Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a Brilliant Sf Novel That Became the Source of the Motion Picture Blade Runner

ON FOR BLADE RUNNER DROIDS A KIND OF PULP-FICTION Kafka A PROPHET I —Eric P. Nash Tnt: New York Times PHILIP K. DICK Introduction by Roger Zelazny Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 https://archive.org/details/androidsdreamOOdick So that’s how the largest manufacturer of androids operates, Rick said to himself. Devious, and in a manner he had never encountered before. A weird and convoluted new personality type; no wonder law enforcement agencies were having trouble with the Nexus-6. The Nexus-6. He had now come up against it. Rachael, he realized; she must be a Nexus-6, I’m seeing one of them for the first time. And they damn near did it; they came awfully close to undermining the Voight-Kampff scale, the only method we have for detecting them. The Rosen Association does a good job—makes a good try, anyhow—at protecting its products. And I have to face six more of them, he reflected. Before I’m finished. He would earn the bounty money. Every cent. Assuming he made it through alive . “If the ’70s and ’80s . belonged to William Burroughs, the millennium belongs to Philip K. Dick.” —Erik Davis Details BOOKS BY PHILIP K. DICK AVAILABLE FROM VINTAGE BOOKS Confessions of a Crap Artist The Divine Invasion Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said Galactic Pot-Healer The Game-Players of Titan The Man in the High Castle Martian Time-Slip A Maze of Death Now Wait for Last Year A Scanner Darkly The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch The Transmigration of Timothy Archer Ubik VALIS We Can Build You The World Jones Made D O A N D R O 1 D S D R E A M O E E L E C T R 1 C S H E E P ? PHILIP K. DICK l»51 REY A DEL REY® BOOK BALLANTINE BOOKS NEW YORK PUBLISHER’S NOTE: In 1968, Philip K. Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a brilliant sf novel that became the source of the motion picture Blade Runner. Though the novel’s characters and backgrounds differ in some respects from those of the film, read¬ ers who enjoy the latter will discover an added dimension of encoun¬ tering the original work. Del Rey® Books is pleased to return this classic novel to print. A Del Rey® Book Published by The Random House Publishing Group Copyright © 1968 by Philip K. Dick Introduction copyright © 1975 by Roger Zelazny First published in Philip K Dick: Electric Shepherd by Norstrilia Press All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Doubleday and Company, Inc. in 1968. Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc. www.delreybooks.com Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-96117 ISBN 0-345-40447-5 Cover design by David Stevenson Cover illustration by Bruce Jensen Manufactured in the United States of America First Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition: June 1996 19 18 17 TO TIM AND SERENA POWERS, MY DEAREST FRIENDS PHILIP K. DICK AN INTRODUCTION BY ROGER ZELAZNY (1) Once there was a man who repaired trash compactors because that was what he loved doing more than anything else in the world— (2) Once there was a man who repaired trash compactors in a soci¬ ety short on building materials, where properly compacted trash could be used as an architectural base— (3) Once there was a man who hated trash compactors but re¬ paired them for a living and to keep his manic wife in tranquilisers so that he did not have to spend so much time with his mistress, who was less fun now that she had converted to the new religion— (4) Once there was a man who, in purposely misassembling the trash compactors he hated, produced a machine which— It is no good. 1 can’t do it. I can play the Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Trash Compactor Repairman Game, but I cannot turn it into a story at once puzzling, poignant, grotesque, philosophical, satirical, and fun. There is a very special way of doing this and the first step in its mastery involves being Philip K. Dick. Brian Aldiss has called him “one of the masters of present-day dis¬ contents,” a thing readily apparent in much of his work. But one of the great fascinations his work holds for me is the effects achieved when he dumps these discontents into that special machine in his head and turns on the current. It is not simply that I consider it a form of aes¬ thetic cheating to compare one writer with another, but I cannot think of another writer with whom to compare Philip Dick. Aldiss suggests Pirandello, which is not bad for the one small aspect of reality shuf¬ fling. But Pirandello’s was basically a destructive machine. It was a triumph of technique over convention, possessed of but one basic message no matter what was fed into the chopper. Phihp Dick’s is a vii viii INTRODUCTION far more complicated program. His management of a story takes you; from here to there in a God-knows-how, seemingly haphazard fash- j ion, which, upon reflection, follows a logical line of development—but only on reflection. While you are trapped within the spell of its telling, you are in no better position than one of its invariably overwhelmed characters when it comes to seeing what wQl happen next. These characters are often victims, prisoners, manipulated men and women. It is generally doubtful whether they will leave the world with less evil in it than they found there. But you never know. They try. They are usually at bat in the last half of the ninth inning with the tying run on base, two men out, two strikes and three balls riding, with the possibility of the game being called on account of rain at any second. But then, what is rain? Or a ballpark? The worlds through which Philip Dick’s characters move are sub¬ ject to cancellation or revision without notice. Reality is approxi¬ mately as dependable as a politician’s promise. Whether it is a drug, a time-warp, a machine, or an alien entity responsible for the bewil¬ dering shifting of situations about his people, the result is the same: Reality, of the capital “R” variety, has become as relative a thing as the dryness of our respective Martinis. Yet the struggle goes on, the fight continues. Against what? Ultimately, Powers, Principalities, Thrones, and Dominations, often contained in hosts who are them-1 selves victims, prisoners, manipulated men and women. i All of which sounds like grimly serious fare. Wrong. Strike the “grimly,” add a comma and the following: but one of the marks ofi Philip Dick’s mastery lies in the tone of his work. He is possessed of a j sense of humour for which I am unable to locate an appropriate ad-1 jective. Wry, grotesque, slapstick, satirical, ironic . None of them quite fits to the point of generality, though all may be found without looking too far. His characters take pratfalls at the most serious mo¬ ments; pathetic irony may invade the most comic scene. It is a rare and estimable quality to direct such a show successfully. Who else in this cockeyed universe could design a society thriving on the bridge-playing abilities of its leaders, with the delightful rule that a husband and wife team may undergo instant divorce at the I end of a bad game? Or throw in a car that nags its owner for oil ) changes, tuneups, and new tires? 1 see you’ve already guessed. The book is The Game-Players of Titan. —Or a story which opens with a i I psychoanalyst diagnosing his patient as a typical paranoid for believ- I ing he is being followed, has his telephone tapped and that everyone hates him—until the analyst realises who the man is, understands I that he probably is under surveillance and is suddenly overwhelmed i with hatred for him. The patient is Doctor Bloodmoney, in the book of the same name, a kaleidoscopically brilliant piece of story-telling. Three of my other personal favorites are: Uhik—which Larry Ashmead at Doubleday thrust into my hands one I afternoon with excitement and a smile, telling me 1 had to read it im- I mediately. 1 began it on the train back to Baltimore that evening and 1; j could have wound up in Cincinnati or Kansas City had it not been for j a conductor who might have understudied Jerome Hines. \Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?^ a book I read at a more sta- I tionary single sitting, and whose title occasionally runs through my j head to the tune of “Greensleeves.” 1 am not certain why. The tune, 1 I mean. The single sitting part becomes self-explanatory on opening I j the book. Galactic Pot-Healer—When the encyclopedia defines a particular creature as the dominant life-form on a certain planet and then points out that the species only consists of one member . This one is almost whimsical. But not quite. A Philip Dick book can never be categorised that neatly. But this one is a bit special in the focussing ! of its humours (Elizabethan usage) and in the almost pastoral quality I of certain sections.

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