Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Book Review: Once Around the Bloch by Robert Bloch

 


Once Around the Bloch by Robert Bloch

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January  1993

 

Robert Bloch is a master of horror and dark fantasy, one of the important voices of the genre, whose legacy is most connected to his novel Psycho which became a classic movie. Getting the Alfred Hitchcock treatment will certainly help you get remembered but for me, it was three episodes of Star Trek with his name on it that introduced me to his work. We’ll come back to that.

I am always interested in the lives of writers and how a midwestern guy went from writing fan letters to HP Lovecraft to becoming a grand master and all that was very interesting to me. The things that interested me in this book might not be the same as most people.

Most readers are going to be interested in his Hollywood adventures like meeting Joan Crawford and Hitchcock but not me. Tell me about the road trips to the Chicago offices of Weird Tales and double dates with Sci-fi Pioneers Henry Kuttner and Catherine Moore. That is the stuff this reader was interested in.

Robert Bloch grew up in Chicago and eventually, Milwaukee is of course where this book starts. It was Lovecraft’s stories in Weird Tales that got the young Bloch’s attention. When money was too tight for getting every issue the young Bloch was bummed that he might have missed a story by his new favorite author. When he wrote the magazine to make sure he didn’t miss one and was surprised when the author himself wrote back. It was Lovecraft himself that encouraged the young man to write his own stories in his style, thus Bloch was a part of the early expansion of the mythos that writers today carry on with.

Lovecraft and Bloch even had fun killing off characters that resembled each other. This was the 1930s and in 1935 he attended his first meeting of the Milwaukee Fictioneers. It was so cool to me that this smaller midwestern town had its own writing group even back then. Bloch was the most famous although Fredric Brown also became known for the short story that was the story by credit on the Star Trek episode Arena. (Two beer town fictioneers with TOS credits) in the genre, Brown is most known for writing novels that were intentionally funny like Martian Go Home, and What Mad Universe.

In the second half of the 1930s, the Milwaukee Fictioneers met two Thursdays a month, each member hosting in a rotation, no alcohol only coffee. They didn’t read out loud, but they discussed craft. One of the most successful writers in the group was Stanley G. Weinbaum whose classic short story “A Martian Odyssey” was seen as introducing relatable alien characters for the first time. But at 33 years old and one year into the group he died young.

Bob Bloch was not just a writer, he had short but productive writing ad copy and worked to help get a friend elected mayor. It was a surprise to everyone when they won. Bloch writes several long chapters about this period he seemed to imply this was the path not taken, that he could have written speeches for political figures. I admit I found this part a little long but Bloch's sarcasm filled the book even in the less interesting moments funny.

Eventually, he followed friends out to LA to write for film and TV. Building off the success of Psycho. Of course, the details of writing that novel and watching the movie get made are fun parts of the book.

Details I am glad I learned…

>Robert Bloch’s first Vacation to LA in the late 30s he stayed with Henry Kuttner and went on a double with writer CL Moore who came out from Indiana on Vacation. The date went well enough for one couple Moore and Kuttner became one of the power couples of SF in the 40s and 50s.

> Bloch was offered the Toastmasters job at the infamous Worldcon in Cleveland (I think 1966). Tony Boucher took over but when he heard Bloch passed because he didn’t have the funds he sold him a story in Magazine of F and SF to make sure he was able to go. Of course, this was when Roddenberry screened both pilots for Star Trek and met all the SF writers. Bloch went on to the pitch and sell three episodes.

> In 1947 Kuttner and Moore hosted Bloch for a vacation in South Laguna and he described them as becoming introverted. I think meaning they were not hanging out with other writers or going to Cons.

> Bloch said the name Norman Bates has a meaning “Nor Man,” a pun that contains a secret in the story… To say nothing that Norman “baits” his trap.

>In the 50s the SF writers (Bradbury, Matheson, and friends) had a loose circle Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. Many were repped by  Gordon Molson Associates literary agency.

>Bloch also referred to this group of friends at one point as “The Matheson Mafia.” The context was Rod Serling had the Matheson Mafia.

