"I've become an unnatural self."

I think I've always been a fan of science fiction. Star Wars was as ingrained at an early age as was Catholic Doctrine; there are three aspects of God that are the holy trinity, and Darth Vader is Luke and Leia's father. Because of this fandom, on my part, I've recently wanted to read some of the more modern classics of science fiction, and when my mother-in-law gave us gift certificates for Amazon, I went SF-crazy.

I picked up Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. This was the inspiration for Blade Runner (starring none other than Han Solo) and, though i think I've seen the movie, I don't remember half of what was in the book. Once again, I had to pick a book that made me question my own humanity, and what that word even means.

Allow me to digress. I also got a copy of The Canticle for Leibowitz which has a foreword that talks about the difference between literature and fiction. I, being a reading snob, have often wondered about the difference between these two things as well; the definition it gave was that literature changes you. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I am happy to say, does just that.

The book is about Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who works for the San Francisco police, tracking down rogue androids, which are now illegal on the planet Earth (there are a lot of details I'm leaving out; just read the book if you need them). As much as I felt distant from him at first, I related to the almost manic changes he seems to go through in the course of his day. He is introduced to a new type of android that is even harder to tell apart from normal humans; he is introduced to a man whom he thinks, for a moment, is an android; he breaks a "retiring" record by "killing" six androids; He sleeps with an android. Throughout the whole thing he thinks about what it is he's doing, and, although I paid little attention to it the first time, his wife's words, as the beginning of the story, resonate with him throughout the day: "just those poor andy's."

Do we feel bad for robots when they are destroyed? Now imagine that robot had feelings. What about if you got super attached to your computer, then it (and we use this term) dies. I always hated finishing books, because I had to leave them then. Those characters would go away, a reason, I believe, why I love monthly comic books. In the novel, Deckard has an electric sheep, because in the post-apocalyptic world, caring for animals is considered a duty and privilege (though also a status symbol). How much is our awareness really play a role in what we feel and experience? If you had a pet dog and it died, you'd feel sad. if you had a pet dog that was an electric dog, would you still? Now imagine not knowing whether it was or not.

That's how I feel after reading this book. There is a weird ambivalence, but at the same time I'm quite happy to realize that it is the choices that I make that allow me to feel the things I feel. It is my interest in reading books like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? that will guarantee I may change my mind about that with the next book; only for it to evolve again with the next, and so on.

At the end of the book, to spoil part of it, Rick Deckard goes to sleep. I'm going to go do the same.