Now this novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, served as the basis for the film Blade Runner and then used many elements and themes for the film Blade Runner 2049. There were 3 novels that were written as sequels to the original Blade Runner movie. Not so much this novel… But! They still blend nicely together as a series.
Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human (1995)
Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night (1996)
Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon (2000)
These official and authorized sequels were written by Dick’s friend K. W. Jeter. They continue the story of Rick Deckard and attempt to reconcile many of the differences between the novel and the 1982 film. Now there is a Blade Runner novel out there is based off the movie and it actually fills in more of the blanks and give some characters more back story.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is a rather easy and fast read. I pretty much finished it in one day. Specially if you seen the movie you can fill in what’s going to happen next. But there are some different events and characters within this book. So I wouldn’t skip over anything. I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves cyberpunk.
Couple of years after the publication of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip spoke about man’s animate creations in a 1972 famous speech:
“The Android and the Human”:
Our environment and I mean our man-made world of machines, artificial constructs, computers, electronic systems, interlinking homeostatic components all of this is in fact beginning more and more to possess what the earnest psychologists fear the primitive sees in his environment: animation. In a very real sense our environment is becoming alive, or at least quasi-alive, and in ways specifically and fundamentally analogous to ourselves…Rather than learning about ourselves by studying our constructs, perhaps we should make the attempt to comprehend what our constructs are up to by looking into what we ourselves are up to.
What is interesting to me is that the android antagonists are more human than the actual human protagonist. Almost a mirror held to human action, contrasted with a culture losing its own humanity or identity. But I will dive more into that when I get the Blade Runner movie post. Don’t want to repeat myself to much hahaha.
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