Dick intentionally imitates noir fiction styles of scene delivery, a hard-boiled investigator dealing coldly with a brutal world full of corruption and stupidity.[1] Another influence on Dick was author Theodore Sturgeon, writer of More Than Human, a surrealistic story of humanity broken into different tiers, one controlling another through telepathic means. A few years after the publication of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the author spoke about man's animate creations in a famous 1972 speech: "The Android and the Human":
Our environment – and I mean our man-made world of machines, artificial constructs, computers, electronic systems, interlinking homeostatic components – all of this is in fact beginning more and more to possess what the earnest psychologists fear the primitive sees in his environment: animation. In a very real sense our environment is becoming alive, or at least quasi-alive, and in ways specifically and fundamentally analogous to ourselves... Rather than learning about ourselves by studying our constructs, perhaps we should make the attempt to comprehend what our constructs are up to by looking into what we ourselves are up to[2]
In the novel, the android antagonists are indeed more human than the human protagonist, intentionally. They are a mirror held up to human action, contrasted with a culture losing its own humanity.[3]
Influence
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? influenced generations of science fiction writers, becoming a founding document of the new wave science fiction movement as well as a basic model for its cyberpunk heirs. It influenced other genres such as scifi-based metal from artists including Rob Zombie and Powerman 5000.
Adaptations
Film
Hampton Fancher and David Peoples wrote a loose cinematic adaptation that became the film Blade Runner, released in 1982, featuring several of the novel's characters. It was directed by Ridley Scott. Following the international success of the film, the title Blade Runner was adopted for some later editions of the novel, although the term itself was not used in the original.[4] This movie led to a sequel in 2017 entitled Blade Runner 2049 which retains many themes of the novel.
Radio
As part of their Dangerous Visions dystopia series in 2014, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a two-part adaptation of the novel. It was produced and directed by Sasha Yevtushenko from an adaption by Jonathan Holloway. It stars James Purefoy as Rick Deckard and Jessica Raine as Rachael Rosen.[5] The episodes were originally broadcast on Sunday 15 June and 22 June 2014.
Audiobook
The novel has been released in audiobook form at least twice. A version was released in 1994 that featured Matthew Modine and Calista Flockhart.
A new audiobook version was released in 2007 by Random House Audio to coincide with the release of Blade Runner: The Final Cut. This version, read by Scott Brick, is unabridged and runs approximately 9.5 hours over eight CDs. This version is a tie-in, using the Blade Runner: The Final Cut film poster and Blade Runner title.[6]
Theater
A stage adaptation of the book, written by Edward Einhorn, ran from November 18 to December 10, 2010, at the 3LD Art & Technology Center in New York[7] and made its West Coast Premiere on September 13, 2013, playing until October 10 at the Sacred Fools Theater Company in Los Angeles.[8]
Comic books
BOOM! Studios published a 24-issue comic book limited series based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? containing the full text of the novel and illustrated by artist Tony Parker.[9] The comic garnered a nomination for "Best New Series" from the 2010 Eisner Awards.[10] In May 2010, BOOM! Studios began serializing an eight-issue prequel subtitled Dust To Dust, written by Chris Roberson and drawn by Robert Adler.[11] The story takes place in the days immediately after World War Terminus.[12]
