I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. It's unconvential, and while it didn't exactly blow my mind, it did leave me perplexed in a way that I I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. It's unconvential, and while it didn't exactly blow my mind, it did leave me perplexed in a way that I kind of enjoy.
The story covers approximately 24 hours in the life if Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter whose job it is to "retire" rogue androids who have illegally immigrated from Mars colonies to Earth. And Earth is a wasteland that trudges along with a grim perserverence, in a very mid-century gothic sort of way. In this post-apocolyptic world, civilization has continued like a depressed, wheezing pick-up truck that just keeps going. Fertility is threatened by radioactive dust, and entire suburbs are abandoned due to a meager population. However, even in this condition there are flying cars, mood control devices, mass-hallucination machines, and of course androids.
There is also a caste system based on mental health and intelligence, which factors heavily in the main ideas of the book. Ancillary to that is the continued motif of animals, both organic and electric (thus the title). In this world, most animals are exinct and the ones which are left are held as prized possessions, cared for and loved with utmost devotion. It is a status symbol and social expectation to care for at least one animal. This animal stewardship painfully highlights the near-death of the world, while cultivating empathy for other living beings.
And that, really, is the main jist of the book. It is an exploration of empathy and kinds of minds - the question of what is empathy, who deserves empathy, and whether empathy is essential to life. The crux is that androids cannot experience empathy - but even in their sociopathy they have some spark that inches towards humanity. Either that, or it's a trick of programming. Who can know? Rick Deckard is forced to try and find out.
A short review in Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ doesn't due this book justice, it really deserves and long form exploration of its themes and topics which I can only begin to cover here. I enjoyed and would recommend it to anyone who likes topics pertaining to empathy, artificial intelligence, and projections of post-apocolyptic future worlds....more
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