Blade Runner has been my favourite film for many years, so I knew I had to get round to reading the original story, and I’m so glad I finally did. I would first like to say that I really do think you should read this book either before seeing the film, or distance yourself from the memory of the film before reading this - they’re very different, but both equally as brilliant. The story is short and sweet but really works your mind, and paints an absolutely amazing picture of the future (as horrible as that future is). Phillip K. Dick’s writing style is very unique, but I got used to it very quickly and learned to love it. I just can’t recommend this book enough.

I’m so thankful to Gollancz for sending a copy of Blade Runner and a few other books to me. I never once expected to recieve one book from them never mind a pile. This is the first of the books I picked up from them given that I’d just recently rewatched Blade Runner and seen Blade Runner 2049. I’m definitely a huge fan of the movies so it made complete sense to prioritise this book. I obviously had a lot of expectations going into this book and it didn’t disappoint. I’d actually argue I enjoyed it more than movies in a sense. (This isn’t to say they’re bad adaptations or imaginings of the world that Philip K. Dick created though) I really enjoyed the set up of the Blade Runner world; Earth 1992 barely surviving after World War Terminus that has caused most humans to have emigrated off world. Two of the main areas I enjoyed reading about that were new to me was the introduction of the Penfield Mood Organ that allowed humans to find an emotion they wanted to experience, dial it in, and ta-da. Plus the exploration of the empathy focused religion – Mercerism – and its important on the story as a whole. Deckard has to take on the job to retire 6 andriods who’ve killed humans and escaped to Earth with the idea to blend in and live out the rest of their lives amongst us shortly after they’d almost killed another bounty hunter. At start of the book it starts off as any other job for him but he’s also placed in a lot of situations that get him questioning his job, his identity, and the identity of others. Due to how these scenes are portrayed it often leads for the reader to question how reliable the narrator (Deckard) is which I really liked. Empathy, humanity, and identity are obviously very important themes that are explored in this book and whilst you could consider these a heavy topic for science-fiction I would definitely say don’t let this put you off as I believe they’re all handled well and approached appropriately within the story. At only 193 pages I recommend bumping this up your TBR pile and letting me know if you too enjoyed it as much as I did.