Storytelling Revived: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

By Dan Birlew | Posted March 9, 2010 in Book Reviews | 1 Comment »

Novel Summary

Compared to its source novel, Blade Runner is a cheap and hollow imitation, a dumbed-down footnote, bordering on insincere parody. That’s not to say I don’t like the movie, because I do. I actually own the Director’s Cut DVD where Ridley Scott tried to save some face by removing Harrison Ford’s hackneyed voice-over narration and re-adding a dream sequence that may indicate Deckard is an android. I appreciate that Ridley maintained the book’s theme that all life has equal value, even artificial intelligence. But other than that, the film experience falls way short of the novel.

In the book for instance, Rick Deckard is bald and severely intelligent; quite different from Harrison Ford’s character. And he has a bi-polar, unhappy wife named Iran who resents him and what he does for a living. Rick doesn’t get pulled out of retirement to fill in for Dave Holden, he is Holden’s underpaid, understudy-in-waiting who picks up his superior’s scraps. He’s actually eager for the chance to hunt down and “retire” six (not four) brand-new Nexus-6 androids. But first he has to fly in his car from San Francisco (not Los Angeles) up to the Rosen Association (not the Tyrell Corporation) headquarters in Seattle to test the Voight-Kampff Scale, a reaction timer machine that determines whether a person is likely to be an android based on their inability to express empathy.

The chapter where Deckard interviews Rachael Rosen is quite similar to the scene in the film, even down to identical dialog. Where the book differs is that Rachael and her “uncle” at first do not admit to Deckard that she is an android, thereby making him think that his Voight-Kampff machinery won’t help him against the Nexus-6 andys he must face. They then attempt to bribe Deckard by giving him an owl, a rare species thought extinct in the post-nuclear holocaust world. But when Rachael slips up, Deckard decides to test her again and unravels their plans to protect their corporate products. The fact that she is an android is no shock to Rachael, who seems to have already played this game several times with several bounty hunters like Deckard.

Leaving the Rosens’, Deckard is contacted by Chief Bryant who tells him to stay put and wait for a Russian police officer to arrive and accompany him in an observational capacity. When the Russian cop gets in the car, Deckard realizes he’s one of the androids he’s hunting. Deckard shoots and kills him.

Deckard then proceeds to the opera house to apply the Voight-Kampff to famous singer Luba Luft. But Luba uses the questions from the test to accuse Deckard of being a pervert, and calls the cops. Deckard finds it all standard procedure, but when the cop arrives he doesn’t recognize Deckard or his credentials and insists that the precinct where Deckard works is an abandoned building. There follows a couple chapters where Deckard is taken to an alternate police precinct where no one knows him, and we begin to question whether Deckard isn’t a bounty hunter at all but is completely delusional.

After meeting a highly desensitized bounty hunter named Phil Resch, Deckard realizes that Chief Garland of this fake police precinct is one of the androids he’s hunting. Resch figures it out too, kills the android, and helps Deckard escape. The two then hunt down and kill opera singer Luba Luft.

In the aftermath of Luba, Deckard realizes that he’s developed a condition terminal to his profession: empathy for female androids. He figures he won’t be able to kill them anymore. Collecting his bounty from the first three kills, he tries to make himself feel better with an impulse purchase: A live goat. The sale contract puts him in greater debt than he can hope to earn even if he kills the remaining three androids, yet he does it anyway. Perhaps there is some subconscious desire on Deckard’s part to chain himself to his work.

Deckard goes home to celebrate with his bi-polar wife, who is at first perplexed but then elated by the animal purchase. But Bryant calls him back into the field with a tip on the location of the remaining three androids. Still shaken by Luba, Deckard calls up Rachael Rosen and has her meet him at a dirty hotel. Working on advice from Phil Resch, Deckard has sex with Rachael in an attempt to rid himself of his empathy for her, thereby enabling himself to kill Pris Stratton and Irmgard Baty–the two females of the remaining androids. He follows Bryant’s tip to a conapt building way out in the boondocks, where the remaining three androids are hiding with J.R. Isidore (renamed “J.F. Sebastian” in Blade Runner).

