I read this one by Philip K. Dick yesterday. Short book. Over in a few hours. Have found science fiction after a while. Although there are days when I really crave sci-fi, at times just to get a perspective and distance from things and thoughts at hand.
I enjoy sci-fi by Arthur C. Clarke. And for his lightness, brightness and joy - Douglas Adams. Happy to re-read Space Odyssey and Hitchhiker any day. And of what I've read from Isaac Asimov, I've mostly enjoyed. I haven't read Ursula K. Le Guin's fiction, just a bit of non-fiction, keen to read Left Hand of Darkness. I haven't read a lot by Philip K. Dick. I tried Ubik, but couldn't get far in. I'll try reading The Man in High Castle at some point.
'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' is a 1968 novel by Philip K. Dick. Short book. Quick read. The internet tells me that the book inspired Blade Runner, the 1982 movie. It is set in a future where Earth has become quite inhospitable, has much fewer people after World War Terminus, most having emigrated away from Earth, and there is a lot of dust, abandoned, unoccupied dwellings, and kipple. What is kipple? The un-ordered, the mess, the disintegration of everything organised, the chaos, the entropy. Eventually kipple is meant to push out everything which is non-kipple and take over what remains of Earth. Many animals are extinct, it is a world without birds, and to keep up with the Joneses, people are expected to take care of real animals - the animals you own become the signifier of your wealth/ place in society. And hence, there is a thriving industry of fake, electric animals. In this set up, there are androids (hard to distinguish from humans, and often not aware themselves that they are androids) and the perpetual question of how good AI can get, and then there is the protagonist whose job is to retire/kill rogue Androids.
So far, so good. The story then unfolds over two days, with a thriller like chase sequence.
With sci-fi, the joy is in the construct, the imagination, the new set-up and how thoroughly authors can think and thrash out a new reality. Beyond that, how the story unfolds and how well the author can hold you varies from book to book and author to author. This one, I read it through for the story, but not a fan.
The way I see it, there are perhaps two kinds of science fiction. One is the fast-paced novel, where a lot goes in to set it up, the imaginary world with its own problems, but then the way the protagonists behave reads like thriller. And then there are the more ironic, satiric, or questioning the absurd by putting the sci-fi construct on them - where authors choose to comment on and examine the modern realities and social questions through this new lens or framework offered by imaginary fiction. Such examination reveals new angles and throws light on aspects not commonly perceived - take 1984, or Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Handmaid's Tale or some of Doris Lessing's fiction, or for that matter, The Glass Bead Game. Both kind of sci-fi take the same path initially - the detailed set up, the displacement of the reader from the current existing realities before the road forks, and one path goes down the thriller route, and the other, literature.
The book at hand I feel goes down the thriller path. Though I must say that it held me better than the other cold book I am reading (The Unconsoled) where the real is perhaps more alien than a world with humans who wonder whether they are androids.