 | |
| Author | John Scalzi |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Shelley Eshkar |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Tor Books |
Publication date | October 2006 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 396 |
| ISBN | 0-7653-0941-6 |
| OCLC | 65341139 |
| 813/.6 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3619.C256 A84 2006 |
The Android's Dream is a 2006 science fiction novel by American writer John Scalzi. [1]
The title is a reference to Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The story covers the journey of ex-soldier and State Department employee Harry Creek in his work to acquire a sheep of the Android's Dream breed for the coronation ceremony of an alien race known as the Nidu. The Nidu assert that unless a satisfactory sheep can be provided, the political and diplomatic fallout will cause the Nidu to declare war on Earth—a war Earth will lose badly. The genetically designed breed is very rare and believed extinct after a sect of Nidu intent on deposing the government exterminated all known samples, leading Harry on a chase to find one along with assistance from Brian, an AI based on Harry's childhood friend. The only surviving remnant of the Android's Dream turns out to be Robin Baker, a young lady who is the child of an Android's Dream sheep/human hybrid. At the center of the story is the Church of the Evolved Lamb, whose members recognize that its founding was a total scam, but are devoted to making its prophecies come true anyway.
Harry slowly meets and befriends Robin after numerous attempts to capture her (most notably being a daring escape in Arlington Mall). They flee from a group out to kill her to derail the Nidu coronation, and hide on an instellar liner. The Nidu attack the liner to capture Robin, and Harry eventually surrenders on the stipulation that Robin not be harmed before or after the coronation. During this, the Earth government injunct with the Common Confederation courts that Robin Baker is not human, and actually the sole member of her own unique species, and entitled to protection from the CC.
Being forced to participate in the ceremony, Robin sabotages the proceedings by declaring herself the new Nidu leader, and Brian the controller of the Nidu network, effectively turning control of the entire Nidu nation over to Brian. During this, the Church also declares that Robin is the Evolved Lamb, as she has completed a majority of their prophecies, effectively making her a living goddess, a sovereign, and the single richest person on earth over the course of several minutes.
Publishers Weekly found it to be "an effervescent but intelligent romp", with "inventive jabs at pretend patriotism and self-serving civil service". [2] The SF Site compared it to "prime-period Robert A. Heinlein", lauding it as "pretty near perfect light planetary romance" and "remarkably well-crafted entertainment" (despite "a place or two where Scalzi noodges the plot-logic a little hard"). [3]
SF Signal likened it to "an Elmore Leonard [co-written] with Keith Laumer", and praised its "whip-smart writing" and "realistic everyday dialogue", but faulted the pacing and exposition in the first quarter of the book. [4]
Paul Di Filippo similarly noted the influence of Laumer and Leonard, but posited that the book's "ancestors" also included Christopher Anvil, Eric Frank Russell, and Gordon R. Dickson on the science fiction side, and Carl Hiaasen and Donald Westlake on the "caper novel" side. [5] James Nicoll observed that the book "cheerfully embraces the idea that the US is the only country that matters", and called it "American SF intended to appeal to Americans", but nonetheless commended the quality of Scalzi's prose, and emphasized the extent to which "the plot turned on legal minutiae". [6]
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a dystopian science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968. The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, where Earth's life has been greatly damaged by a nuclear global war, leaving most animal species endangered or extinct. The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who has to "retire" six escaped Nexus-6 model androids, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids.
The Astounding Award for Best New Writer is given annually to the best new writer whose first professional work of science fiction or fantasy was published within the two previous calendar years. It is named after Astounding Science Fiction, a foundational science fiction magazine. The award is sponsored by Dell Magazines, which publishes Analog.
Cory Efram Doctorow is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licences for his books. Some common themes of his work include digital rights management, file sharing, and post-scarcity economics.
Damien Francis Broderick is an Australian science fiction and popular science writer and editor of some 74 books. His science fiction novel The Dreaming Dragons (1980) introduced the trope of the generation time machine, his The Judas Mandala (1982) contains the first appearance of the term "virtual reality" in science fiction, and his 1997 popular science book The Spike was the first to investigate the technological singularity in detail.
Jo Walton is a Welsh and Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She is best known for the fantasy novel Among Others, which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012, and Tooth and Claw, a Victorian era novel with dragons which won the World Fantasy Award in 2004. Other works by Walton include the Small Change series, in which she blends alternate history with the cozy mystery genre, comprising Farthing, Ha'penny and Half a Crown. Her fantasy novel Lifelode won the 2010 Mythopoeic Award, and her alternate history My Real Children received the 2015 Tiptree Award.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden is an American science fiction editor, fanzine writer, essayist, and workshop instructor. She is a consulting editor for Tor Books and is well known for her weblog, Making Light. She has also worked for Federated Media Publishing, when in 2007 she was hired to revive the comment section for the blog Boing Boing. Nielsen Hayden has been nominated for Hugo Awards five times.
