Phillip K. Dick

Since his untimely death at age 53, there has been an extraordinary growth of interest in his writings, which during his lifetime were largely ignored by serious mainstream critics and readers. Such is no longer the case, and the novels of Philip K. Dick frequently appear on university curricula devoted to modern American literature. But that is only the beginning of the transformation. Since 1982, when Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (based on Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) made its debut, eight feature films based on Dick's fiction have appeared, the other seven being Total Recall, The Minority Report, Screamers, Impostor, the French film Confessions d'un Barjo (based on Dick's mainstream novel, Confessions of a Crap Artist), Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly and the upcoming Next (April 2007). That's an average of roughly one movie every three years since Dick's passing - a rate of cinematic adaptation exceeded only by Stephen King. And there are other big-money film options currently held by Hollywood studios.

Philip K. Dick has done more than arrive. He has become a looming and illuminating presence not merely in American but in world culture, with his works translated into major European and Asian languages. There is even a bastard adjective - "phildickian "- that makes its way into print now and then to describe the baffling twists and turns of our times. An understanding of the basic facts of Dick's life not only casts light on the themes that predominate in his writings, but also brings to view a fascinating story in its own right.

To learn more about Phillip K. Dick and his work visit www.philipkdick.com.

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San Francisco in 2021 is a sad place to live; World War Terminus has left radioactive dust all over the planet, and most people have emigrated to live on off-world colonies. Those left behind face the chance of losing their right to procreate due to genetic abnormalities. Another threat is the return of rogue androids from the colonies; although the book never explains why androids want to come back to Earth so urgently (unlike the movie, which offers a compelling explanation), something has to be done about their presence. Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter living in San Francisco, and his job is to find any androids on the loose and "retire" them. The book opens with an argument between Deckard and his wife one morning, as they bicker about how they should set their mood that day with their mood organs. The first chapter also has a conversation between Deckard and his neighbour about their respective animals; most animals are extinct, but his neighbour owns a rare Percheron horse. Deckard's own sheep has died recently and he had it replaced by an electric version rather than let on to anyone. With these two items, Dick has already established the pervasive mood of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: reality, appearance, perception, paranoia about all of the above, and the desperate struggle to get by on Earth.

The second chapter establishes the other central character of the book: John Isidore. While Isidore doesn't receive the same attention as Deckard, he is the subject of a number of viewpoint chapters. Isidore is a "special," one of those humans who has been affected mentally and physically by the degenerating environment of Earth. He lives on his own in a deserted conapt, working as best he can at a job as a delivery driver; his workplace, the Van Ness Pet Hospital, poses as a real veterinarian outfit in order to avoid embarrassing the owners of fake animals. This chapter gives some background material on the world of this future, as well as on Mercerism. Mercer is a strange media/spiritual figure, and no one knows his true origin; a device called the empathy box will connect anyone with Mercer if you grab the two handles of it. Mercer as an old man is trying to climb a hill; rocks, thrown at Mercer by shadowy people off to the side of this pseudo-reality, sometimes cause damage in real life to the users of the empathy box. Buster Friendly, introduced later, is a broad satire of the talk show host, and Buster is out to undermine Mercerism in some way, making the practice seem even more important.

Because android technology is very advanced, Deckard's job as a bounty hunter becomes an existential one, a series of decisions about other people's human-ness based on available information. He has only one reliable test: the Voigt-Kampff, which measures involuntary reactions to questions about empathy, the quality that androids lack. Of course, Deckard doesn't always have time to do the test! Dick puts two of his fundamental concerns, reality and ethics, to good use in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in this precise way. In fact, the storyline of escaped androids and bounty hunters at first seems like a clothes hanger to hold much more interesting speculation, but Dick generates most of the uncertainty and dread through the story. Every twist and turn makes Deckard less sure of where he stands and what he should do next. In the meantime, some of the androids that he is hunting have found shelter with Isidore, taking advantage of Isidore's confusion about real and artificial lifeforms.

The heart of the novel is perhaps Mercerism. The empathy box brings you to oneness with Wilbur Mercer, but you can do nothing for Mercer, except to feel empathy for his plight, and walk with him in his path. The androids are damned because they feel no empathy. This is made abundantly clear in the brilliant scene where the remaining three androids mutilate a spider while listening to Buster Friendly's exposé of Mercer. "Mercerism is a swindle!" (210) proclaims Friendly, and the androids agree, as they snip the legs from the spider's body, one by one. Later, Mercer incarnate visits Deckard, to help him kill the androids. Does this mean that Deckard's mission becomes a religious crusade? Perhaps, but if he feels for the androids he kills, then he is human. But this makes him less trustworthy for the job. Lack of empathy damns, but having the moral dimension of empathy does not mean your actions are correct either: "As Mercer said, I am required to do wrong. Everything I've done has been wrong from the start" (225-226). The question of non-interference versus compassion that dominates much discussion in science fiction (such as Star Trek's Prime Directive or the similar issues in Tepper's Raising the Stones) seems crude in comparison to this distinction, and its qualifications. The Prime Directive satisfies the human need to be assured that our actions are correct. Dick shows us damnation, and then shows us that skirting a course clear of it is never easy. And not always possible.

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