> In the 60s the writers in LA hung out in a group called Pinckard Science Fiction Writers' Salon. The group took on a stature unseen in most writer's groups. They hosted astronauts and famous folks. Bloch suggested that this group deserves a book in itself.  Regulars included Norman Spinrad, Philip Jose Farmer, Larry Niven, AE Van Vogt, Forrest Ackerman, and more.

> Bloch gave lots of credit to help from Story editor Dorothy Fontana helping his scripts on Star Trek..  (p. 336)

I think this book is for serious Robert Bloch fans, the golden age, and genre historians like myself. The first third is probably of interest to Lovecraft fans. Overall I thought the book could have been a little bit tighter, and shorter. Bloch does his best to keep the thing entertaining throughout. His memories of the genre history are great, and his sarcasm and playfulness will carry most readers. That said if you are not in those very nerdy categories of interest I am not sure you’ll want to commit to 300+ plus pages. For most readers, I suggest his fiction long before this book, and I think Robert Bloch probably would want you to start there.

 

 

 


Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Book Review: Sun- Daughters Sea Daughters by Aimee Ogden


 

Sun- Daughters Sea Daughters by Aimee Ogden

112 pages, Paperback, Tor

First published February , 2021



This was an impulse grab at the library, I was scanning the new books, it was short and SF so I figured why not and checked it out cold. Didn’t read the back before I was thirty pages in. I honestly don’t know if a lyrical retelling of Little Mermaid would have turned me off but I was already interested enough to keep reading. I am not sure how those right-wing nut jobs would feel about a far-future gene-edited Seaclan lord but that is our main character.

One of the things that attracted me to this was probably its biggest weakness. This is lyrical, and well-written at times but SDSD suffered from a short page count that tried to do too much. It is rare that I feel something is too short, but the ending felt a little rushed.

That said I enjoyed this but light and fun science fiction reading experience that was more fun than heavy. The world-building feels almost more fantasy and until I read the back cover did I realize that this was a far-future-adapted human society that adapts to alien world by gene-editing.

Once our mermaid stand-in Atuale meets a space rogue Yanja – The World-Witch who takes her into space the story gets a bit more adventure. “Yajna's chair and its harness show signs of long wear and tear scratched metal, fraying straps, a small explosion of foam from an overworked seam. The twinned seat beside it showed no such over-use.”

I quote this as showing an attention to detail I quite liked in this narrative. The adventure has a fairy tale as jumping-off point but space culture that reminded me a bit of Dune, and of course you’ll think Star Wars with the space rogue, a hero’s journey, and a light blade.

There is a disease, a dying home world, a mission to save it, and a subtle love story. This is not groundbreaking stuff but at 105 pages it is a light time investment. At times it felt like it needed more room to grow and yet I am not sure how many more pages the concept could carry. I had fun with it, overall I would give this book a recommendation. Most importantly  I have a new author to put on my radar.

Saturday, September 10, 2022

Book Review: Rule-18 by Clifford D. Simak


 

Rule-18 by Clifford D. Simak

First published July 1, 1938 in Astounding magazine.

In Science Fiction there are few voices that are more old school than Clifford Simak. Known for blending Science Fiction concepts with a pastoral feeling Simak’s novels can feel timeless and dated simultaneously. His life as a small-town midwestern newspaperman made him out of date in a sense as he started writing Science Fiction in the 1930s.  His 1964 novel Way Station won the Hugo and it has that balance of breezy midwestern fields and a story out of joint with Space and Time itself.

Simak was not a huge fan of hard realistic Science Fiction as he thought that handcuffed or limited the imagination of writers. That is the main reason to read Simak, the ideas, and the staggering imagination. His masterwork in my mind is the fix-up novel City which was written in the late 40s and early 50s.

This story was Simak’s first attempt to sell a story to Astounding and John W. Campbell. All his work had been in Wonder Stories before that. This would not be a great story to judge Simak’s career by because it is not a common theme or style. First off the story is a comedy tale, it is meant to be funny even if it ends on a darker (and offensive) note.

The story is one Simak avoided re-printing, and despite winning a retro Hugo, it is remembered for a tangential reason. It is not the Hugo, which seems off as it was published one month before the superior Who Goes There? I know Campbell would not be a popular vote, but Who goes There is still having an impact.

