Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

The basis for the Blade Runner movie. I saw the first movie ages ago and the second movie not so long ago, but hadn't read the book. One thing I missed from the book was the atmosphere of the movies. PKD says very little about the visual state of the world, being content to say nuclear war and fallout has seen people move to Mars and lots of animals go extinct. Radioactive dust is everywhere but we are left to ourselves to put together an inner image. The movies are both visual masterpieces, as if a minor character has been elevated to star status. The Android replicant characters are also much more developed in the movie. In the book Deckard mostly just turns up and shoots them, with only one of them getting under his skin, and she's not even on his target list. Baty's hostility and the 'tears in rain' piece are movie only.

For me the movie fell into what my son and I call, the 'needs more exploding helicopters' genre and comes out at the head of the pack. The book stands in the line of PKD's exploration of what it means to be a thinking human vs an AI. The movie invents the android's goal of extending their life span to that of humans. The book emphasises the contest for the popular mind between the religion of Mercerism and the media saturation by an AI TV personality named Buster Friendly.

Finally, concerning the title. In the book Deckard and his wife have an electric sheep. Living animals are too expensive. Ridley Scott thought the title was too cumbersome for a movie and an associate said 'I've just read this dystopian book called Blade Runner about a guy smuggling medical supplies to poor people. That title sounds pretty good." And so we have a movie based on one book and named after a different book entirely. :)

I've read the book Blade Runner and will put up a review.