Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

• Rick Deckard: Deckard is hinted as an android, but the story there never sizzles. What teriffic irony was there to be had (and then snatched away).
• Iran Deckard: Rick Deckard's wife. Stereotypical housewife in many ways, but highly empathic.
• Bob: Random name for a cat
• John R. Isidore: Driver for animal repair company
• Phil Resch: Bounty hunter. Definitely suspicious.
• Luba Luft: Escaped android who became a popular opera singer
• Pris Stratton: Escaped android
• Roy Baty: Escaped android who masterminded the escape from Mars and trip to Earth.
• Irmgard Baty: Escaped android
• Eldon Rosen: Owner of company that makes androids
• Inspector Harry Bryant: Rick Deckard's boss at S.F.P.D. Gives order to destroy androids.
• Wilbur Mercer: Religious figure
• Max Polokov: Escaped android
• Bill Barbour: Rick Deckard's neighbor. Owner of a real horse, while Decker can only afford an electric sheep.
• Dave Holden: Bounty hunter
• Buster Friendly: Nearly omnipresent TV / Radio presenter.
• Amanda Werner: Guest on the Buster Friendly Show
• Mr. Hannibal Sloat: Owner of animal repair company
• Milt Borogrove: Employee of animal repair company
• Ann Marsten: Rick Deckard's secretary
• Horace: Pilsen family pet cat.
• Mrs. Pilsen: Wife of Horace the cat's owner.
• Mrs. Maggie Klugman: A resident of New New York. Is interviewed on television
• Sandor Kadalyi: A Soviet Cop from the W.P.O. that wanted to observe Decker while he hunted the Nexus-6 types.
• Mr. Wade Cortot: A former Hollywood special-effects man
• Ed Smith: A random neighbor in Deckard's building that may own a cat
• Judy: The name of the horse owned by Bill Barbour
• Groucho: The name of the real sheep that Rick owned originally. His electric sheep was designed based on the photos of Groucho
• Inspector Garland: Works at the Mission Street Hall of Justice
• Al Jarry: Al is an actor that was paid to do a series of short films. These films are the basis for a major religion in the book.

Quotes edit see section history

• “There’s the First Law of Kipple…Kipple drives out nonkipple.”

  J.R. Isidore

• “This rehearsal will end, the performance will end, the singers will die, eventually the last score of the music will be destroyed in one way or another; finally the name “Mozart” will vanish, the dust will have won. If not on this planet, then another. We can evade it awhile.”

• “<Deckard> had never thought of this before, the similarity between an electric animal and an andy. The electric animal, he pondered, could be considered a subform of the other, a kind of vastly inferior robot. Or, conversely, the android could be regarded as a highly developed, evolved version of the ersatz animal. Both viewpoints repelled him.”

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• The old man said, “You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.”

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• Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the empathic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.

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• You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at all.

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• “Everything is true,” he said. “Everything anybody has ever thought.”

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• The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are.”

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• “No one can win against kipple,” he said, “except temporarily and maybe in one spot, like in my apartment I’ve sort of created a stasis between the pressure of kipple and nonkipple, for the time being. But eventually I’ll die or go away, and then the kipple will again take over. It’s a universal principle operating throughout the universe; the entire universe is moving toward a final state of total, absolute kippleization.”

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• For Rick Deckard an escaped humanoid robot, which had killed its master, which had been equipped with an intelligence greater than that of many human beings, which had no regard for animals, which possessed no ability to feel empathic joy for another life form’s success or grief at its defeat—that, for him, epitomized The Killers.

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• “Dial 888,” Rick said as the set warmed. “The desire to watch TV, no matter what’s on it.”

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• “But,” Rick interrupted, “for you to have two horses and me none, that violates the whole basic theological and moral structure of Mercerism.”

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• Most androids I’ve known have more vitality and desire to live than my wife. She has nothing to give me.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• San Francisco, CA
• Oregon
• Seattle
• Van Ness Pet Hospital

Organizations edit see section history

• The Rand Corporation: The Rand Corporation has been the major government-financed "think-tank" whose main job was imagining various nuclear war scenarios in order to justify the building of more and more powerful bombs and missiles. http://www.rand.org/

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• android: a robot or synthetic organism designed to look and act human
• kipple: Kippleis useless objects like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers or yesterday’s homeopape. When nobody’s around, kipple reproduces itself.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• artificial intelligence: Describe this theme.
• Intelligence vs. Mental Deficiency
• Empathy
• Real vs. Unreal
• Mind Control
• Decay vs. Regeneration
• The individual vs. the collective: This individual selfishness is seen on a macro level in the Rosen Association's desire to economically survive. A corporation such as the the Rosen Association, Dick says, will do anything for their own survival, including life or cheat and, even, encourage the injury or death of the bounty hunters that seek to destroy their androids. This is Dick's critique of an economic system that abandons all value for human life except for the value that creates the most economic gain.
• Real Religion vs. False Religion: Mercerism is the novel's main religion; a religion in which humanity fuses with the suffering character of Mercer in order to gain a greater sense of collective empathy. Buster Friendly conducts a scathing investigative report on Mercerism and fully exposes the religion as false. Mercer is simply an old drunk actor and the entire scene of Mercer climbing a hill to his death was manufactured in a Hollywood studio.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Philip K. Dick (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Nebula (Finalist, 1968: Best Novel)
• Locus Poll Award (1998: All-Time Best SF Novel before 1990, #51)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3554.I3
• Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Authors, A-Z › ( D ) › Dick, Philip K.
• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Science Fiction › Adventure

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Blade Runner (IMDb)

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