I suppose an argument could be made that Rule-18 is still having an impact as long Asimov is being read, or Foundation is streaming on AppleTV. We might not have an Issac Asimov canon if not for his annoyance at Rule-18, which he wrote to Astounding  and said "I can't help sticking out my neck, so here goes a violent knock at Clifford D. Simak's story, 'Rule 18.' Aside from its general incoherence, I don't think sports and science mix.”

Now putting aside that as a modern football fan I imagine a young Asimov who probably had seen very little football was put off by all the sports jock talk. Simak on the other hand was a newspaperman who was probably covering football games. The Packers were already a thing in the area and he makes references to Minnesota playing Wisconsin.  The idea of a Mars vs Earth football game is really funny. Simak plays with the idea that he understood Mars might not have life, he is aware of the science of the time, but it is more fun for him to imagine the same type of Martian drylander that Edgar Rice Burroughs, CL Moore, and Leigh Brackett wrote about.

The hilarious concept was this, A rule you know the one, that players have to be native to the world they represent. For this reason, Mars is dominating like the Patriots in AFC east during the Brady years. You know Earth only breeds weak button-pushing computer jockeys. So how does Coach Snelling get around these rules?  Time tunnel baby!

This story is hilarious, the thing that challenged a teenage Asimov, the story features a variety of characters, and doesn’t stick with one completely. The reporter trying to get the scoop for the paper with the visaglass pictures is Hap Falsworth.

The story is a funny time capsule of the time and ends with a dark twist that is more than a little offensive and racist (albeit the POV of the character – not the author) nonetheless. The lasting impact is that Clifford Simak saw Asimov’s address in the magazine and wrote him to ask, hey what is your problem with my story – he wanted feedback.

Re-reading the story to write the letter was a revelation to Asimov he even wrote about it in his memoir. A friendship over letters and conventions happened and loose mentorship let to the dude who in a few years was writing Foundation.  

Rule-18 divorced from the Asimov impact is not exactly a story that needs to be canon, although the role it played in the history of the genre makes it canon. I mean the story is funny, I laughed many times reading it. It is not just the silly out-date 30s SF stuff like Visa-a-glass newspapers, Vensus weed cigars, it has some funny observations about football and SF. It also marks the first Astounding appearance of a major voice in the genre.

The story is free here:
Read here

If you want more details and commentary stay tuned for an episode of my podcast devoted to this story featuring SF historian Alec Nevala-Lee and SF podcaster Seth Healsey.  Coming soon. Follow Poastcards from a Dying World on your podcatcher...

Thursday, September 8, 2022

Article: Do Androids Dream of Animal Rights? By David Agranoff

 


 

 

Do Androids Dream of Animal Rights? By David Agranoff

 

In 1975 when Peter Singer’s classic book Animal Liberation[i] was published it was an earthshaking work of ethical philosophy. Singer sought to define Speciesism as a form of discrimination with equal ethical weight as racism and sexism. This was such a new and radical concept that the very idea of ethical treatment of animals in the 1970s barely had a movement or activists. Certainly, Animal advocates and veganism already existed (Donald Watson coined the term in 1944)[ii] but it was Singer’s book that started the movement that now has succeeded in getting alternative products in restaurants and grocery stores everywhere. Animal rights organizations and sanctuaries have popped up around the globe. We have seen progress in the push for Animal Liberation I thought impossible when the book quietly hit shelves.

 

Nine years before Singer’s groundbreaking book Science Fiction writer Philip K. Dick wrote a novel that centered heavily on the same themes in a speculative context. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep[iii] would go on to inspire the classic Science Fiction film Blade Runner. The animal ethics of the novel just barely make it into the film but in far more subtle ways. It is a blink and you miss it kind of thing.  The novel is very much about empathy and rights both animal and post-human dominate the text right up to the final message of the book.

 

Philip K. Dick was not a vegan, and far from an animal liberationist famously eating horse meat when he was poor in the 1950s. It was on Phil’s mind as he made a reference to the very pet store where he bought the cheap horse meat in DADES, as “The Happy Dog Pet Shop” is the store Deckard calls to get the price of an Ostrich displayed in the front window. It is also the reason his character in his partially autobiographical novel VALIS was named Horselover Fat. That said he was a cat lover and I have a theory that his cats and his feelings towards them were huge inspiration for this novel.

