Blade Runner (Movie-Tie-In Edition) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

After a nuclear World War 3, planet earth's face has definitely changed to show a dreary, devastated view - for those who still live on the surface of it and have not migrated to an extraterrestrial colony.
In these new colonies, man holds so called "androids", a kind of a biological, genetically engineered and human-like robot, in order to colonize the vast, new landmasses. Gifted with intelligence of human beings some of them manage to escape the bad conditions of colonies' slavery and reach earth in a shuttle.
However, they are not allowed to do so and there are special forces called "Blade Runners" hunting their heads. This is called "retiring an andy".

Rick Deckard is a Blade Runner. Till today, everything has gone right but this time the Rosen Corporation, producer of the recently lanced "Nexus-6" series, has done a damn good job: Rick and his chief officer have their doubts whether they may be recognized from normal human beings by the standard Voigt-Kampff testing procedure. After having met the first exemplar of Nexus-6 types - a young female - Rick Deckard begins to realize that there are feelings of empathy towards it (or is it a her?) surfacing inside him.

Suddenly his persuasions start breaking into pieces...

One should not make the mistake to compare "Blade Runner" the movie and "Blade Runner - Do androids dream..." the book, for they clearly do not cover the same subjects, as neither they cover the same story. Both of them open many philosophic topics. But while the book concentrates on questioning our self-awareness of concepts of human qualities (what makes us different from perfectly functioning machines: intelligence, emotions, religion?), the film more focuses on the subject of mortality and desire for life, although of course there can't be a radical separation of the two.

However, both of them are absolutely worth being read or watched, respectively. "Was ist der Mensch?" Immanuel Kant's demand has not been resolved yet.

My recommendation is that you read the novel and see the movie - it is the only way to fully enjoy the wonder of artificial intelligence embedded in an almost human body. A must for any sci-fi/fantasy/cyberpunk reader and anyone who even for a second experienced the fearful greatness of paranoia.

The police officer Rick Deckard is one of the last hermits on earth, with the task to „retire" the androids which escaped from the colonies. He is a Blade Runner. To „retire" the androids means to kill them and this causes a dilemma in Rick's life. He begins to develop feelings towards this machines and asks himself if they really are such a hazard for the humans and if their „lack of empathy" gives him the right to kill them.

The author Philip K. Dick, combines in his book the human overestimation and the fear of a supremacy of the machines. The humans see themselves as the sovereign, and they consider the androids as substandards, because the androids, their creation, are unable to feel emotions, and empathy is the fundamental mark of mankind. This quality seems to give the humans the right to divide themselves from the androids, and to enforce their domination, but at the end the androids embody all the human ideals. This book criticizes in a very subtly way the human overestimation.