Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Dick, Philip K. . Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968. New York: NAL, 1969. Rpt. as Blade Runner™ (for main title), New York: Dell Rey-Ballantine, 1982. (We examined the 19th printing, 1991.) Produced as a graphic novel in a limited series from BOOM! Studios, 2009.[1] For alternate titles, translations, award(s), and reviews, see Internet Speculative Fiction Database entry at link here.[2]

A man who hunts renegade androids for bounty discovers that he himself is becoming dehumanized by his job.

Note mechanical replicant animals, the "mood organ" for programing (for a relatively brief time) human moods and emotions), and "the empathy box" in the story-within-the story of Wilbur Mercer, for which see Richard Viskovic's critical essay, "The Rise and Fall of Wilbur Mercer." Discussed by Lejla Kucukalic, Philip K. Dick: Canonical Writer of the Digital Age (New York: Routledge, 2009) — itself reviewed by Neil Easterbrook, SFRA Review #289 (Summer 2009): pp. 22-23.[3]

Source for R. Scott's BLADE RUNNER (q.v. under Drama).

Discussed relatively briefly by Kiyoko Magome's in "The Player Piano and Musico-Cybernetic Science Fiction between the 1950s and the 1980s: Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick," who notes that "[...] the image of player pianos in Dick's mood organs becomes much less visible" in Do Androids Dream "but still plays important roles in terms of cybernetic symbolism" in Dick's novels (Magome p. 382).

Updated by RDE, Initial Compiler, 6Feb19, 1Sep19; 15Feb22