 

In the context of this article, I need to admit some bias. I am a strict ethical vegan, I have been since Bill Clinton was in office for two weeks. I personally believe that if we can choose compassion over killing or exploitation then we need to. The last time I read DADES I worried that I was seeing something I wanted to see that was not really there.  PKD was a writer of ideas and very thoughtful about philosophy and ethics. There is a big difference between trying to imagine the ideas in a fictional surreal landscape and putting them into action in real life. 

 

None the less the point of this article is to explore the concepts of empathy and rights for animals as seen through the lens of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I will not hide my personal feelings on how these ideas should be applied to practical day to day ethics. Okay let’s get into it.

 

The Value of Animals post World War Terminus:

 

DADES takes place in a grim future of 2021, now in our past but was 55 years in the future when Philip K. Dick sat down at his typewriter and imagined a world destroyed by Nuclear Conflict. The who and why of World War Terminus doesn’t matter to Rick Deckard or the author who created him. “No one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won. The dust that contaminated most of the planet’s surface had originated in no country, no one even the wartime enemy had planned on it.”  

 

While the movie is remembered for the Cyberpunk noir design that it pioneered, the world of the novel DADES has more in common with the desolation of the sequel 2049. The novel is often overlooked as a work of post-apocalyptic fiction, but the off-world colonies and “the Andys” (replicants in the movie) slave class would not have existed if the earth was not almost lifeless. The world of DADES is one of class stratification and complete environmental destruction, it shares the dust, pollution and the constant need for gas masks with John Brunner’s 1974 Masterpiece The Sheep Look Up.[iv] In that novel, it is Capitalism, industrial pollution and global climate change that creates the unsustainable future. Dick’s novel being post-nuclear doesn’t take away the nature of ecocide in this world. The human species is slowly committing ecological suicide and slowly murdering nature. 

 

“A thousand thoughts came into his mind, thoughts about the war, about the days when Owls fell from the sky; he remembered how in his childhood it had been discovered that species upon species had become extinct and how the papes had reported it each day- Foxes one morning, badgers the next, until people had stopped reading the perpetual animal obits.” Global ecocide is not just a slow act of violence against nature, it kills more than non-human animals. Speculative fiction is in a unique place to remind those living today can and will doom future generations to extinction if we don’t change our ways. Today the Cli-fi (climate themed Science fiction) is a rapidly growing subgenre, and it is becoming mainstream as Barack Obama called Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future one of his favorite books of 2020. 

 

In DADES the human race has all but waved the white flag in the ecological crisis, anyone who has the ability or the status has emigrated to off-world colonies. Not only is the air unbreathable, but almost all animals are dead. The only humans that remain on earth are the ones who lack skills to provide the off-world colonies or lack the resources to emigrate. Few animals remain and that means the ones who remain are revered. 

 


 

 

The Value of Animal post World War Termius:

In the first chapter of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep there is a scene that highlights PKD’s underrated ability to write humor. Rick Deckard (played in the movie by Harrison Ford) the android bounty hunter goes to check on his electric sheep who was grazing on his rooftop pasture and ends up in a conversation with his neighbor Bill Barbour who is feeding his single living horse. Barbour is proud of the horse Judy, and the fact that she is pregnant. Deckard looks at the horse by herself and asks “What’s she pregnant by the wind?”

Barbour explains that he bought the highest quality fertilizing formula. Deckard is filled with envy, as the two neighbors chat about the prices of various animals according Sidney’s Animal & Fowl Catalog. Deckard himself “much studied” January issue. This conversation goes on for a few pages Barbour even showing condescending sympathy for Deckard, even suggesting he could get a mouse for $25.  In Sherryl Vint’s excellent article Speciesism and Species Being in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? She points out “Most of the scenes in the novel involving animals show that the animals exist as commodities rather than as beings for the humans in this world. Deckard fears that his neighbors will discover that his sheep is electric because of the loss of economic status this would imply; there is no sense that the death of his real sheep caused him any grief on a personal level nor that his relationship with the electric one is different in any way.” [v]

It sets up a hilarious motivation for Deckard that extends through the novel that was lost in the film, keeping up with Joneses. Your ability to care for and show empathy towards rare animals is status in the post WW T world. The economics of this is laid out in stark numbers when Deckard considers the coast of buying a sheep, cow, steer or a horse. He does the math in his head. “The bounty of five Andys would do it, he realized. A thousand dollars a piece over his salary.” That makes the bounty of a dead Andy about a thousand dollars. Deckard doesn’t see the irony in this. On the very first page of the novel Iran calls Deckard a killer, and he rejects the notion. “I’ve never killed a human being in my life.”

