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51.8%ANMag Issue 22 Entertainment
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
By Shrief Fadl, Staff Writer
Beirut, Lebanon − There are a handful of science fiction writers that have managed to expand the genre beyond its commonly perceived boundaries. Amongst Isaac Asimov and Aludous Huxley is Philip K. Dick, whose writing has been so influential that it managed to capture the imagination of so many different generations. One of his most well-known and quite possibly one of his best novels is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This was later made into an iconic film, starring Harrison ford and entitled Blade Runner.
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Dick creates a post apocalyptic dystopian world where most of the earth’s inhabitants, those judged by the government as having genes free of mutation, have migrated to off-world colonies, abandoning the polluted and dilapidated earth. In an effort to motivate people to move to supposed greener pastures, the government has assigned to each family an android to make their transition easier. This is where the main character of the novel comes in, whose job essentially consists of hunting down and killing escaped androids.
Like any good piece of fiction, it is incredibly hard to place Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? under any category without the threat of doing the novel injustice. Dick’s writing skills are such that he manages to create a novel that is entertaining yet still inclusive of a diverse range of topics. One of the most prominent themes of the novel is the ethical responsibility we have towards any artificial intelligence that we have created, and the implications that come with the possibility of these entities evolving into something more human than we would care to imagine.
Another theme that is clearly evident is division within society, classes so to speak, but ones not based on material wealth but rather on the purity of a person’s genes. The way in which Dick presents such an age old theme is, if nothing else, original. He approaches it from a different perspective, one that helps shed light on the seemingly inherent tendency humans have to cause division amongst themselves even if it eventually leads to their ultimate demise.
The way in which Phillip K. Dick incorporates these themes into the novel is seamless. It appears as though Dick simply wrote down a story, one which had already in it themes to begin with. The reason that Dick’s work seems to transcend so many generation gaps is quite simple; his novels tackle ideas and concepts that will forever amaze us from humanity’s future to the creation of artificial intelligence, and such ideas will continue to engage us in one way or another.
Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the realistic characters, especially those that are in fact androids. Dick manages to portray certain innately human characteristics to androids in a way that is not only believable; it is also inconceivable in any other way. Dick’s writing also has a certain flow to it, one that enables him to convey a complex and intricate plot line in a seemingly simple manner. Furthermore, Dick’s style, not only in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, but in his other works as well, is original and prolific, without having a convoluted story, a trait that is quite rare in most fiction.
In summation, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is definitely worth reading if not for the rich characters then for the story line, and if not for that then for the author’s superior writing skills which manage to immerse the reader in a world created with a set number of words and an infinite amount of imagination.