It's right there in the title, but I never really got it until I read the thing: it's all about animals.1
Vaguely connecting dream and sheep to counting sheep, I had never really thought much about the sheep in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that animals play a huge and hilarious role in the book Blade Runner was based on.
So here's the situation:
There's a massive nuclear war ("World War Terminus"). The Earth gets blasted with radioactive fallout. Most of the animals die off ("First, strangely, the owls had died.") and the radiation messes with people's genes ("...your husband felt no protection, the TV announcer was saying, in owning and continually wearing an expensive and clumsy radiation-proof lead codpiece, Mrs Klugman?"). Rich people flee to colonies on Mars ("Emigrate or degenerate! The choice is yours!") where an industry of android production is developed ("...duplicates the halcyon days of the pre-Civil War Southern states! Either as body servants or tireless field hands, the custom-tailored humanoid robot...this loyal, trouble-free companion in the greatest, boldest adventure contrived by man in modern history will provide...").
And for the people who remain, the ultimate possession is an animal--real or electric.2
Our bounty-hunter hero, Rick Deckard, is completely obsessed with getting a better animal.3 He used to have a sheep, but it died of tetanus. So now he has an electric sheep. His neighbor has a horse, which is pretty much as good as it gets--if it's real.
You keep an animal on the roof, because nobody lives in American Dream houses anymore--the suburbs are a desolate wasteland. You live in a city in a giant apartment building and you look for one where some people are because there are so few of you left. And then you chat with your neighbor while you feed your animal on the roof.
If you come into some money, like Rick does after 'retiring' three androids and collecting a big bounty, you go to the animal dealership and get a better animal so that you can impress your neighbor.
The thing about rabbits, sir, is that everybody has one. I'd like to see you step up to the goat-class where I feel you belong. Frankly you look more like a goat man to me...The distinct advantage of the goat is that it can be taught to butt anyone who tries to steal it...A goat is loyal. And it has a free, natural soul which no cage can chain up.
All the most important questions of the story are brought up by animals: does it matter if you mistake an electric one for a real one? When does killing a thing matter? Why do we care if a thing is electric or real?
And do you know what's best about this book? You could write a review that never even mentions animals and it could be just as fascinating.4
It's masterstrokes like this that separate great writers like Philip K Dick from the rest of us.

Footnotes

  1. This is one of those books that everybody knows and everybody has read and somehow I just never did. Neither did I see Blade Runner, so it is not surprising that I had some misconceptions.
  2. But the electric ones clearly aren't as good: "Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one."
  3. "Hey, for twenty-five bucks you can buy a full grown mouse." Rick always has the latest copy of Sidney's Animal & Fowl Catalog in his back pocket, ready to whip out and check the going rate of any given animal: because, obviously, it's not about the animals. Until the androids hurt the spider. Then it is.
  4. The world of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is unbelievably dense.
I would be curious if it is in any way reminiscent of Orwell's Animal Farm? In the use of animals to demonstrate human hypothesis
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Didn't feel that way. Animal Farm feels a lot like a set-piece to me. Like a fable or something. It doesn't feel like things just happen because that's the way life shakes out. (But also its been 10+ years since I read it).
Androids did not feel like it was trying to prove a point. It's full of little petty things just like real life--even though the petty things are actually quite fantastic.
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Great review. Dick's one of the true greats, and I'm so glad his reputation has grown in recent years (few SF writers have Library Of America collections around them).
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Dock was an interesting guy. I believe he spoke of having a vision of Mary Magdalene at one point.
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Indeed, somewhere long ago I wrote a blog based on PKD. It was inspired by a conversation I had with an ER Dr. over Martini's long ago in a dark artsy type of bar. I relayed a dream I had to him and he said, that reminds me of a PKD novel. I had never heard of him, or realized who he was at the time.
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Martinis Bar and grill?
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Indeed! Every time a bell rings and angel gets its wings!
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