Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

The remaining populace live in cluttered, decaying cities in which radiation poisoning sickens them and damages their genes. Animals are rare, and keeping and owning live animals is an important societal norm and status symbol. But many people turn towards the much cheaper synthetic, or electric, animals to keep up the pretense. Prior to the story's beginning Rick Deckard owned a real sheep, but it died of tetanus, and he replaced it with an electric one. The story is set in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the last places affected by the radioactive dust, especially on the peninsula to the south. It is monitored daily by meteorologists using the Mongoose weather satellite in Earth orbit. While still relatively habitable, the sandy deserts of Oregon to the north are highly contaminated by radiation. Rick Deckard stays in a building on the east side of the bay with his wife, Iran, who is depressed. J.R. Isidore lives on the peninsula south of San Francisco.