Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Final Thoughts on What Makes Us Human
So we made it. Twenty-two chapters. One of the strangest and most important sci-fi books ever written. And I still think about it weeks after putting it down.
Philip k dick
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 22: The Electric Toad
This is the last chapter of the book. And it ends not with a bang, not with a chase, not with a dramatic revelation. It ends with a man going to sleep and his wife ordering artificial flies from a catalog.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 21: Becoming Mercer
This chapter feels like a dream. Not a nice dream. The kind where you’re walking somewhere and you can’t remember why, and everything around you is wrong but you keep going anyway.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 20: The Dead Goat
This is the shortest chapter in the book. It’s also one of the cruelest. Philip K. Dick puts it right here near the end, like a knife slipped between your ribs when you thought the fight was over.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 19: The Final Hunt
This is the chapter where everything ends. Six androids in one day. And by the time it’s over, Rick Deckard has nothing left.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 18: Mercerism Exposed
This chapter is one of the most disturbing in the entire book. Not because of violence or action. Because of a spider.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 17: The Trap
The morning after. Rick is sitting in a nice hotel chair, drinking room service coffee, feeling complicated. Rachael is in the shower, humming and splashing like nothing in the world is wrong. It looks like a normal scene. Two people. A quiet morning.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 16: The Hotel Room
This is the chapter where everything gets personal. Not in an action movie way. In a quiet, bourbon-soaked, morally confusing hotel room kind of way.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 15: The Goat
This chapter starts with the androids’ vote and ends with Rick dialing Rachael Rosen from a dark hovercar. In between, he buys a goat, has a real moment with his wife, gets a call from his boss, and talks to God. It’s a lot for one chapter.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 14: The Vote
The three surviving androids are finally in one place. Roy and Irmgard Baty have arrived at the decaying apartment building where Pris has been hiding. And J. R. Isidore, the lonely chickenhead who has been looking after Pris, is standing right there listening to everything.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 13: Three Fugitives
John Isidore flies home from work carrying a bag of black-market groceries: bean curd, ripe peaches, stinky soft cheese. And under the seat, a bottle of Chablis wine he’s been keeping in a bank safety deposit box for years. He was saving it for this. For the day a girl finally appeared. That day is today.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 12: The Museum
This is the chapter that breaks Rick Deckard. Not physically. Not even professionally. Something worse. It breaks the wall between him and the things he kills.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 11: The Escape
This chapter is tense from the first line to the last. And it ends with one of those quiet, devastating moments that Philip K. Dick does better than almost anyone.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 10: The Fake Police Station
Rick Deckard lands on the roof of the Mission Street Hall of Justice. It’s a fancy building, baroque spires, modern design, the works. There’s just one problem. He has never seen this building before in his life.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 9: The Opera Singer
This chapter is one of my favorites in the whole book. Rick Deckard walks into the War Memorial Opera House, sits down in a dress circle seat, and listens to Mozart’s The Magic Flute. And for a few minutes, he just enjoys the music. He’s a bounty hunter on a kill list, but right now he’s an audience member, and the singing is beautiful.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 8: First Kill
Chapter 8 is the one where the talking stops and the killing starts. Rick Deckard has spent the last few chapters traveling, testing, arguing. Now he has to actually shoot someone. And it almost goes very wrong.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 7: The Dead Cat
We’re back with John Isidore, and this chapter is one of those scenes where you don’t know if you should laugh or feel terrible. So you do both.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 6: The New Neighbor
John Isidore hears a TV playing somewhere below him in the building. That’s it. That’s all it takes. He grabs a cube of margarine and goes downstairs to meet whoever is there.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 5: Testing Rachael
Chapter 5 is where Rick Deckard sits across from Rachael Rosen, shines a light into her eye, and starts asking questions designed to make her feel things. And the whole chapter reads like a poker game where both sides are cheating.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 4: Meeting the Rosens
Before Rick can go hunt androids, his boss sends him on a field trip. To Seattle. To prove that his testing equipment actually works.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 3: The Assignment
Rick Deckard is late to work. But before he even makes it to the office, he stops in front of a pet shop and stares at an ostrich. A real one. The only ostrich on the entire West Coast. Thirty thousand dollars.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 2: The Last Man Standing
Chapter 1 gave us Rick Deckard and his cranky morning. Chapter 2 flips the camera entirely. We meet John Isidore, and honestly, he might be the most important character in this whole book.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Chapter 1: The Wake Up Call
Chapter 1 opens with a married couple fighting. Not about money. Not about the kids. About which emotion to feel today.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? a Chapter by Chapter Retelling
I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. Take one of my favorite sci-fi books and go through it chapter by chapter. Share my thoughts, break it down, and maybe convince a few people to pick it up.