Isidore is a “special,” also referred to by the derogatory name “chickenhead;” someone who’s been affected by nuclear fallout and is not allowed to emigrate to Mars. Much like an android his life has been determined by a test he failed: an I.Q. test. Isidore lives alone in his empty conapt building on the edge of the city where few remain. He fights loneliness by using his empathy box to merge with Wilbur Mercer, and thereby merge with everyone else who is watching Mercer climb uphill at the same time. But one day he hears the sound of a television in another suite. Tracking down the noise, he knocks on the apartment door and introduces himself to the new female occupant. At first she identifies herself as Rachael Rosen, but then calls herself Pris Stratton. Isidore is relieved that Pris doesn’t seem to notice that he’s a special.

Following a hard day working for a veterinarian of artificial animals, Isidore returns to the building and visits Pris only to find she has two visitors: the married couple Irmgard and Roy Baty. After seeing the two of them interact with Pris, he realizes that they’re all androids. But he doesn’t mind, since they don’t ostracize him for being a special. He offers to let Pris move in with him so that he can protect her. Though he listens to the androids’ conversation, he doesn’t seem to realize nor care that the androids are being quite cruel in the way they speak to him and that they plan to use him as a meat shield against the bounty hunter.

As Isidore brings Pris’s things up to his apartment, he finds a real spider on the stairs. Capturing it and taking up to the apartment, he gives it to Pris. With childlike cruelty she begins cutting the spider’s legs off, one at a time. Meanwhile an important announcement comes over the television on a show called “Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends” which airs 23 hours a day, and neither the host or any of the guest ever age. The androids reveal that this is because Buster Friendly and all his guests are androids. Buster Friendly reveals that Wilbur Mercer and Mercerism is a fraud, and his never-ending ascent was actually filmed on an old Hollywood lot. The androids are overjoyed at the news, since they do not possess the empathy to merge with Mercer. For them, this is like putting the humans in their place. The news of the fraud plus Pris cutting the legs off the spider frightens Isidore. He drowns the tortured spider to be humane and then goes to his empathy box. There, Wilbur Mercer admits to Isidore that he is a fraud, but that the experience of shared empathy is no less valid. To prove this he gives Isidore the spider, now fully restored with all its legs.

Just then an alarm rigged in the building sounds. The androids hide and send Isidore out to confront the bounty hunter. Seeing Isidore’s spider, Deckard encourages him to keep it safe and stay downstairs while he goes up to kill the androids. When confronting Pris, Deckard at first believes it is Rachael attacking him. However, a surprise physical manifestation of Mercer snaps him out of it, and he retires her and the other two androids successfully.

Mentally drained, Deckard returns home where Iran informs him that Rachael Rosen killed his newly-purchased goat. Deckard accepts that she wanted revenge because she wasn’t able to stop him from killing the other androids, especially one that looked just like her. Though glad that Rachael didn’t hurt Iran, he drives his hovercar to the vast wasteland of Oregon where nothing is supposed to live. There he tries to think about what he did, and goes for a walk. He soon finds himself in a situation identical to that experienced while merging with Mercer, and is even hit by a rock that flies out of nowhere. This leads to an epiphany that if he didn’t kill the androids, another bounty hunter would.

Before heading back to San Francisco Deckard finds a toad on the ground. Toads are thought to be extinct, and are also Mercer’s favorite animal and therefore revered. He takes the toad home and shows it to Iran, who promptly discovers that the toad is artificial. Deflated, Rick nonetheless says they’ll keep it and heads off to bed. Having retired six Nexus-6 androids he is now the most famous bounty hunter. He falls asleep immediately. Meanwhile Iran calls an animal store and orders a pound of electric flies for the artificial toad to eat.

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Tags: Book Reviews, Philip K. Dick, Science Fiction

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