Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Blade Runner is probably my favourite film ever. It's pretty much perfect. I love that it blends film noir with sci fi. I love the atmosphere, the themes, the visuals. I love the acting and obviously that music. I love that everything about it is understated and subdued, that there are no "answers". And who could forget that ending monologue. OK I think I've bummed it enough. Seriously, though, its an astonishing artistic achievement. But for some reason (probably because I hate reading) I never felt compelled to read the book it is based on.

Well I finally finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the third Dick book in my collection, and I gotta say, it was fucking sick. I won't bother comparing it to the film. There are a lot of similarities, and a lot of differences. The biggest one is the inclusion of a religion called Mercerism in the book, and the whole post-apocalyptic lifestyle is described in more detail than it is in the film, such as Animal-ownership, 'Kipple' (junk) and Empathy-boxes. There are a few other minor ones, like Roy having a wife, JF Sebastian becoms JR Isidore, and a few more.

But what really matters is the emotional impact both film and book have on me. They both perfectly convey that sense of... I can't even describe it. It's like despair, decay, confusion, emptiness, pointlessness, absurdity, inhumanity, all rolled up into one.


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 and the dust will have won. If not on this planet then another. We can evade it awhile. As the andys can evade me and exist a finite stretch longer. But I get them or some other bounty hunter gets them. In a way, he realized, I’m part of the form destroying process of entropy. The Rosen Association makes and I unmake. Or anyhow so it must seem to them.

Vibes