January 2, 2015
I've seen this book listed on several "must-read" lists, and I always found the title very interesting. It's apparently the inspiration for the movie Blade Runner, but I've never seen it so that doesn't mean much to me. Since I enjoy futuristic dystopian stories, my reading this book was inevitable. It's an earlier work in that genre, published in the '60s. Personally, I was not very impressed with this particular work.
For one thing, I found myself picking holes in the plot. For one thing, just why does this Rosen Corporation or whatever want to create humanoid androids that could honestly pass as human beings? It's established that that's a goal, but why? It's not wrong what the bounty hunters do. The androids that Rick hunts down killed people. So there you go: the major points of the plot fall apart right there. Oh, and why create young "female" androids with unevolved bodies? That's just creepy.
I felt like the whole Mercer thing was heavy-handed; Dick was trying too hard for symbolism I think. Maybe if the plot had focused more on Iran (Rick's depressed wife) or Isidore, or if we'd seen more interactions between the ordinary or even "special" people during the story's 24-hour time span, the whole concept of Mercerism would make more sense.
Overall I though the plot was underdeveloped, but there were some strong points. The whole thing with the animals was the best part of the book (though I have to wonder, if they are so endangered, wouldn't the government step in and keep them in a controlled environment?). See, war and radioactive dust have destroyed Earth's atmosphere, and nearly all non-human life (and a lot of humans as well). To own an animal, any animal, is a status symbol, and considered a patriotic duty or something. Because animals are really fucking expensive, cheap electronic ones, lifelike but just not quite good enough, are popular. Rick and Iran have an electric sheep, and Rick longs for a real animal. That's what really drives him, because what the hell else is he gonna get excited about?
The planet is mostly abandoned as people have fled to other planets, colonies of Earth. Mars is the largest one, I think. But only people of a certain intellect can go. Isidore is apparently "special," labelled a "chickenhead" with an IQ too low to qualify for emigration. He doesn't seem all that dim-witted to me, maybe someone who would have an IEP in school but resourceful enough to live in isolation and hold down a regular job. I mean, if he's not intelligent enough to emigrate, then I would think a lot more people would still be on Earth. His intelligence on the whole seems pretty average.
I found the idea of Buster Friendly to be very interesting. Unsurprisingly, the perpetual TV and radio personality is an android. And, besides providing the kind of mindless chit-chat that brings in ratings for many shows today, it seems to be vying for the attention of the people of the solar system with the whole Mercer thing. Who created the empathy boxes, and who created Buster Friendly and his friendly friends? I could venture a guess that Friendly and the Rosen people are working to help androids eventually take over the Earth...but to what end? They die out after like four years...what's the point? What was the point of this whole book?
So in spite of a few promising elements, I found this book to be half-baked and sloppy. At this point the best early dystopian-themed works that I've read have been the short works of Vonnegut and Bradbury. I certainly wouldn't recommend Fahrenheit 451, as that book is just straight ridiculous...though it, too, have some promising elements, and is also regarded as a classic in this subgenre. Though I found this book to be second-rate, I am left with one burning question: is Ryan Seacrest, tireless television and radio personality, an android?
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