Blade Runner - Philip K. Dick Book Review

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Review Summary

Blade Runner the film, the superb sci-fi Frankensteinian futurescape has given this book a new lease of life, as well as a new cover. The 1968 book inspired the film, however the book is far less competent. The plot revolves around a bounty hunter, who terminates androids. The healthy folks have fled planet Earth in the aftermath of a nuclear war, Mars being the romantic destination. The androids, virtual physical replicas of humans, are the new slave class. Perhaps the question behind it all is 'if God created man in His image, what happens when man creates in his image?'. The answer is not an encouraging one: it also has renewed pertinence at this time, in the light of the current Human Genome Project and our nascent cloning technology. Sadly the bitter tone of this book lacks depth, and is devoid of hope or feelgood factor. The plot also fails to integrate the many inventive themes such as the fake religion, and the false hope of the 'mood organ', an instant brain-fix machine. The men come over as convincing characters, but the females rather less so. To be fair, the book's great invention is the 'empathy test', which distinguishes between androids and humans. It is used well in the book, and they also honed it to a keen edge in the film.
Michael JR Jose, Resident Scholar

Detailed literary breakdown of Blade Runner

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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book - depressing/sad
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - science fiction story
Spying & Investigations Yes
What is main char. doing? - finding a killer (criminal)
Repressive society story Yes
Repressive because: - controls your mind
Story involving clones/duplicates? - bad clones/duplicates
Lifeform altered? Yes
Kind of alteration: - Scientifically turned into another lifeform
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Clones Yes
Who's a slave/repressed? - humans are slaves of other humans

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Profession/status: - bounty hunter
Age: - 20's-30's
Has magical/special powers? Yes
Magical/mental powers of main character: - can read emotions
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - clone
Age: - 20's-30's
Profession/status: - servant
Eccentric: Yes - emotionally unstable
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a little/some
How sensitive is this character? - mean, arrogant
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique

Setting
Earth setting: - medium future 22-24th century
Takes place on Earth? Yes

Style
Person? - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
scientific jargon? (SF only) - none/very little science jargon needed
How much dialogue? - significantly more descript than dialog

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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).

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