The return of Dick

Four Novels of the 1960s
Philip K. Dick

Welcome to Part Two of Philip K. Dick, featuring Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ubik. As I warned in my last post, there is far more to them; mere summary simply does not suffice. It is impossible to explain every aspect of these novels, and there is much that is interesting that I cannot mention here. If you’re curious, you’ll simply have to go read them for yourself.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the third novel in this collection, and I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it based on the few minutes of Blade Runner I’ve glimpsed over the years. I needn’t have worried. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? follows Rick Deckard, an android bounty hunter, as he takes down robots who have illegally landed on Earth. Androids are legal in space colonies, where they serve as servants for each emigrant family; but on Earth, which has been partially destroyed by fallout from a nuclear war, they must be put down. Few people remain on Earth; those who do choose to remain for financial or emotional reasons, or are forced by the government to stay because they have been too badly mutated by the fallout (those unfortunates are labeled “chickenheads” due to their diminished intelligence).

alrighty then

Androids often choose certain death on Earth (versus stability in the colonies) in order to, of course, experience freedom. Although appearing identical to humans, there are certain tests (involving emotion and empathy) which can prove the presence of an android. I could go on (and on) but needless to say, Dick uses this situation to pose a question that has become more relevant today than when it was written forty years ago: What is human? Are androids human if they are able to feel emotion? And if so, do they have the same basic right to life that humans enjoy? What about when people cannot feel emotion? Does that make them less-than-human? To whom does the right to freedom belong?

In case you were wondering, the title refers to the desire for animals that each person on Earth feels: nuclear war has eradicated many forms of life; all animals have become endangered, and many are outright extinct. Owning an animal has become one’s duty to society; those who do not own animals are frowned upon. Unfortunately it is difficult to keep animals alive in such an environment, so one might purchase a robotic (or “electric”) animal to keep up appearances. Ironically, many people, including Deckard, love these robotic animals despite feeling an aversion to their more human counterparts.

Like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ubik also has you questioning what is real, but in an entirely different way than every other novel in this collection. It started off slowly, but once I finally got into it, I couldn’t put it down. It centers on a group of people with psychic talents who work for a “prudence organization,” a company (owned by Glen Runciter) whose employees block the psychic powers of others. Runciter’s enemy is Ray Hollis, who has his own group of psychics.

Sidenote: Runciter runs the company in part by seeking the advice of his wife, Ella, who died years ago. It is possible for the dead to remain for a period of several years in a state of “half-life” in cryogenic suspension before dying entirely. A person in cryogenic suspension is able to communicate with loved ones who frequent the moratoriums that store the deceased.

Back to the plot. Runciter’s company is hired by a wealthy businessman to counteract a psychic infringing on his business. Runciter takes several of his best psychics to attend to the problem. Unfortunately, it’s a trap. A bomb explosion kills Runciter without harming the others, who rush back to Earth to place him in cryogenic suspension.

So Runciter is dead and the rest are alive. Or, wait: is it the reverse? Nothing is as it seems in Dick’s worlds, and Ubik is no different. Soon the remaining psychics experience shifts in reality, regressing to earlier times. They discover fresh milk that has already soured, money in their pockets which bears the face of Glen Runciter. Then, one by one, the psychics start to die. Are these phenomena the result of the explosion? The result of the talents of Pat Conley (a psychic with a new anti-psi talent: the ability to change the past)? Or something else entirely? And what the hell is this Ubik we’ve been hearing so much about?

In a nutshell: Dick is fun. I think. Maybe I only think it's Dick. Maybe what I believe to be the work of Philip K. Dick is really the result of -- just kidding.

Bibliolatry Scale: 5.5 out of 6 stars