Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep?

Title: Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep?

Author: Philip K. Dick

ISBN: 978-0345404473

Publisher: Del Rey

Copyright: 1996 (1968)

Genre: Science Fiction

Age Range: 16+

Reader’s Annotation: Rick Deckard tracks down outlaw androids that have stolen human identities on a dilapidated earth.

Plot Summary: Northern California is the bounty district of Dave Holden. Whenever Dave gets a case he doesn’t have time for or doesn’t want, he gives it to Rick Deckard. Rick doesn’t see himself as a bounty hunter or a peace keeper. Dave ends up in the hospital after investigating eight Nexus -6 androids. Two of the eight had been put down, but six remain. Rick takes the assignment. He and his wife were talking about the lack of having an organic pet, one was not genetically manufactured. Deckard owns a malfunctioning genetically engineered black-faced Suffolk ewe being unable to afford an organic one unlike their neighbor. His wife uses a mood device to keep her emotionally stabile.

            Rick travels in his flying car to Seattle to the Rosen Industries plant to administer a bounty hunter "empathy test," that is used to detect an android by asking very human questions. Rick is introduced to Rachael, as the niece of Eldon Rosen the head of the Rosen Association. Rachael hesitates on a typical human question and fails the test. The Rosens explain that Rachael lacks normal empathy due to being raised on a spaceship that was attempting to colonize Proxima. Rachael tries to bribe Deckard with the gift of a real owl, but during the conversation he verifies his finding that she was newest Nexus-6. The Rosen Industries was just trying to discredit the empathy test. Rachael has had human memories implanted in her and does not know she is an android, but this is a Rosen ruse to trade sexual favors for bounty hunter android protection.

            Rick ponder the meaning of humanity, morality and empathy while retiring a malfunctioning opera singer android. He is arrested and taken to the police station where he is accused of being an android. He is rescued by fellow bounty hunter Phil Resch. They figured out that the police station was a fake ran by androids.

            Inbetween Rick’s storyline is the tale of J.R. Isidore. He is an animal repair shop owner who cannot leave earth because of his low I.Q. from a radioactive dust accident. He lives alone in a large apartment building. Pris Stratton, an identical model Nexus-6 as Rachael Rosen, moves into the building. Isadore tries to make friends with her and finds the other five missing Nexus-6 androids. They use Isadore to lure and trap the bounty hunter that is tracking them, Rick. Rick recruits Rachael to help him find them. They find the location of the androids. Rachel seduces Rick into having sex with her. Afterward, Rick confesses love and Rachael rebuffs him. Rick sends her away to Rosen and takes off to see if he can retire the other six androids.

Critical Evaluation: Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep? was nominated for the Nebula award in 1968. It was also number fifty-one in the Locus Poll for All Time Best Science Fiction Novel before 1990. Philip K. Dick is a prolific American writer for science fiction. This story tackles some of the hard questions like what does it take to be human? What is humanity? What is morality? These are all questions that teens ask themselves as they make their way through each day. The metaphor of the sheep reminds teens that they are a special product of their parents. They are not to take that for granted by being part of the popular herd.

Author Information: Philip Kindred Dick (1928 - 1982) or Philip K. Dick was an American writer. Most of his novels, short fiction and essays are written about science fiction. Philip K. Dick’s works were concerned with political and social structures and how they related to the individual’s sense of self and sanity. He often presented dystopias that are dominated by political and business hegemonic organizations. Schizophrenia and drug abuse are often represented as leading to transcendentally abject states. Philip K. Dick used these plot devices to explore his larger intellectual interests of theology and metaphysics. Philip K. Dick considered himself a “fictionalizing philosopher.” His novel The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo Award, and his novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Time magazine declared that Dick’s Ubik was one of the greatest novels written in English since 1923. In 2007, Dick was inducted into The Library of America series. Philip K. Dick was a prolific writer, authoring over one-hundred and twenty pieces of short fiction and forty-four novels. Ten movies have been adapted from his fiction. Most famously, these movies included Blade Runner, Total Recall and A Scanner Darkly. Most of Philip K. Dick’s success came late in life or posthumously, and he spent most of his career in poverty. Source - http://www.egs.edu/library/philip-k-dick/biography/

Curriculum Ties: Philosophy, History

Challenge Issues: Violence; Sex

Booktalk Ideas: Phones: start the talk about the teens’ cell phones. Move into the story by making each phone have a personality and become self actualized and the consequences found in the story.