We Can Build You
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We Can Build You (ISBN 0-679-75296-X) is a 1972 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick.
[edit] Plot
We Can Build You centres on Louis Rosen, a small businessman in a near future whose partner wants to begin production of simulacra, or androids, based on famous Civil War figures. The firm completes two prototypes, one of Edwin M. Stanton and one of Abraham Lincoln. Rosen then attempts to sell the robot patents to Sam K. Barrows, an influential businessman. Unfortunately, while the Stanton android proves able to adapt to contemporary US society, Lincoln's simulacrum proves unable to do so. At the same time, Louis begins a relationship with Pris Frauenzimmer, the schizophrenic daughter of his business partner.
As in many Dick novels, We Can Build You addresses important philosophical questions about human nature, artificial intelligence and sentience, and normality. The Stanton and Lincoln androids are more empathic and humane characters than the actual humans who argue over them. In this future, schizophrenia and emotional withdrawal have become endemic. There is a US Federal Bureau of Mental Health, which has become increasingly powerful and important.
[edit] Trivia
- The name of Rosen's love interest, Pris, was used for one of the androids in the movie Blade Runner, which was primarily based on another of Dick's novels, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. In chapter 3 of We Can Build You, Pris is described as having "odd make-up, eyes outlined in black, a harlequin effect", which is similar to the make-up worn by Pris in Blade Runner.
- In the aforementioned work, humans that experience schizophrenia test similarly to replicants, and this might also prefigure such a plot development in the later novel.
- Simulacra/androids also play pivotal roles in the aforementioned Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?/Blade Runner and The Simulacra, within Dick's later fiction.
- A line from this novel was used as the epigraph for China Mieville's Perdido Street Station.
