do androids dream of electric sheep?

[illuvium]

this was technically before mother mary comes to me, but my thoughts have solidified. i think that i'll give it about a four out of five star rating; it was good, and i do think it deserves its spot as a science fiction classic (of sorts? there's no real designation for that, i think, but it's got a lot of references made in popular series so i count it as one). i thought the first chapter was pretty brilliant, and i liked the thematic set up of trying to define what humanity is. however, i felt that the book's premise limited it. there was too much to the setting and too little time to thoroughly review it all. what i mean by that is that, thinking very lightly, there were threads about: religion (both about its nature as technically "fake" or disingenuous but nonetheless trusted in as well as its further impacts re: people relying on it to instill morality), humanity (too many spill off threads to count, including the overarching one of if androids are technically on the level of humans, human obsession with social standing, and then re: androids and being "human", if cruelty is just a part of the human experience), and scifi-typical forays into emotion & autonomy (via the machine mentioned in the first chapter to "schedule depression"), plus the concept of social stratification by some arbitrary "test" (talented versus untalented). which, i don't know, might not sound like a lot, but i thought that it was an exceptional amount to cover given the fact that the book is a total of 200 pages and deals with a total length of twenty four hours (even less if you consider the fact that he didn't get up at the ripe hour of 12 am to start "retiring" androids).

the book has the 1900s scifi typical misogyny, but i think it's as lowkey as possible. still noticeable, though; it really could've done without the excessive descriptions about breasts. i think that the book really just suffered from an excess of ideas, which is something i rarely say given how boring i find a lot of concepts. there's just too little time to make anything meaningful, which is why i was more confused than moved when our protagonist started hallucinating merced after he'd finished killing off all the androids. tailoring it to my particular tastes, i'd just argue that the two threads that could have been pursued in tandem were cruelty as a part of the human experience and the obsession with social standing attained through the purchase and possession of desired objects. i feel as though the religion aspect and the emotional autonomy bits just don't work as well. the religious aspect fails because it's difficult to meaningfully make a character who seems to scorn mercedism at the start have a realistic (as real as it can get for science fiction, lmao) "change of heart" or further exploration of it. the emotional autonomy thing fails because, well, that's just a set-up that's more primed for his wife. i just wish the book kept the same feel as the first chapter did. my biggest qualm overall was just that, for all of the references to the electric animals as a prime example of humans seeking to attain social validation, i felt that it was a genuinely small part of the book. yes, he's going on the hunt for androids to try and get money to purchase a real animal, but the way the perspectives also swap frequently really inhibit any consistent messaging from getting across. i still liked it and don't regret having read it, but it's just a book that had more potential than it really lived up to.