This leading to a painful realization for the Andys, as seen through this comment by Garland the Andy who poses as a cop. …Breaking free and coming here to earth, where we we’re not even considered animals. Where every worm and wood louse is considered more desirable than all of us put together.”

Escaped Andys are rejecting their role in a capitalist system to work as an artificial slave class, but escape doesn’t change their status in this culture. This is part of the reason Deckard can rationalize ending the Andys life yet moments later he is taking car of his electric sheep. He is living in a world where empathy is a way of life, yet he has to reject such notions to do his job. The irony comes when the very test finds the non-humans is one based on empathy.

 

The Value of Empathy and Ethics

When Rick Deckard lands his hovercar on the roof of Rosen Associates in Seattle his intention is to run the Voight-Kampff test to see if it can detect the presence of artificial human beings.  The stakes are high as his colleague Dave Holden was shot by Max Polokov, Who is a Nexus-6, a new harder to detect style of android. Holden had been afraid the test would not work, but Deckard believed that was impossible. The test is based on the subject’s reaction to a series of question that gauge the subject’s response to ethical questions related to the treatment of animals.

In one of the few scenes that remains in the film Blade Runner almost exactly intact from the novel Deckard is asked to test Rachel Rosen who is presented to him as the daughter of the Elden Rosen the founder. He starts by asking what she would do if given a calf-skin wallet for her birthday. She wouldn’t accept it and would report the person to the police. He skips ahead to the eighth question which involves her son collecting butterflies with a kill Jar. Rachel responds that she would take him to a doctor.  The test eventually includes a question about her reading a novel that takes place pre-war time and the people are eating boiled lobster. Rachel is horrified.

Deckard knows from the test that she is an android but Rosen attempts to convince him that the test doesn’t work because she grew up on a failed interstellar voyage that returned. Deckard begins to question himself and believes his test was wrong until he notices that Rachel repeatedly makes a simple mistake. To make up for his time wasted they offer Deckard a valuable Owl named Scrappy as gift.

“Your owl, dear” Rachel said “Remember? We’ll tie your home address around its leg and let it fly down to San Francisco; it’ll meet you there when you get off of work.”

It, he thought. She keeps calling the owl it. Not her.”

Deckard knows she is an android because she refers to the owl as it. This is a standard most humans would fail. It is my personal belief that when I meet a dog or cat that I would rather misgender them than take away their personhood by referring to them as simply it. In the post WW Terminus world animals have both a capitalist value but more importantly an ethical worth, as such no one would devalue them as it. Dr. Josh Toth of MacEwan University Wrote about these issues in his article Do Androids Eat Electric Sheep?: Egotism, Empathy, and the Ethics of Eating in the Work of Philip K. Dick.[vi] “…The novel exposes and critiques the problematic trajectory of human empathy—from the establishment of communities based on race, gender, and/or class to the end of racism, sexism, and/or classism to the end of speciesism.  The novel’s anxiety about this trajectory is all the more apparent if we consider the fact that its publication (in 1968) coincides with the height of the American civil rights movement.”

The point is never made out right, but it is clear if you take the ethical direction of the questions of Voigt- Kampff test that the world of DADES suggests a vegan future. Dr. Toth goes on to say. “Voigt-Kampff test, which Deckard must administer before retiring a suspected android, works by provoking empathic responses to descriptions of animal suffering and/or death. If suitable (as in “instinctive”) empathy is not garnered, the subject is identified as an android and summarily retired. And, since it is a logical necessity that the humans in the novel are vegetarian, this problem of empathy is frequently tied to the problem of eating and/or consumption. Yet the theme of vegetarianism and/or eating is strikingly subtle and largely implicit. While the novel necessarily touches upon the practical implications of a world in which vegetarianism has become an ethical imperative, Dick’s interest in vegetarianism and eating is (if I can anticipate Derrida’s phrasing1) significantly more “metonymic” than literal.”

