Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Content Ratings

Moderate Romance

Deckard has a sexual encounter with a female android whom he has been sent to retire; the encounter is described with moderate directness and creates significant moral and emotional ambiguity for both characters.

Intense Themes

The novel sustains a searching examination of empathy as a moral criterion, the ethics of creating and killing sentient beings, and whether emotional authenticity defines humanity.

Mild Violence

The clinical 'retirement' of androidsâ€”some of whom behave indistinguishably from humansâ€”constitutes the novel's central moral horror; direct violence is relatively limited and matter-of-fact.

Synopsis

In a post-nuclear war Earth where most animal life is extinct and humanity emigrates to Mars with android servants, bounty hunter Rick Deckard is tasked with 'retiring' a group of the most sophisticated androids yet builtâ€”ones that may be nearly indistinguishable from humans. The novel interweaves questions of empathy, authenticity, and what makes a being worthy of moral consideration. The source novel for the film Blade Runner, richer in philosophical texture than its adaptation.