We Can Build You (Daw UQ1014) - Softcover

Philip K. Dick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0879970146 ISBN 13: 9780879970147

Publisher: DAW, 1972

Synopsis

Philip K Dick's visionary forerunner to the novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' that became the film Bladerunner, tells the story of Louis Rosen and his love for the daughter of his business partner and the truth about where his life-like androids might end up! Making an animatronic replica of Abraham Lincoln has never been easier. Finding someone to buy it is the hard part. Louis Rosen's firm, the Frauenzimmer Piano Company, builds electronic organs and upright pianos. Deciding to expand the business the firm get ambitious, building exact reconstructions of famous personalities. Sam K. Barrows, a lunar real estate tycoon wants to repopulate the moon with their creations, and he's the only one rich enough to buy them. As the Lincoln model develops a fault and Rosen begins to fall for the daughter of his business partner, things go from bad to worse and his mental health rapidly begins to deteriorate. 'We Can Build You' bears striking similarities in Dick's later novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' which was later transformed into Ridley Scott's extraordinary science fiction film classic 'Bladerunner'.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"In his top form, Philip K. Dick rivals Kurt Vonnegut." The New York Times

In this lyrical and moving novel, Philip K. Dick intertwines the story of a toxic love affair with one about sentient robots, and unflinchingly views it all through the prism of mental illness which spares neither human nor robot. The end result is one of Dick s most quietly powerful works.

When Louis Rosen's electronic organ company builds a pitch-perfect robotic replica of Abraham Lincoln, they are pulled into the orbit of a shady businessman, who is looking to use Lincoln for his own profit. Meanwhile, Rosen seeks Lincoln's advice as he woos a woman incapable of understanding human emotions someone who may be even more robotic than Lincoln's replica.

PHILIP K. DICK (1928 1982) wrote 121 short stories and 45 novels and is considered one of the most visionary authors of the twentieth century. His work is included in the Library of America and has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. Eleven works have been adapted to film, including Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly.

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From the Inside Flap

Louis Rosen and his partners sell people--ingeniously designed, historically authentic simulacra of personages such as Edwin M. Stanton and Abraham Lincoln. The problem is that the only prospective buyer is a rapacious billionaire whose plans for the simulacra could land Louis in jail. Then there's the added complication that someone--or something--like Abraham Lincoln may not want to be sold.

Is an electronic Lincoln any less alive than his creators? Is a machine that cares and suffers inferior to the woman Louis loves--a borderline psychopath who does neither? With irresistible momentum, intelligence, and wit, Philip K. Dick creates an arresting techno-thriller that suggests a marriage of Bladerunner and Barbarians at the Gate.

Edition details

• Publisher: DAW
• Publication date: 1972
• ISBN 10: 0879970146
• ISBN 13: 9780879970147
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 206
• Illustrator: John Schoenherr - Cover