved the way for all the future iterations made, especially considered that Blade Runner is based on this novel. Overall, enjoyable read 5 of 5 stars.