BLADE RUNNER DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

"Alive yet not living, they sought to pass as humans and sieze man's dying world"
"Now a Spellbinding Motion Picture!"

1st. EDITION: Doubleday, hb, 68-11779, Mar 1968, 210pp, $3.95, (Harry Sehring)
{Levack: "Bound in grey cloth with gold lettering on the spine. '1968' on the title page. 'FIRST EDITION' on the copyright page. Date code J5 [5th week of 1968] at lower right margin of page 210"}

UK 1st.: Rapp & Whiting, hb, 081-2, Mar 1969, 192pp, 21/- (Lawrence Edwards)

OTHER ENGLISH EDITIONS:

 In the GSM Collection Granada, pb, 03605-9, Aug 1982, 183pp, L1.50 (Movie Poster)

FOREIGN EDITIONS:

  • To a larger picture
 J'Ai Lu,pb, 1768, 1985, ?, ? (?){Tr. into French as BLADE RUNNER} ISBN: 2-277-21768-9}

{Looks like the cover picture on the Italian Nord Edition of 1995 (above) is the same one as used on the Bluejay edition of K.W. Jeter's Dr. ADDER.... There's also an edition of THE 3 STIGMATA -- the Manor paperbacks of 1975 and 1977 -- that has the same cover of a UK edition of Frank Herbert's CHILDREN OF DUNE or DUNE MESSIAH circa 1970... I've also found a pb magazine collection, I forget the title, publisher, etc., that uses the same cover picture as on the Underwood-Miller THE SELECTED LETTERS OF PHILIP K. DICK: 1974. If anyone notices anymore duplicates like this please let me know -- Lord RC}     

{For the best bibliographic info in French goto: www.multimania.com/ggoullet/pkdick/frames.html Thanks for the cover pix, Gilles}

{Thanks to Erik Johnson for most of the Russian editions in our collection}

{On the Russian editions I'm not sure if these pics are attached to the correct descriptions...}

He wondered now, about her, too. Some female androids seemed to him pretty; he had found himself physically attracted by several, and it was an odd sensation, knowing intellectually that they were machines but emotionally reacting anyhow.

Vote for your Fave PKD Story   DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? Just what is it that makes a true human?I think he hit it right on the nail -- empathy, or compassion, as the Buddhists would have it. -- David Anonymous, CA

PKDS-2 13:

They are the great joy for me, and I wish I could squeeze Willis, my huge orange and white tom, into a novel, or if they make a movie of DO ANDROIDS DREAM? Willis could play a walk-on part (no lines), and we would both be happy. {PKD - 1968}

PKDS-2 13:

DO ANDROIDS DREAM? has sold very well and has been eyed intently by a film company who have in fact purchased an option on it. My wife thinks its a good book. I like it for one thing: it deals with a society in which animals are adored and rare, and a man who owns a real sheep is Somebody... and feels for that sheep a vast bond of love and empathy. Willis my tomcat strides silently over the pages of that book, being important as he is, with his long golden twitching tail. Make them understand, he says to me, that animals are really that important right now. He says this, and then eats up all the food we have been warming for our baby. Some cats are far too pushy. The next thing he'll want to do is write sf novels. I hope he does. None of them will sell. {PKD - 1968 Self Portrait}

PKDS-3 2:

One of these projects, the film BLADE RUNNER, was the culmination of one of Phil's major dreams: to have one of his books -- in this case DO ANDROIDS? -- made into a movie. {Mark Hurst}

PKDS-3 6:

DO ANDROIDS? was originally optioned at or prior to the books publication in 1968, and of course, BLADE RUNNER appeared 14 years later.

PKDS-4 8:

BLADE RUNNER / ANDROIDS is by far PKD's best seller (in the US anyway) with 325,000 copies sold.

