It's right there in the title, but I never really got it until I read the thing: it's all about animals.¹

Vaguely connecting dream and sheep to counting sheep, I had never really thought much about the sheep in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that animals play a huge and hilarious role in the book Blade Runner was based on.

So here's the situation:

There's a massive nuclear war ("World War Terminus"). The Earth gets blasted with radioactive fallout. Most of the animals die off ("First, strangely, the owls had died.") and the radiation messes with people's genes ("...your husband felt no protection, the TV announcer was saying, in owning and continually wearing an expensive and clumsy radiation-proof lead codpiece, Mrs Klugman?"). Rich people flee to colonies on Mars ("Emigrate or degenerate! The choice is yours!") where an industry of android production is developed ("...duplicates the halcyon days of the pre-Civil War Southern states! Either as body servants or tireless field hands, the custom-tailored humanoid robot...this loyal, trouble-free companion in the greatest, boldest adventure contrived by man in modern history will provide...").

And for the people who remain, the ultimate possession is an animal--real or electric.²

Our bounty-hunter hero, Rick Deckard, is completely obsessed with getting a better animal.³ He used to have a sheep, but it died of tetanus. So now he has an electric sheep. His neighbor has a horse, which is pretty much as good as it gets--if it's real.

You keep an animal on the roof, because nobody lives in American Dream houses anymore--the suburbs are a desolate wasteland. You live in a city in a giant apartment building and you look for one where some people are because there are so few of you left. And then you chat with your neighbor while you feed your animal on the roof.

If you come into some money, like Rick does after 'retiring' three androids and collecting a big bounty, you go to the animal dealership and get a better animal so that you can impress your neighbor.

All the most important questions of the story are brought up by animals: does it matter if you mistake an electric one for a real one? When does killing a thing matter? Why do we care if a thing is electric or real?

And do you know what's best about this book? You could write a review that never even mentions animals and it could be just as fascinating.⁴

It's masterstrokes like this that separate great writers like Philip K Dick from the rest of us.