There is no other logical conclusion to consider about this world. It would make sense that the human race would have to adapt if animals could not survive the massive dust storms. In a world struggling to survive it would be wasteful to produce protein that yields one pound of beef when it indirectly dumps 20 pounds of feed including grain hay, corn stalks, and other non-concentrated, non-grain animal feed and an average of 410 gallons of water down the drain. Under the current system one half of the earth’s land mass is involved in the production of animal products, and livestock have damaged 60% of the earth’s range land.[vii]

If the human race was trying to survive by expanding to Mars and Proxima it would not make sense to expend resources keeping animals alive for protein when other sources are more efficient. The only impeachable argument in our 21st century for the eating of animals is desire and taste. In the 21st century of DADES that is even less valid.

According to Dr. Vint “What has been consistently overlooked is that Deckard comes to this realization only through embracing animal being, rejecting the speciesist discourse that attempts to construct hierarchies and divisions, a logic that rejects humans like Isidore within the novel, and which rejects animals and animalized humans in Western culture. The human/animal boundary is used to dehumanize the other so that ethics do not enter into certain kinds of killing: slaughterhouses, android bounty hunters, and concentration camps all operated on the same logic.”

 The 21st century in our world that is not the case. Entire industries exist turning animal’s bodies into food, clothing and bi-products of many kinds, entertainment, experimentation use animals’ bodies as tools despite whatever pain or emotions they experience. Most people in our culture never consider the use of animals nor do they question our right to murder or exploit for things as trivial as a meal.

Dr. Vint right points out. “…it is worth noting that most of Dick’s audience would fail the Voigt-Kampff test. Its questions—about topics such as boiling live lobster, eating meat, or using fur— denote things that are commonplace rather than shocking in our world.”

 

It is appropriate to question if Philip K. Dick intended to make this point with DADES. Dr. Toth believes so. “…The novel exposes and critiques the problematic trajectory of human empathy—from the establishment of communities based on race, gender, and/or class to the end of racism, sexism, and/or classism to the end of speciesism.  The novel’s anxiety about this trajectory is all the more apparent if we consider the fact that its publication (in 1968) coincides with the height of the American civil rights movement.”

 

In 1966 when it was written there was no animal rights movement, and PKD was writing about a surreal post-apocalyptic world. That said more than half a century later the ethical treatment of animals may be catching up with the novel. One thing is clear challenging and changing our ethics may or may not be the message but it is the arc for our hero Rick Deckard.

 

Hunters will be Hunted

On the very first page of the novel Rick Deckard fights with his wife who calls him a killer. He insists that he has never killed a human being. Deckard is aware of the exact monetary value of an android and various living animals. His Sydney’s catalog is worn down suggesting the idea he looks at it often.  One only has to tour an animal shelter to see how little respect even animals considered part of are families are treated with. Many cats and dogs are surrendered (euphuism used by the shelters for dumping) to shelters when their caregivers simply decide they no longer want them.

In contrast to DADES a world where your status is so tied to your ability to care for animals that people buy electric animals to give the appearance of empathy. The irony central to the novel is Rick Deckard is hunting and killing androids with the goal of getting $5,000 for A real sheep.  

Euphuism is the key to Deckard’s ethical conflict. He has to convince himself that escaped androids, by leaving their assigned roles become “solitary predators.” This leads to an important internal debate on page 29 of the novel. Deckard (and the system) believes it is impossible for androids to feel the concept of empathy. “Empathy, evidently, existed only within the human community, whereas intelligence to some degree could be found throughout every phylum and order including arachnida.” The android is unable to fool the test because it is not conscious of the desire to live in other beings.