PKDS-5 11:

(AW:) He seemed hurt that Ridley Scott hadn't even bothered to read DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECRIC SHEEP?
(KW:) I don't know if that's true or not... {Andy Watson & K.W. Jeter}

PKDS-6 13:

(PKD:) Somebody has told me that I have to see that film (Last Year At Marienbad). Anyway... I don't like DO ANDROIDS DREAM at all; I really loathe that book.
(Briggs:) Oh good. I have to tell you I detest it.
(PKD:) Yeah, there are certain books of mine I wish I could shovel under, and that's one of them.
{PKD - A & B 1977}

PKDS-8 4:

(JB:) I'm certain that he had a high regard for DO ANDROIDS, and yet, in the interview with our gentlemen up North (Apel & Briggs) he says he always loathed that book, or its his worst book, or something like that.
(TP:) Twenty minutes later if they'd asked him the same question, he'd have said something totally different.
(JB:) And whether he was being flippant, or whether for the moment he was convinced of that or something, he might have decided that there was something wrong with it artistically or something, and decided to loathe it for a day.
(TP:) When he wrote it he wasn't writing it despising it. He wrote about stuff that was important to him. {Powers, Blaylock, Watson}

PKDS-11 4:

He developed an interest in a particular actress named Victoria Principal... he was very interested in her playing the main female lead in UBIK -- Pat Conley ... At the same time he was thinking, "If she can't take this role, there is a role in DO ANDROIDS that she'd be good in." {D.S. Black}

PKDS-11 5:

Nord in Italy will publish DO ANDROIDS DREAM.

PKDS-11 6:

Judy-Lyn Del Rey was responsible for publishing... PKD's best-selling book ever, the movie tie-in edition of DO ANDROIDS DREAM

PKDS-15 10:

(From the New York Times Book Review, Brent Staples.)
Brent Staples ("first assistant metropolitan editor of the Times"), goes on to talk about the Mercer scenes in ANDROIDS, where "worshippers merge souls with a Jesus-like figure through a telly that lets them feel his pain... In the clearest sense, Dick envisions a culture in which television had, once and for all, escaped from its box."

PKDS-15 11:

Alexander Nedelkovich thoughtfully sent us a copy of the 1984 Yugoslav edition of SANJAJU LI ANDROIDI ELEKTRICNE OVCE? by Filip K. Dik, translated by Nedelkovich and Branislav Brkic (and dedicated to Timu i Sereni Pauers)

A rock, hurled at him, struck his arm. He felt the pain. He half turned and another rock sailed past him, missing him; it collided with the earth and the sound startled him. Who? he wondered, peering to see his tormentor. The old antagonists, manifesting themselves at the periphery of his vision; it, or they, had followed him all the way up the hill and they would remain until at the top --

{NOTE: See "Notes on DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?" (1968) in TSR 155ff. An article by PKD on the adaptation of ANDROIDS to film. (Not available on this website)}

FDO:6 11

We ordered a copy of the audiocassette version of DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? (Time-Warner, ISBN: 1-57042-052-1, 1994. Two cassettes, approx. 3 hours, $17/$22 CAN). This is a pleasant surprise. Mathew Modine and, especially, Callista Flockhart, read the book with the conviction of real pros.. One anticipates Flockhart's weary portrayal of Deckard's wife, Iran, with glee, and Modine's sly humour brings the novel to life for the listener. One caveat: this is, according to the box, "an abridgement of DO ANDROIDS DREAM... approved by the author." Abridgement by Jeffrey Gorney. I haven't looked to see what's missing but enjpoy listening to the tape for it's vivacity. -- Lord RC

SSF #3

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?/BLADERUNNER, Granada, pb, 03605-9, 1982, L1.50
Granada, with impeccable timing, have rereleased PKD's excellent bok as a Blade Runner tie-in, with a photo-montage cover and Blade Runner logo in obvious predominance. ANDROIDS? is a small, insignificant lettered title to the side.

Still, besides the commercialism, you'll be getting a good book for your quid fifty. Rick Deckard is the main character, a policeman who collects bounty by 'retiring' rogue androids. His problems begin when a group of undetectable Nexus Six types escape from Mars and injure the top bounty hunter. Deckard takes the job -- if he retires all the 'andys' he will earn enough to retire on himself.

