I was looking forward to reading this for a couple of years. Perhaps it was too much anticipation, because I didn’t like the book. I can see how it was a classic in the 70’s and 80’s, but it’s not one I would recommend for people to read today.

I particularly couldn’t get beyond the idea that machines couldn’t be empathetic. Wouldn’t an entity with empathy be better suited for survival (thus that code would be reproduced in newer future androids, ad infinitum)? Empathy for other androids and those humans helping them would decrease their odds of being “retired” via safety in numbers. Empathy for the bounty hunter would help them understand their killers’ mind, thus be able to react ‘more correct’ while taking the distinction tests. IMHO, by the time androids’ bodies would be developed indistinguishable from humans, their mind’s coding would be strongly empathetic.

This fundamental flaw combined with outdated futurist ideas made the novel a disappointing read. I hope Blade Runner takes the good from this classic and updates it to a story more relevant to the near future.

don’t see the movie first. I’ve seen both versions of the movie and now just read the book. Trying to resolve the two in my head is just impossible. The book is very different from the movie, very.

I’ve decieded there is no good or bad guy in this story or maybe everyone is both a good and bad guy. Just like in real life.

Unique. Fast paced. Action packed. Unpredictable.

I never read anything quite like this. It was like an action movie, lots of twist and turns. Not at all perdictable. I wasn’t sure who to root for. It wasn’t always clear to me who was the bad guy. I guess that was the point of the story. To empathize with all of the characters. I’m giving it a Worth It!!

Just finished chapter four. At times it is hard to follow I already have a question on one part of the story that doesn’t make sense to me but that hasn’t turned me off to the book. I’ll just keep reading and hope it becomes clear. Yeah, that’s it. At times his writing is unclear. The way way he will put a sentece together is sometimes odd. I’m thining of one sentence I read yesterday. I understood every word in the sentence but the way they were put together made little sense to me. Still it is a great story so far. Good enough for me to set the other books I’ve been reading aside and just focus on this one. I’ll probably end up recommending it.

Androids? Electric sheep? Empathy? Who wouldn’t be more than a little curious to see how these things fit together to make a story?

wonderful work of imagination and suspenseful, brooding and hard-boiled at the same time.

Actually amazing.

Okay, I finally read the book. The writing is clumsy—I think Dick’s ability is often outstripped by his ideas—but it’s still a captivating and sometimes funny read. It’s cute how the holy trinity of Mercer is manifested in Jesus Christ, Camus’s Sisyphus, and Alfred Jarry.

Dick’s prose sneaks up on you. It is so sparse, and some of the dialogue so seemingly simplistic that I get lulled into a false sense of mindless consumption, and then the implications of the prose hit me. This is an intricately woven novel, hinting at a multitude of meanings, questioning the nature of identity, the roles of technology, nature and religion in our lives, the compulsion to collect, the nature of social status, the ethics of sex, all under the backdrop of grim post-nuke world.

I have had this book sitting on my shelf forever, and now that I’m on a huge sf kick, I’ve started it. Pretty good so far – only on chapter 5. Already much more intricate than the movie, but it’s clearer where some of the mise-en-scene from the movie comes from (e.g. the owl). I look forward to finishing it.

Rating: 3*/5

I loved it, I haven’t read much Philip K Dick but I really should.

It upset me. Which is good.