[Author’s note: I came to this book like most 80’s kids via the movie “Blade Runner”. At first I didn’t like it as it veered away from the traditional sci-fi books that I knew. No shoot’em ups, no bug-eyed monsters, or gee whiz technologies. Instead the book is more of a meditation of what it means to be human and where we draw the line between man and machine. As always spoilers from here after so stop reading now if you don’t want to know.]
“Androids“, as I will henceforth refer to the novel, is one of the more seminal novels in science fiction. At the time science fiction was transitioning away from simplistic tales speculating on futuristic technologies and outer space and moving more towards exploring the social impact of new technologies and using the science fiction motif to explore contemporary social issues.
Even as a child Phillip K. Dick, the author, was always interested in metaphysical and existential themes. He wanted to explore through his writings how we divide up in our minds what is real and what is fake and how do we know the difference.
In Androids this constitutes the central theme of the novel. The book is set on a post apocalyptic Earth. Most of the planet has been ravaged by nuclear war. The majority of all animals have died out and the few humans remaining on Earth have genetic abnormalities due to the high radiation. Most of the healthy human population has already left the planet for space colonies.
In order to help the human colonists the government provides humanoid androids to work as manual labor in the colonies. In essence these are artificial slave laborers.
The androids are physically indistinguishable from humans. The difference lies in that unlike humans the androids have no empathic response. Policemen use an empathic test on suspected androids to distinguish them from real humans. From time to time some androids “malfunction” and run away from their owners and return to Earth to escape their servile life.
The story centers around Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who specializes in hunting down androids. He has been charged with hunting down six androids that severely wounded another bounty hunter and are in northern California. He at first doesn’t want the case but the lure of money draws him in. His wife is terminally depressed and Deckard could use the reward money to buy himself a real organic pet, a true luxury in a world where most animals are robotic.
Deckard travels to Seattle to interview the creator of the androids, Eldon Rosen. Eldon suggests that Deckard administer an empathic test on a girl called Rachel. Rachel fails the empathy test but Eldon says that this is because Rachel was raised in a space ship away from other humans and that his empathic test is therefore unreliable. Deckard talks to Rachel more and realizes that Rachel is in fact an android but doesn’t know it. Eldon has been using Rachel to distract bounty hunters from finding runaway androids by engaging them in sexual relationships.
In another part of town a badly mutated human called JR Isidore befriends a girl called Pris. Isidore lives alone in a giant empty highrise building and has no friends. The arrival of Pris gives Isidore his first friend in many years. Pris is in fact an android. She and her friends try to get Isidore to help them set up a trap for bounty hunters that will come to kill them.
Deckard leaves Rachel to find an android posing as an opera singer. During the chase he begins to form the opinion that he is not just destroying faulty equipment but possibly committing murder by retiring these androids. Deckard is arrested by the local police along with another bounty hunter called Resch. The police charge that they are androids. Deckard and Resch discover that the entire police station is in fact manned by androids and escape.
Deckard begins in earnest to hunt down and kill the androids. He chases the last of them down to Isidore’s building and kills the last ones. Isidore has a mental breakdown as he sees the last of his friends die. Deckard gets his bounty and orders his organic pet, a goat. When he arrives home his wife tells him that Rachel came by and killed the goat.
At the end of the story Deckard drives a car to Oregon. Along the way he finds a toad which he thinks is real but he discovers that it is in fact an android. He doesn’t seem to mind.
The story itself is an exploration of what it means to be human and whether we are defined more by our biology or by the way that we interact with the world.
In the story we have examples of artificial beings that yearn to be human and do anything and everything to pose as the objects of their desire but can’t quite make the leap. On the other hand we have humans like the bounty hunter Resch that show no remorse or empathy and kill almost automatically. The obvious question to the reader is “who in fact is more human? the android or the man?”
The subsequent movie, Blade Runner, itself became a masterpiece of cinema. The movie altered and expanded the premise of the book but I feel it added some new dimensions to the story. Among these is the speculation that Deckard really was an android but didn’t know it. The director of the movie, Ridley Scott, opined that Deckard was an android.
I know that I’ve posted the link below in another blog post but it really is one of my favorite cinema scenes ever. This cut is slightly different in that it adds some narration at the end which I think adds quite a lot to the movie and I urge you to watch it all.
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