Lauren B. reviewed on 10/27/2005 + 16 more book reviews

It's January 2021 and Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter for the San Francisco Police Department. He hunts down and "retires" rogue androids (andys). Thanks to technology from companies like the Rosen Association, it's getting increasingly hard to tell the androids from the humans, but there is an empathy test that Deckard can administer; androids don't feel empathy for humans or for each other. Meanwhile, due to the devastation wreaked by nuclear fallout from World War Terminus, animal life is nearly sacred and pets are status symbols. Deckard and his wife have an electric sheep just to try and keep up with the Joneses. Also, the fallout is starting to impact the genetics and fertility of humans, so the government is advocating emigration to Mars, running a Public Service Ad that warns: "Emigrate or degenerate! The choice is yours!" Amidst all of this, a new religion has arisen called Mercerism. It's founder, Wilber Mercer, is an empath who is taking all of mankind's suffering upon his own shoulders. Adherents transmit their pain to him through Mercer Boxes and receive inner peace in return. Now Deckard has been given the assignment of retiring a gang of 8 andys and, to his own horror, he finds that he is starting to develop feelings of empathy for these humanoids while Mercer is telling him that it's wrong to kill the androids, but that he has to go ahead and do it anyway.

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