The Android’s Dream was published by Tor Books in 2006, the same year as The Ghost Brigades but entirely unrelated — a standalone novel that showcases Scalzi’s gift for comic science fiction. The title is a nod to Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and the novel shares Dick’s interest in the question of what constitutes authentic life, though approached through farce rather than melancholy.
The plot begins when a human diplomat deliberately murders an alien ambassador through a weaponized form of communication during trade negotiations. The alien species (the Nidu) demand reparation in the form of a specific breed of sheep required for their coronation ceremony — the “Android’s Dream,” a genetically-engineered breed with electric-blue wool. Finding this sheep (there may be only one left alive, and she may not know she’s partly sheep) becomes a matter of galactic diplomatic survival.
The novel spirals outward from this absurd premise with escalating inventiveness: a former soldier turned State Department fixer, a sentient computer program that has founded its own religion, competing conspiracies within the human government, and an alien species whose social hierarchy is determined by smell. The tone is Douglas Adams meets Tom Clancy — outrageous comedy married to competent thriller mechanics.
Collecting The Android’s Dream
First edition (Tor Books, New York, 2006): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $30–$75
- Signed copies: $50–$125