Blade Runner cover art

Blade Runner

Originally published as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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Blade Runner

By: Philip K. Dick
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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About this listen

Here is the classic sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, set nearly thirty years before the events of the new Warner Bros. film Blade Runner 2049, starring Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, and Robin Wright.

By 2021, the World War has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remain covet any living creature, and for people who can’t afford one, companies build incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep. They’ve even built humans. Immigrants to Mars receive androids so sophisticated they are indistinguishable from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans can wreak, the government bans them from Earth. Driven into hiding, unauthorized androids live among human beings, undetected. Rick Deckard, an officially sanctioned bounty hunter, is commissioned to find rogue androids and “retire” them. But when cornered, androids fight back—with lethal force.

Praise for Philip K. Dick

“[Dick] sees all the sparkling—and terrifying—possibilities . . . that other authors shy away from.” - Rolling Stone

“A kind of pulp-fiction Kafka, a prophet.”- The New York Times

©1968 Philip K. Dick (P)2007 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
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What listeners say about Blade Runner

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Book or Film? No Contest - Film

It's not even close. Give Deckard a wife and an almost obsession for insect and small animals, then the story is more quirky than the screen play. The film sequel adds such depth to the dystopian near future that its hard to see Blade Runners as anything but a Special Agent. Rachel is also portrayed as a somewhat special Replicant. In the book she's more matter of fact. I did enjoy the book but that version is not a Harrison Ford, more a traffic cop with a fancy app and a gun.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

One of my favourite book.

Well read. Very enjoyable to listen to it during long working hours at night shift.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Thought provoking

Well read. Story was good,however,the end I found a little disappointing. Would recommend

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Philip K Dick, not Ridley Scott.

As other reviews have pointed out, this isn't Blade Runner. Blade Runner the movie is undoubtedly a sci-fi classic, but it isn't the story Philip K Dick wrote. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep contains the basis of Ridley Scott's movie but is so much more than that. The book uses Rick Decard's job hunting androids as a device to support Dick's brilliant but uncomfortable examination of the nature of human relationships, religion, emotions and the purpose of life itself. The movie kept the coat hanger but discarded the coat in favour of something slicker and less heavy. If the movie is your only experience of the story then there are surprises aplenty to be found in this source material, and even scenes and dialogue that seem familiar combine to weave a different narrative to the one you know from the movie.

I umreseveredly recommend listening to this if you have never read it, both because it is a fine example of how Hollywood can make a great film from a great book without telling the same story, and also because it is an accessible introduction to Philip K Dick's work.

This audio version is nicely paced and well narrated, though as always having a male narrator try and do female voices ranges from bearable to cringe-worthy.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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If you like dystopian philosophy you’ll like this

I love books like these that make you question your own morals, as it slowly changes the view of the main character/s it reminds me of 1984 or I have no mouth but I must scream as it challenges the world is viewed I think a main and important point in this book is not the connection of religion the character feels at some points but really if androids are alive if they can feel and have emotions as they get more and more human in nature

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Brilliant

loved it, a fake reality. Could it happen to us or did it already happened 🤔. I usually don't do fiction but that was worth the reading. Thank you

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Excellent writing and performance

Philip K. Dick writing style at its best.
Quite different from the film, focuses more on existential questions rather than the hunt for androids.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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not bladerunner

this is Do androids dream of electric sheep. it has some great ideas and images, mr Dick was a visionary
but i don't think it's a great story.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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A must for any fans of the Bladerunner universe.

Loved it so much, it made me wish the movie had gone into greater detail.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Good story but dull narration

A good book for the time but I found the narration very dull, too slow and the strange accent choices odd. I'm aiming these were the choices of the production team rather than the narrator.

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