January '10 Reading: Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

[Virgil]

I started last night in bed, but I must have been so tired that I can't recall a single thing from the five pages I read.

[kitkat203]

Just picked up my copy from the library. I couldn't wait to start reading so grabbed a quick coffee in the library cafe....4 pages and I'm already hooked. I have previously read The Man in the High Castle which was tough going but satisfying. I'm hoping for an equally challenging read with Androids. Blade Runner was part of the school curriculum when I was younger and I remember feeling an uneasy sympathy with the replicants. As always I'm sure the book will deliver an even more intense experience.

[optimisticnad]

How-d-do dfloyd?

If the book turns out to be an allegory about what it is to be human, the title may be (as you said) a modified version of counting sheep. Whereas any android could count sheep, only a human has the ability to dream.

I liked this description of Isidore early on in the book:



By the way, I’m pretty sure I have friends who couldn’t pass the minimum mental faculties test or the empathy test.

They need to do the test!

Just picked up my copy from the library. I couldn't wait to start reading so grabbed a quick coffee in the library cafe....4 pages and I'm already hooked. I have previously read The Man in the High Castle which was tough going but satisfying. I'm hoping for an equally challenging read with Androids. Blade Runner was part of the school curriculum when I was younger and I remember feeling an uneasy sympathy with the replicants. As always I'm sure the book will deliver an even more intense experience.

Yep, same, part of the curriculum and the movie wanted you to feel sympathy with the androids - and how could not??? I mean come on, the ending, hanging of a roof, all wet, dying slowly, dove - they really went all out!

However, I think in the book you sympathise less? Or at least I did, I felt 'bad' for them I guess but not as much as I did in the movie, wonder what Dick was trying to achieve there, turn it back on us? But in the book aren't the androids....rather 'flat'? In the movie they have life.

I started last night in bed, but I must have been so tired that I can't recall a single thing from the five pages I read.

How do you know you started it then? COuld have dreamt it alll.....

[Virgil]

How do you know you started it then? COuld have dreamt it alll.....

I'm not brain dead. I remember picking up the book and going through the motions of reading. I remember stopping at page five and saying to myself, at least I read five pages. Now what was in those five pages, I couldn't tell you.

[Sancho]

Page 126:

The elevator arrived; several police-like nondescript men and women disemelevatored, clacked off across the lobby on their several errands. They paid no attention to Rick or Phil Resch.

That one cracked me up. I’m planning on using “disemelevatored” in a sentence at work tomorrow.

[Scheherazade]

Ack... I just finished Blankets and started My Antonia so hoping to start on this this weekend...

Sancho> I wouldn't even know how to pronounce that!

[dfloyd]

my next door neighbor in my apartment building stopped over. He said he wanted to give me the Boneli test to see if I was an android. If I was one, he said, he didn't want to live next to me. I told him we had equal housing laws now. We talked some more, then he gave me the Boneli test; we talked some more. He said he was glad I passed the test; he was relieved about not having an android as a neighbor. We talked some more, then he turned to go. He wasn't aware that I had given him the empathy test, and he was the android. As he went out my door, I fired at his head with my laser tube. His head split in two as he slumped to the floor of the hallway. I closed the door and went to bed. When I went out my door in the morning, apartment dwellers were steping over the corpse of the retired android. I went over to his apartment. The door was unlocked so I went in. I wanted to get his pet: an alligator. Lucky for me it was a false pet.

[Sancho]

Ha! Keep hanging onto those handles, dfloyd.

Ta-da. Finished.

That book had more twists and turns than a Springer Spaniel’s gastrointestinal tract. And, speaking of which, I’ve got one of those in my house right now (a real one) who needs to go outside of my house right now and take care of his gastrointestinal tract.

That, quite possibly, falls into the too-much-information category. Sorry.

[applepie]

That book had more twists and turns than a Springer Spaniel’s gastrointestinal tract. And, speaking of which, I’ve got one of those in my house right now (a real one) who needs to go outside of my house right now and take care of his gastrointestinal tract.

For more than one reason.

I'm nearly finished, and I was hard pressed to put it down last night. I finally stopped at midnight knowing that I had work today, and I'll need all my brain power for that. I've enjoyed all of the twists and turns, and I am constantly surprised by the characters that I'm feeling sympathy for. Oh well, I don't want to post any spoilers yet, so I suppose it is back to work

[papayahed]

That one cracked me up. I’m planning on using “disemelevatored” in a sentence at work tomorrow.

I know, right? It's one of my new favorite words.

[Scheherazade]

I should stop the reading the posts in this thread until I start reading the book.

I am reading My Antonia at the moment and last night I dreamt I was in the Prairies... with some androids for company!

[Virgil]

I should stop the reading the posts in this thread until I start reading the book.

I am reading My Antonia at the moment and last night I dreamt I was in the Prairies... with some androids for company!

Well, you can dream of real sheep on the praries and not these battery operated kind.

[Jazz_]

Just started - enjoying it so much I can't stop

[dfloyd]

to prove I wasn't an android. The guy who gave me the test; however, was an android and I had to retire him. Tonight it's even worse. I found out I was a Special and my girlfriend moved out. She said she wasn't living with no Chickenhead!

[applepie]

I finished this last night I loved the intensity of the book. It was fast paced and kept my emotions sort of rolling throughout the tale right up to the end. Anyhow, I'll post more detailed thoughts later maybe after more people have finished. I would prefer not to ruin it for anyone else.