Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

1960s dystopian sci-fi/fantasy is probably my favourite genre. So it's surprising that it's taken me so long to get around to reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Maybe it's because I never really ‘got' Blade Runner, I liked it - sure - but it never blew me away. I've read a couple of Dick's other novels and really enjoyed them but I was slightly afraid that I'd feel let down by this. I needn't have worried.

From the beginning, when we meet Deckard, the scene is futuristic but remains mundane. This is a grubby little future, probably due to mankind being a grubby little species. In this San Francisco a live animal (all species are rare due to the radioactive dust blanketing the Earth) is an expensive status symbol kept in a cage on the roof. Here electronic replicas are imperceptible from the real thing but substantially cheaper to own.

Deckard works as a bounty hunter, retiring androids hiding around the city. These are perfect human copies except they struggle to understand (and therefore replicate) empathy. As he hunts them down Deckard questions those around them and ultimately himself. Do we empathise for him, for the androids, for Isidore (who seems to feel too much)? Is an electric animal worth less than a real one if you love it? Is an android less alive than a human? Can you have empathy for the creatures you have to destroy and still kill them? Is the maiming of a real arachnid worse than the retirement of 3 false-humans (that really got to me! I'm not a fan of the many-legged but Pris was so cold and detached)?

Deckard himself reminded me of Philip Marlowe, he had that world-weary 1930s private dick about him but lacking the one-liners. I found Dick's writing perfectly descriptive, the characters and scenery popped into being as I read. It was often absurd, sometimes funny and ultimately it made me ponder on what life really means. Plus, I was able to believe in this dystopian future despite it actually being set nearly 30 years ago!