![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've finished Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. For those among you who might not know: this is the novel on which Blade Runner was based. Those who don't know the movie, I can't help. There are classics you simply have to see (and to read), if you're a sci-fi affectionado.
Anyway, I saw the film first and bought the book because there were parts of the film I couldn't quite get a grip on. I didn't realize back then that I've managed to get one of these dumbed-down re-told versions that are made for language students; the beginners. A version that's stripped of everything but the bare skeleton of the story: characterization, descriptions, and so on.
Even so, it was an interesting reading. It's opened my eyes to the fact how much Asimov and Roddenberry have shaped our mental image of androids/robots/AIs, whatever. We - or at least I, personally - tend to the prejudice that whenever an android is treated badly, it's the human's fault. That poor little droids don't want anything else but become true humans (which, if we think about it, is terrifying enough as it is).
Well, this book is different. The androids in this one are unfeeling creatures that kill and destroy without being touched - without, in fact, wantign to be touched by empathy. The story itself is a fairly flat one, so stripped to the bones - I missed the eerie atmosphere of the film, and Rutger Hauer's suggestive acting. He almost made me care for the character when watching the movie. Almost. But the simplicity of the re-told story was, in a way, much more disturbing than the gorgeous acting and visuals of the film. Even without the incredible music of Vangelis, whom I dearly love... although he tends to repeat himslef sometimes. *g*
Anyway, I saw the film first and bought the book because there were parts of the film I couldn't quite get a grip on. I didn't realize back then that I've managed to get one of these dumbed-down re-told versions that are made for language students; the beginners. A version that's stripped of everything but the bare skeleton of the story: characterization, descriptions, and so on.
Even so, it was an interesting reading. It's opened my eyes to the fact how much Asimov and Roddenberry have shaped our mental image of androids/robots/AIs, whatever. We - or at least I, personally - tend to the prejudice that whenever an android is treated badly, it's the human's fault. That poor little droids don't want anything else but become true humans (which, if we think about it, is terrifying enough as it is).
Well, this book is different. The androids in this one are unfeeling creatures that kill and destroy without being touched - without, in fact, wantign to be touched by empathy. The story itself is a fairly flat one, so stripped to the bones - I missed the eerie atmosphere of the film, and Rutger Hauer's suggestive acting. He almost made me care for the character when watching the movie. Almost. But the simplicity of the re-told story was, in a way, much more disturbing than the gorgeous acting and visuals of the film. Even without the incredible music of Vangelis, whom I dearly love... although he tends to repeat himslef sometimes. *g*