Peter Watts is a Canadian science fiction author. He specializes in hard science fiction. He earned a Ph.D from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1991, from the Department of Zoology and Resource Ecology. He went on to hold several academic research and teaching positions, and worked as a marine-mammal biologist. He began publishing fiction around the time he finished graduate school.
John Michael Scalzi II is an American science fiction author and former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his Old Man's War series, three novels of which have been nominated for the Hugo Award, and for his blog Whatever, where he has written on a number of topics since 1998. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2008 based predominantly on that blog, which he has also used for several charity drives. His novel Redshirts won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He has written non-fiction books and columns on diverse topics such as finance, video games, films, astronomy, writing and politics, and served as a creative consultant for the TV series Stargate Universe.
Adam Stemple is a Celtic-influenced American folk rock musician, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also the author of several fantasy short stories and novels, including two series of novels co-written with his mother, writer Jane Yolen.
Agent to the Stars is a science fiction novel by american writer John Scalzi. It tells the story of Tom Stein, a young Hollywood agent who is hired by an alien race to handle the revelation of their presence to humanity.
James Davis Nicoll is a Canadian freelance game and speculative fiction reviewer, former security guard and role-playing game store owner, and also works as a first reader for the Science Fiction Book Club. As a Usenet personality, Nicoll is known for writing a widely quoted epigram on the English language, as well as for his accounts of suffering a high number of accidents, which he has narrated over the years in Usenet groups like rec.arts.sf.written and rec.arts.sf.fandom. He is now a blogger on Dreamwidth and Facebook, and an occasional columnist on Tor.com. In 2014, he started his website, jamesdavisnicoll.com, dedicated to his book reviews of works old and new; and later added Young People Read Old SFF, where his panel of younger readers read pre-1980 science fiction and fantasy, and Nicoll and his collaborators report on the younger readers' reactions.
Old Man's War is a military science fiction novel by American writer John Scalzi, published in 2005. His debut novel was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2006.
Mundane science fiction (MSF) is a niche literary movement within science fiction that developed in the early 2000s, with principles codified by the "Mundane Manifesto" in 2004, signed by author Geoff Ryman and "The Clarion West 2004 Class". The movement proposes "mundane science fiction" as its own subgenre of science fiction, typically characterized by its setting on Earth or within the Solar System; a lack of interstellar travel, intergalactic travel or human contact with extraterrestrials; and a believable use of technology and science as it exists at the time the story is written or a plausible extension of existing technology. There is debate over the boundaries of MSF and over which works can be considered canonical. Rudy Rucker has noted MSF's similarities to hard science fiction and Ritch Calvin has pointed out MSF's similarities to cyberpunk. Some commentators have identified science fiction films and television series which embody the MSF ethos of near-future realism.
Kathryn Elizabeth Cramer is an American science fiction writer, editor, and literary critic.
Mary Robinette Kowal is an American author and puppeteer. Originally a puppeteer by primary trade after receiving a bachelor's degree in art education, she became art director for science fiction magazines and by 2010 was also authoring her first full-length published novels. The majority of her work is characterized by science fiction themes, such as interplanetary travel; a common element present in many of her novels is historical or alternate history fantasy, such as in her Glamourist Histories and Lady Astronaut books.
The Human Division is a science fiction novel by American writer John Scalzi, the fifth book set in the Old Man's War universe.
The Dire Earth Cycle is a trilogy of science fiction novels written by American author Jason M. Hough. The series was simultaneously released in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The first book in the series, The Darwin Elevator, was released in July 2013, and the two sequels, The Exodus Towers and The Plague Forge, were released later that same year. An eBook-only release, The Dire Earth: A Novella, acts as a prequel to the trilogy and reveals more of the main characters' backgrounds.
This is a complete list of works by American science fiction and fantasy author L. E. Modesitt Jr.
This is a list of books by British hard science fiction, Lovecraftian horror, and space opera author Charles Stross.
The Last Emperox is a space opera novel by American writer John Scalzi. The book was published by Tor Books on April 14, 2020. Audible released an audio book version narrated by Wil Wheaton. It is the final volume in The Interdependency trilogy series and a sequel to The Consuming Fire. The Last Emperox opened at #6 on The New York Times bestseller list for combined print and e-book fiction and #14 on the USA Today bestseller list.