Finished Su 2/8/15
According to the flyleaf, this is the third time I've read this novel since 2004, but PKD's books are always worth multiple readings.
Penfield Mood Alternator- machine that allows the user to 'dial-in' how they want to feel
Buster Friendly and His Friendly Friends- Radio personality that operates 24 hrs a day, and revealed to be an android. His show explodes the secret that Wilbur Mercer is a fraud.
Wilbur Mercer- Using the Penfield, a user is able to connect with Mercer who is a Christ-like figure who rises and falls forever. Shadowy figures throw rocks at Mercer, and leave marks on the user.
Rick Deckard- Central character who is employed as a bounty hunter by the San Francisco Police Department. Androids from other planets come back to earth posing as human, and it's the bounty hunter's job to kill them. Later in the novel it's revealed that Deckard has developed an emphatic feeling for androids. Before he terminates an android he must administer a test to determine whether they are human, and the test monitors empathy because androids cannot 'feel' for another entity. Whether or not androids can't 'feel' is one of the themes.
Voight-Kampff Test- One of the tests to determine Human or Android
Deckard owned a sheep because he couldn't afford a real animal. After World War Terminus most forms of life on Earth begin to disappear making pets of any kind very valuable. Also, radioactivity has made most humans infertile and diminished IQ. If you can't reproduce or show evidence of normal IQ, you're stuck on Earth and can't emigrate.
J.R. Isidore- 'Chicken head' who lives alone in an abandoned building full of 'kipple'. 'Kipple' is trash and discarded items which is kind of a metaphor for entropy. It is becoming ubiquitous.
Excellent link to the novel on wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep%3F
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