When comparing Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? vs Snow Crash, the Slant community recommends Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? for most people. In the question“What are the best cyberpunk books?” Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is ranked 1st while Snow Crash is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is:
Philip K. Dick manages to excellently explain what a character feels or is thinking through small tells such as body language or involuntary body responses. He often uses these things to illustrate the warmth of humans and coolness of androids.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Well-researched, vivid descriptions of people
Philip K. Dick manages to excellently explain what a character feels or is thinking through small tells such as body language or involuntary body responses. He often uses these things to illustrate the warmth of humans and coolness of androids.
Pro In-depth exploration of empathy
Empathy and what it means to be empathetic is the main theme of the book and is something that each character has to deal with in one way or another.
The protagonist's belief that the ability to empathise makes one alive and that androids are incapable of true human emotion allows him to due his work as a bounty hunter that retires androids. Once he learns that some androids may be capable of empathy and some people are capable of eliminating empathy, he has to re-evaluate his stance.
Pro Conversational, casual writing style allows easily immersing in the story
Pro More fun than traditional cyberpunk novels
The greatest success of Snow Crash, however, is that it's fun... for a certain type of reader, at least. In defiance of all the rules and protocols of science fiction writing, Snow Crash is like crack for geeks precisely because it doesn't do things the way they're supposed to be done. The break-neck opening chapters, those massive infodumps on Sumerian religion, information theory and everything else were -- from my perspective at least -- a vertiginous rush the first time through, and I still get a kick out of them now after maybe six re-reads.
Cons
Con Starts out slow
Although it starts out slow with seemingly not much going on, it often manages to pull the reader in without him even noticing it.
Con Sumerian history infodumps might not be for everyone
The book includes a lot of information about Sumerian history that simply might feel like a history lesson to some.