Hunter Bernard

Journal 1 

When Rick arrived at the Rosen Association Building in Seattle, I was wondering why they had animals in and around a building that deals with androids. This causes Rick to be incredibly distracted. I think Rick worries a little too much about status that is created by owning animals. His obsession with the Sidney's catalog is a little odd. When he gives the test to Rachael Rosen, I assumed she was an android when she ignored the detail of the bearskin rug in one of the scenarios. Even when the elder Rosen told Rick that she was not an android, I was convinced that she was. When they started to blackmail Rick, I knew something was up. It was obvious to me that the plan all along was to tell Rick that Rachael wasn't an android whether he said she was or was not, and therefore they could blackmail him and he would keep his job. From the way Rachael was answering the questions, I knew she was a android, and when Rick gave her one last question, it confirmed my suspicions. I expect Rachael will play a big role later on, judging from her conversation with John Isidore when he offers to get her new furniture and become better friends. I think she was just hostile toward Isidore because she had just found out that she was an android, and that was a lot to deal with all of a sudden. I think Rick will be assigned to "retire" Rachael, but he won't be able to because he will develop an emotional connection to her. I am very excited to see how the novel will continue from this point on. I think that the book is about to become really exciting pretty soon, and I'm expecting many encounters with androids from here.

 Journal 2

Since my last post I am beginning to wonder if the person living in the same apartment building as JR Isidore is actually Rachael Rosen. She does not seem to know exactly what's going on, judging from when she first met Isidore. Aside from that, the book has really picked up, especially in the parts concerning Rick. The person who was supposed to help him retire androids ended up being Polokov, who had previously blasted one of Rick's colleagues. I knew something was up when Luba Luft called the police on Rick as he was applying to Voigt-Kampff test to her, because when the cops showed up, they told Rick they had never heard of his police department. I assumed they were androids as soon as they said that. When they got to the fake police station, I was even more convinced that it was a big android-run operation when Rick called his wife and a woman he had never seen before answered the call. I still do not understand how a bunch of androids could run an unofficial police department close to where the actual police department is and not have them know about it. When Phil Resch left and Garland told Rick that he was an android and so was Resch, I completely believed that they both were and when the Voigt-Kampff test came to the conclusion that he was actually human, I thought it might have made a mistake. When Luba Luft was accusing Resch of being an android and he blew a hole in her torso, I thought for sure he was an android, because it is supposedly android behaviour to turn one another in or kill one another. I just can't imagine Resch working under androids for three years and not knowing it. How did Garland get away with not taking the test for all that time? I hope the book will provide answers for some of my questions.

Journal 3

The following post may contain spoilers depending on where you are in the book. Rick bought a goat. He retired Polokov, Garland, and Luft, and stopped at a pet shop on the way home and worked out a deal for a goat. I really think Rick worries way too much about looking rich and high class, seeing that he has spent a large portion of the book thinking about animals or trying to purchase one. He has a pretty strong conversation with Mercer, and Rick tells him about his thoughts on quitting his job and emigrating to Mars. I like what Mercer said. He essentially told Rick that even though hunting and killing androids may not be the most ethical thing he could be doing as a career, it needs to be done by someone, and that he should stick with it. As for the JR Isidore story, he had bought some pre-war food and was planning to have a nice dinner with Pris, but midway through, Pris' friends Irmgard and Roy Baty show up and interrupt. They begin to speak of a bounty hunter that is out to get them, and Isidore seems to not be able to believe it. I think Isidore can't even fathom the concept of a person being paid to kill other people. Since he's a chickenhead, he doesn't really know about it, and keeps referring to Mercerism. He eventually figures out that everyone in the room is an android, but he doesn't really care. He had friends all of a sudden, so he was happy. He even moved everyone's stuff into his apartment so they could live there with him. I think they are kind of taking advantage of Isidore and aren't really interested in having a lasting relationship with him. This is shown when they vote on whether to stay with him or not. Roy Baty votes to kill Isidore instead of living with him. Judging from the events happening and the number of pages left, I think the big conclusion will come soon, and I'm really excited to see how things turn out.

Journal 4

This post will completely give away the ending for anyone who hasn't read it yet. Rick has finally taken Rachael up on her offer to help him retire the androids he has on his list. He tells her to meet him at a hotel and he will leave to take the androids out from there. He says he trying out something Resch told him about, which would be having an "intimate experience" with an android before retiring one. I don't really see the logic behind this idea, but it could help. Rick shares with her the list, and Rachael becomes tense when Rick mentions Pris Stratton. At this point I was still considering the possibility that Pris Stratton was an alias that Rachael was using. It turns out that this was not true, however, and that Pris Stratton is instead an android that looks exactly like Rachael. I was thinking that he would have a hard time retiring Pris. When he finally sets out to take out the three androids, he has a conversation with Rachael in his hovercar and he becomes very upset and tells her he will kill her, but does not follow through with it and instead kicks her out of the car and continues on. Rick's sudden change of emotion surprises me, however he had also done something similar when he was with Resch. Garland had told Rick that Resch was an android, and Rick was very hesitant to tell Resch this, but he got really upset when Resch blew a hole in Luba Luft's torso and Rick had to finish her off before he could complete the test with her and retire her in a more appropriate place. He told Resch that he hoped the test would prove Resch as an android so he could kill him. Rick seems to change his mood suddenly. When he finally reaches the apartment where Isidore and the three androids he has to retire are, he sees Mercer and Mercer warns him of Pris Stratton sneaking up on him, and he swiftly retires her. I'm still not sure exactly what happened at this point. I don't think Mercer was actually there, but I'm really not sure what exactly he saw. When he reaches the apartment where the Batys are hiding out, he pretends to be Isidore to trick them into opening the door, and once inside takes care of business. He returns home to find that Rachael Rosen killed his goat, and he goes on a rage visit to a desert, where he finds what he thought was a real toad, and takes it home. His wife shows him that it's fake, but while he sleeps, she orders a cage and food for this toad. I think Iran really likes Rick a lot more now that she's out her depression and is enjoying life a lot more, and I am surprised that Rick was cool with committing adultery with Rachael even after Iran shaped up.

Response to Review

http://prometheus-unbound.org/2012/12/28/book-review-do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep-by-philip-k-dick/

The review above talks about the book and mentions almost nothing about the the movie adaptation Blade Runner. In the review, it touches on how the author does not use ridiculous back stories and unnecessarily detailed descriptions to introduce characters. I agree with this; when we met Rachael Rosen, we were not given a complete breakdown of her physical appearance and  what was going on inside her head at the time. Instead, we are given a brief description of her appearance before Rick gave her the Voigt-Kampff test. I also like that the person writing the review questions the reasoning behind the need to retire androids. I also wondered this many times during then novel. If the androids are not doing anything wrong, why must they be retired? Rick never wonders this himself, and like the review says, both the androids and humans have accepted that androids are hunted by bounty hunters, and that is that. It might have been a good idea to implement Rick questioning killing androids in the story, but I did not miss that detail too much. The review also says that the movie leaves out the obsession with owning animals and Mercerism. I have not seen the movie, but I think that was probably something that should have been included. The whole idea of owning an animal was a huge obsession that Rick had throughout the book, along with him constantly referencing Sidney's when seeing an animal. Overall, I agree with the review on just about everything, and I would like to watch Blade Runner to see if it is a good adaptation of the book.