Do androids count electric sheep?

As part of my pop sugar reading challenge the list prescribed suggested a book that was published in the year I was born. So I downloaded a copy of Do Androids count electric sheep? by Philip K Dick. This 1960s novel was one I’d heard of but I chose it because it sounded a bit odd.

It’s actually really appropriate for this blog. The book is set in the future. In a future where there has been a terrible war and a chemical fall out which has virtually wiped out all animal life. The majority of the world population have moved on to live on Mars and there are a few custodians of earth left behind. These unfortunates have become an underclass of sorts who are trapped in the inhospitable planet.

It’s set in 2021, only six years from now. The author was born in 1928 so was forty when it was published.

It made me really think about the way we are treating our world as the book characters covet the chance of owning a real live animal rather than an electric imitation.

Owls are no longer available.

The few animals that still live are all listed in a catalogue but many are out of stock.

Those that are available are very expensive.

It’s tremendous that people decide that when one planet is ruined we can just move to another one too. So often that’s the way. Let’s not clean up our mess!

I suspect that by 2021 we won’t have moved to Mars but I do wonder whether more animals may be history.

Have you read any prophetic books?

Have any books you’ve read given you an idea of the future?