The book is full of Dickian reality twists and anecdotes, such as the fact that real animals are rare and to own one is the ultimate status symbol. Deckard has the next best thing -- and electric one, a 'sheep'. He buys a real goat with some of his bounty but this is killed by Rachael, the surviving Nexus Six, with whom he made love prior to his hunting down of the other andys.

At one point an elaborate set-up almost convinces Deckard and another bounty hunter that they are in fact androids themselves.

Read ANDROIDS as a good primer for Blade Runner, but also if you want a good, imaginitive book, which is what we've come to expect from a writer of Dick's calibre. ...NKH.

BGSU Papers

Announces sale of German rights to DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? for $375. Encloses German tax forms for Phil to sign. {Sidney Meredith > PKD, May 23, 1968}

BGSU Papers

Dear Sidney,

   Here are the German tax forms back for DO ANDROIDS DREAM. Thank you very much for the sale; I can use it.

    By the way -- as to the pictures of me. I may have forgotten to tell you that the portrait studio won't have them ready until June fifth. I hope the several publishers who've asked for them don't die of convulsions before that date, but there's nothing I can do to hurry the process up.

Thank you again and best wishes.

Cordially

Philip K. Dick

PS. Some time ago you notified me that you had sold something of mine (I believe The Impostor) to the BBC for something like $443. What ever happened to that? Do the mills of the gods grind that slow?

{PKD > Sidney Meredith, SMLA, 5-26-1968}

BGSU Papers

Questions about UBIK cover art. Congratulates Phil on the sale of the movie rights to DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?. Doubleday will alter the dedication to that work in the next printing as Phil has requested. {Lawrence P. Ashmead > PKD, May 29, 1968}

BGSU Papers

Cover letter with Doubleday royalty statements for the six months 4-30-68. $6.32 for NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR,  $671.38 for DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? {Marcia M. Howell > PKD, Aug 29, 1968}

Dear Roger,

    I've been thinking about the Convention and you, wondering how you are and how you're busy schedule of work is ioi going. (Please forgive the bad typing; I just finished an outline and some sample chapters for Ace, and my fingers are tired.) Anyhow, I wanted to tell you my reation to LORD OF LIGHT, with its beautiful cover -- plus what you wrote in my copy. {...} I think I'll simply type my notes, taken as i read it, onto this sheet of paper. here goes.

(...)

(eight) How did you do on paperback resale? I got $9,000 for ELECTRIC SHEEP. I hope you got more -- the novel deserves it.

{... ...}

{PKD > Roger Zelazny, 11-13-1968}. |{See: A MAZE OF DEATH for more from this letter}

Starlog #55    20:

The Ladd company production is the final result of a series of misunderstandings which made Dick doubt he would ever see anything filmed. At times the author was so alienated by the Hollywood system that he would have been just as happy if his novel never got filmed at all.

"It all began years ago," he explains, "Martin Scorsese and Jay Cocks were both interested in ANDROIDS but they didn't option it. That was the first movie interest in any property of mine. Then later Herb Jaffe optioned it and Robert Jaffe did a screenplay back about 1973. The screenplay was sent to me and it was so crude that I didn't understand that it was actually the shooting script; I thought it was the rough. I wrote to them and asked if they would like me to do the shooting script, at which point Robert Jaffe, the one who wrote the screenplay, flew down here to Orange County and confessed that he had written it under a nom de plume. I said to him then that it was so bad that I wanted to know if he wanted me to beat him up there at the airport or wait till we got to my apartment."

Robert Jaffe was very straightforward and asked Dick if he really thought it was that bad, whereupon Dick responded candidly. "I said, 'All I ask is that you do not drag me down to ruin with you." I said that I'd honestly prefer to buy back the property than let them make a film based on that screenplay and he was real nice about it. I gave him suggestions and he took notes and then I noticed that he wasn't actually writing, but rather he was just moving the pen about a quarter of an inch from a piece of paper that already had printing on it so that he was only pretending to take notes. I realized then that there was a gulf between me and Hollywood.{...}"

{Philip K. Dick on BLADERUNNER by James Van Hise}

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