Blade Runner

Philip K. Dick was probably the most  brilliant science fiction writer in the world but, he died of a stroke at the age of 53.  More than a dozen of his stories have been made into movies. His book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published in 1968 and is what the Harrison Ford movie Blade Runner is based.

Grim and foreboding, even today it is a masterpiece ahead of its time. By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn’t afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . . They even built humans.

Emigrées to Mars received androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women.  Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn’t want to be identified, they just blended in. Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.