The fourth edition of our Books Showoff spinoff – The Over-Analysers’ Book Club – sees six performers from the worlds of reading, writing, publishing, academia and comedy over-analyse Philip K Dick’s classic book, each taking a different entertaining angle.
Joining compere Steve Cross in the lovely Waterstones Tottenham Court Road basement bar are:
Sophie Meekings talking about the often criminally ignored “sheep” subplot of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Spoiler: SHEEP ARE GREAT
James Kneale on the Penfield Mood Organ and why you only need to read the first four pages of DADoES to get the whole novel, as well as most of the important things about Dick’s life
Rob Eagle is the bastard love child of Philip K Dick and William Gibson, researching virtual reality that allows users to explore another person’s world. How can we use VR to reimagine and play with gender roles and binaries? DADoES paints a dystopic future for technology and our ability as a society to feel empathy. Some of the ’60s tech is now coming true, and we only need to look at the rise of nationalism and anti-migrant sentiment to see that Britain has an empathy crisis at the moment. Scary stuff…
Alice Bell: At least in the Blade Runner films, the weather is really shit. Plus why the best baddies are solar powered baddies
Plus more from comedian Iszi Lawrence, and computer scientist and sex tech expert Dr Kate Devlin
Doors are 6.30pm for a 7pm start. Please note this is earlier than Books Showoff 2016-17
Science Showoff 