Quote Originally Posted by Luke_B View Post
I got caught up reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick over the weekend. I’ve had it lying around for ages, but never read it. I picked it up on a whimsy and couldn’t put it down. What a book! People will at least have heard of it as the inspiration for Bladerunner, but it is very different to the film (much better actually if that's not too hard to believe). Don’t go into this expecting a cyberpunk action thriller. Instead, expect a very thoughtful, funny and dark examination of the nature of empathy and what it means to be human. I really liked Deckard’s character: a bureaucrat more than a cop, resigned to his own imminent death on a ruined world. It's a very existentialist book in a lot of way. Some of the scenes in this book will stay with me forever, especially the scene with the spider (people who have read it will know what I'm talking about). I’ll admit I was a bit confused by the ending, but in a good way because it left me with plenty to think about. This one goes onto my list of all-time favourites.
I remember feeling pretty much the same way when I finished that. Nothing else by PKD came close, although to be honest I gave up after just three others, only one of which (The Man in the High Castle)) is to my knowledge well-respected.

As for me, I just finished Prelude to Foundation. I have mixed feelings. The dialogue was stilted, but the pace was good and the ending, of course, was pretty fantastic. Certainly I enjoyed it, but I'll be curious to see how later books in the series compare. Before reading any of those, though, I've simply got to read Caliban's War.