Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

The Situation

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? takes place in the year 1992, after World War Terminus has spread a cloud of radioactive dust across the globe. Many plant and animal species are extinct, and many of the surviving humans have emigrated to colonies on Mars. The remaining humans are divided between regulars and "specials," people who are either too stupid or too affected by radiation to be allowed to reproduce. As a result of these combined factors, cities are underpopulated and ownership of animals is considered both a status symbol and a sign of righteous empathy. Both real and imitation animals are expensive, with price lists updated monthly. In demand by Martian colonists are androids, manufactured to be as much like humans as possible, both in flesh and in emotion. Colonists are offered custom designed androids when they emigrate, and the androids serve as slaves. Discontented androids can escape from servitude by killing their masters and then returning to Earth to hide. Bounty hunters from Earth's various police forces are sent to locate these escapees and "retire" them. As the androids have become more human-like, retiring them has become more and more like killing.

The novel opens in the apartment of bounty hunter Rick Deckard and his wife, Iran. As he leaves for work, she tries to decide what mood to "dial up" for herself with their Penfield mood enhancing machine. Going to his car on the roof, Deckard stops to feed his electronic sheep. He takes a moment to admire his neighbor's real, living, horse. Upon hearing that the horse is pregnant, Rick's frustration surfaces and he admits to his neighbor that his sheep is false.

At work, his superior explains Deckard's new mission to him: eight androids have escaped from Mars, and San Francisco's lead bounty hunter, Dave Holden, has been shot down after retiring two. Deckard's first step is to go the androids' manufacturer, Rosen Association, to learn about this newest, most realistic model, the Nexus-6. The company's president, Eldon Rosen, doubts the accuracy of the "Voigt-Kampff" empathy test that the police use to distinguish androids from humans. His niece, Rachael, takes the test, and when it concludes that she is not human they assume that the test is flawed. The Rosens then attempt to bribe Deckard by offering him a real owl. Following a hunch, Deckard asks one last question that proves that his test results were accurate: Rachael Rosen is indeed an android.

Alternating with Deckard's story, the novel follows the day of John "J. R." Isidore, a "special" laborer with a low I.Q. who works for a veterinary clinic that cares for artificial animals. Isidore is a devotee of Wilbur Mercer, the religious figure that most people, including the Deckards, believe in. They relate to Mercer via "empathy boxes": they watch video images of him climbing a mountain, pelted with stones by skeptics, and when a stone hits Mercer the viewers who have real empathy for him will also bruise or bleed. Isidore is also a fan of Buster Friendly, the cheerful show business personality who somehow hosts talk shows on both radio and television simultaneously for twenty-three hours a day. On this morning, Isidore comes across a strange woman, Pris Stratton, in one of the empty apartments in his building. She is mysteriously cold and factual, but the idea that she is an android does not occur to Isidore, both because he is desperately lonely and because of his limited mental capacity. Later that day, Isidore picks up a cat for repair and it expires in his van. Only later does he discover it was actually a living creature.

The Hunt

Deckard is assigned to work with a Soviet bounty hunter named Kadalyi while hunting the android named Max Polokov, who ambushed Dave Holden and put him in the hospital. Almost immediately after they meet, Deckard realizes that Kadalyi is Polokov, and retires him. The next android on his list is an opera singer, Luba Luft; he listens to her and is surprised at the quality of her voice. "Perhaps the better she functions, the better singer she is, the more I am needed," he muses. When Deckard interviews her at the opera house, she accuses him of being a sex criminal, and he is amused when she calls the police, certain that they will support him. The policeman who answers her call, though, is unfamiliar, and he takes Deckard to a police station that is not the Hall of Justice that he knows.

The investigating officer at this station, Inspector Garland, is the next name on Deckard's list of androids to retire. He tells Deckard that the bounty hunter in this parallel police force, Phil Resch, is also an android, but that he does not know it. When tests prove that Polokov was an android, Resch leaves to get equipment to test Garland. Garland pulls a laser when Resch returns, and Resch retires Garland in turn. He then goes with Deckard to the art museum, where they apprehend Luba Luft and retire her. The coolness with which Resch destroys androids seems to support Garland's claim that Resch is an android himself, but the test Deckard gives him proves that he is not. Deckard is disgusted with Resch's emotionless killing and how it reflects his own lack of empathy in dealing with androids. To affirm his humanity, he stops at the store and puts a down payment on an expensive live animal, a goat.

Deckard wants time to rest, and at home he uses the empathy machine on impulse. While using it, Mercer tells him "there is no salvation" and that he will always be "required to do wrong." Called by his office to find the remaining androids, Deckard takes up Rachael Rosen's offer of help. They meet at a San Francisco hotel room, drink, and become romantically involved. Rachael tells Deckard that she has fallen in love with him; later she admits that seducing him is a standard maneuver used to make bounty hunters feel uncomfortable about killing androids. On a lead from his department, Deckard goes to John Isidore's apartment building to find Pris Stratton. The remaining androids, Roy Baty and his wife Irmgard, are living at the building too, sheltered by the innocent Isidore.

While Deckard is on his way to the building, Isidore finds out two discouraging facts. The first comes when Buster Friendly announces on the television that Mercer is a fraud, and supports his claim with expert analysis of the artificiality of Mercer's ascent up the mountain and evidence that Mercer is played by an old, unemployed, alcoholic character actor. Isidore's second revelation is that his android friends are not simply, like him, misunderstood, persecuted humans. When Isidore finds a rare spider, a living thing which he treasures, Irmgard Baty proceeds to snip its legs off out of curiosity, offering to pay Isidore the catalog price of the spider, ignorant to the inherent value of life. Roy Baty tells Isidore that "Mercerism is a swindle. The whole experience of empathy is a swindle."

When Deckard arrives, he runs into Isidore, who tells him that he is looking after the three androids and that he will not help Deckard capture them. Inside of the building Deckard is aided by an apparition of Mercer, the religious figure, who assures him that retiring androids is not contrary to the teachings of Mercerism:

Mercer said, "Mr. Isidore spoke for himself, not for me. What you are doing has to be done. I said that already." Raising his arm he pointed at the stairs behind Rick. "I came to tell you that one of them is behind you and below, not in the apartment. It will be the hard one of the three and you must retire it first." The rustling, ancient voice gained abrupt fervor. "Quick, Mr. Deckard. On the steps.

The first android, Pris, is most difficult because she is the same model as Rachael Rosen and resembles her exactly. After retiring her, Deckard goes to the apartment and retires Irmgard Baty. Just before shooting Roy Baty, Deckard has a realization: that Baty loved his wife, Isidore loved Pris, and he himself loved Rachael, but that none of it mattered because they were all androids.

The Aftermath

Retiring six Nexus-6 androids in one day is a record-breaking achievement, and the bounty Deckard receives for it makes him wealthy. Nevertheless, the emotions stirred up by the day's events leave him depressed. His depression worsens when he returns home to find that Rachael Rosen, showing emotions that androids are not supposed to feel, has killed his goat. He flies off in a hovercar to a desolate area near Oregon, and climbs a hill in an imitation of Mercer. While analyzing the source of his depression, he makes an amazing discovery: in the dust at his feet is a toad, although toads are supposed to be extinct. With renewed faith, Deckard returns home to his wife Iran and shows this marvelous creature to her. While examining it she opens a panel in the toad's back, revealing that it is really just another mechanical animal. Deckard goes to bed feeling more depressed than ever, while Iran phones the pet store to find out what supplies are needed to take care of Deckard's mechanical toad in the best way possible.