One of the rare cases where the movie is better than the book. Not that the book is bad, because it’s not. There are some really great ideas in this book: the entire Voigt-Kompf subplot is a lot more intricate, the bit about the people who stayed on Earth and the people who left to Mars, the use of animals as status symbols, more connections between the escapees and Deckard. Overall, Blade Runner was better because the narrative was stripped and tightened to emphasize tone, mood, and style, while Dick’s novel sprawled with tons of great ideas. If you like the movie, or sci-fi in general, definitely worth a read. Possibly even a re-read.

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This fundamental flaw combined with outdated futurist ideas made the novel a disappointing read.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.

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.