Consider how euphuism is used to erase empathy for animals in our culture. Dogs and cats are often not even gendered, referred to as it, as Scrappy the Rosen corporation owl was. Dogs and cats have been “surrendered” to the shelter by “owners” not families.  The number of euphuisms involved in the production of animal bodies into food is almost never-ending but perhaps the most sadly amusing in the context of this novel is concept of so-called humane meat. In the last few decades knowing that the movement for the ethical treatment of animals has been growing the industry has tried to market the concept of humanely raised meat. Even the marketing of “grass-fed” beef is used imply a life outside of factory farms. That begs the question - Is there a humane way to turn a living, feeling being into a product to be consumed?

In DADES with Mercerism as the dominant religious belief, followers who use empathy boxes the idea of humane animal exploitation is impossible. Deckard comes to that conclusion. “Empathy, he once decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the empathic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.”

All this leads to “Rick liked to think of them that way; it made his job palatable in retiring-i.e. killing, -an andy, he did not violate the rule laid down by Mercer. You shall kill only killers.”

Deckard changes the language to make himself feel better about the violence of his actions. If it is our hands or our money – many people change the language erase the guilt of our actions. As Professor Toth put it “The experience of the Mercer box (and the theology of Mercerism, more generally) mirrors the central tension in the novel—i.e., the tension between a need to experience empathy (and/as entropy) and the paradoxical desire to assert and maintain a sense of selfhood.”

Rick Deckard’s journey includes many times where he questions his humanity unlike the film he is very much human. The scene when he tests Rachel Rosen and has to question his certainly in the empathy test is important but not as important as his relationships with the bounty Hunter Phil Resch and opera singer Luba Luft. Deckard’s relationship to these two characters is the most important for Deckard’s arc.

Phil Resch is a bounty hunter that has been working out of a fake hall of justice run by androids. There is comical nature to the idea that he didn’t know that he was working for Andys. Deckard believes Resch is not human and is confident tests will show in part because of how quick he is to “retire” androids and the fact that he seems to enjoy it. Resch wants desperately to prove he is human pointing out the amount of care he puts into his squirrel. Resch starts to accept that he might be android before learning he is in fact human.

Many come to a surface reading of the novel and assume that Deckard falls in love with Rachel and begins to question his mission. While that might explain his arc in Blade Runner the novel has deeper motivations at work. Deckard is equally affected by Luba Luft singing Mozart’s Magic Flute. He is impressed with her talent, and wonders if her life is worth more than money he will be paid.  

Dr. Vint points out “This leads Deckard to realize that his work as a bounty hunter emerges not from the difference between humans and androids, but because there is not a sufficient difference to maintain the economic exploitation upon which their world rests.”

Most human have never experienced what it feels like to be a hunted animal. There was a brief period before police caught the D.C. Sniper when those of us in the animal rights movement were making that point. Angus Taylor points out this is huge part of the point of the novel in his article Electric Sheep and the New Argument from Nature “The novel is not only an implied critique of hunting, and of our treatment of animals in general, but an admonition that none of us has clean hands when it comes to our treatment of others, human or nonhuman. By the end of the story Deckard has not rid the world of corruption and illusion; he has recognized the value of compassion and he has managed to survive, in order to resume his personal struggle. He realizes that even a robotic animal is worth caring for. “The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are.” [viii]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Is so much deeper than most Science Fiction novels. The message of animal rights is right there throughout. The blurred lines of ethical responsibility are at the heart of the novel. Much like Philip K. Dick in conversation his novel contradicts itself at times. The reader is told to be compassionate and fear the android. One thing is clear the idea that empathy should be applied to animals is one that is in the novel. It is my belief that Dick was on to something decades too early. Radical empathy and ethical treatment are something we don’t have to dream about; we have choices and can make them. Choose Compassion.

 

 

 



[i] Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, 1975

[ii] Vegan Society founder Donald Watson honoured with blue plaque, BBC news https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-50351484

[iii] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, 1968

[iv] The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner, 1972

[v] Speciesism and Species Being in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Sherryl Vint, 2007

[vi] Do Androids Eat Electric Sheep?: Egotism, Empathy, and the Ethics of Eating in the Work of Philip K. Dick by Josh Toth

 

[vii] https://www.theguardian.com/food/ng-interactive/2022/apr/14/climate-crisis-food-systems-not-ready-biodiversity

[viii] Electric Sheep and the New Argument from Nature by Angus Taylor