By Mike Bedard
Copyright slashfilm
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick deserves to be known in its own right outside of Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner.” The book is somehow even bleaker than the film, diving into themes of the importance of empathy much more thoroughly. The plot’s similar to the film where Rick Deckard hunts androids, which are virtually indistinguishable from humans except for lacking empathy. But it’s Rick’s empathy that eventually causes him to see that even androids deserve respect. We’re all dust in the end of the idea, lending credence to the book’s themes of entropy and how everything will eventually turn to Kipple.
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” is one of Dick’s most philosophical works. The idea of androids being more human than humans has bee copped by countless other science-fiction projects. After all, while humans in the book discuss empathy, very few show true empathy. It’s that lack of empathy that has likely created the desolate world the book takes place in. When humans lose their single defining trait, what makes a world worth living in?
