Mike Says Meh The blog of Mike Kauspedas | Hosting by www.gearhost.com

The movie was better then the book

My review contains spoilers ...

I started and finished "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" otherwise known as Bladerunner last night. I hated the book. The writing style was piece meal and oozed pompous prick all through it. Every character talked and acted the same, and half the time I felt like a drug induced hippy wrote it because it was skipping around so much. There was no depth to the main character at all. But then again I was expecting to read Bladerunner with its dark gritty awesomeness. Instead I got drugged up hippy pompous prick book instead. I also don't like books that assume no human in the future will have common sense.

Anyway, I may recommend purely on the basis you can tell others you have read it. I think its the in thing with heady sci fi geeks. Me, I prefer good space opera because I read to be entertained, not preached to. At least if you do keep it subtle.

Speaking of jumping around, there is a scene in which Deckard (aka Harrison Ford aka main character) is quesitoning an andy and the andy cleverly keeps interupting. Then Deckard is accused of being an andy, the replicant (a much better name, thanks movie) doesn't believe him so Deckard calls the police. He talks to someone, who isn't there, but is there ... and I seriously had no idea what was happening until 10 pages later when I figure out the new guy he met isn't a replicant but has no empathy because he's killed so many andys which the author clearly explains through a weird "trip" Deckard takes to the desert to commit suicide at the end of the book ... I think. Nice run-on I just made but it enhances the confusion I experienced while reading.

To say the book and the movie are different is an understatement. Here are the things that are similiar.

The character names.

Yep, that's about it.

Oh, there is one thing I liked. Rachael turns out to be a sleazy whore in the book and Deckard almost kills her because she sleeps with practically every bounty hunter (bladerunner). I like it when characters turn out to be pricks, to other characters. Or back stab, or in some way make me feel bad because it touches my emotions. Some books do this worse then others, some do it well. And because I felt nothing for any character in the book to learn that Deckard's one night stand with the replicant was just her seducing him to try and stop him from killing the others was great.

Maybe I seem shallow or that I didn't get the whole moral anti-vietnam you become the enemy by killing the enemy thing ... or by my statement I just made I actually did get it and thought it was a bunch of sh*t.