This was a book that I avoided for a long, long time. I've seen Bladerunner many times and I just didn't think there was any reason to read the book on which the movie was based. I was wrong. The movie was great, but it just wasn't able to express the empathy that was such a central theme to the book. Imagining a world where you have to 'dial in' for a specific emotion doesn't seem to be that big of a stretch with current big medicine. Empathy machines and pets are probably right around the corner.