Blade Runner: A Movie [Paperback]

William S. Burroughs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1986

(the movie got its title from this earlier book)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this futuristic screenplay vision of a strife-and-disease-plagued America in 1999, Burroughs finds the cure for a decaying civilization in the medicine practiced by underground physicians and surgeons. These heroic healers, in turn, are aided by 'blade runners,' teenagers who smuggle banned surgical instruments past the watchful eyes of fascistic police. The novel-cum-screenplay follows follows one of these runners during the course of a race riot and the transfer of instruments between embattled doctors. Above the drama in the streets of New York is a world 'taken over by hang-glider and autogyro gangs, mountaineers and steeplejacks. A sky boy steps off his penthouse into a parachute on guide wires that drop him to a street-level landing...Meanwhile, released animals and reptiles from the zoo and freed fish fro the aquarium have control of the rovers and subways. The prose flashes with Burrough's own brand of outrageousness and fantasy." -- L.A. Herald Examiner July 29. 1979

From the Publisher

Characters and situations in this book were based upon The Bladerunner by Alan E. Nourse. Except for the title, this book has nothing to do with the movie by Ridley Scott which was ultimately based upon a book by Philip K. Dick called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Blue Wind Pr; 2 edition (May 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0912652462
• ISBN-13: 978-0912652467
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,835,911 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing New, and No Real Connections to the Film, January 21, 2002

By 

Sir Charles Panther "Life is hard. It's hard... (Alexandria, Virginny, USandA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Blade Runner: A Movie (Paperback)

If you're looking for a connection to Ridley Scott's brilliant 1981 film release, you won't have it here. The only real connection is the title itself. It strikes me that someone creative and well-read in the Blade Runner film development came upon a phrase which just wouldn't let go, and that's how we got the term for the film. But wait, this was the term in Philip K. Dick's original book--so who knows which came first... Burroughs' description here and that in the film are similar in their urban and societal context, but that's about where they end.

Reading this book, it strikes me that the producers of Escape from New York read this novel, and took an awful lot of creative vision away from it. This is especially true of the descriptions of a decrepit and decaying New York City, walled, populated by the dead, dying, and murdering, and where entire cultures flourish hundreds of feet above in the dead skyscrapers.

Written in late 70s, published first in 1979. Set in 1999, or maybe 2014, or maybe 1984, or maybe any number of time citations Burroughs coughs up.

Basically it's a futuristic nightmare, a technological hell in which the state has taken over all aspects of life, bureaucracy dictates every waking moment, and the medical institution is the vilest, most corrupt, most bloodthirsty, and most reckless of them all. Underground and legit drugs, as well as designer plagues all vie in the marketplace. Genetics are manipulated and diseases are voluntarily contracted for the material and physiological benefits the accrue.

Inside this hell the blade runner is central. "Essential to underground medicine are the blade runners, who transfer the actual drugs, instruments and equipment from the suppliers to the clients and doctors and underground clinics." The second half of the book, all two-dozen-odd pages of it follows Billy and his mates, blade runners all, as they fight their way through life on the street.

If you're a Burroughs fan, you've seen it all before in Cities of the Red Night and The Place of Dead Roads. Nothing exotic or new or surprising here. This is a good addition to complete your Burroughs library, but not much more.

15 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Off-cuts should not be published., October 26, 1999

By 

Neil Ford (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blade Runner: A Movie (Paperback)

This very short book will disappoint all but the most blindly fanatical Burroughs fans. A series of sketches inspired by the Nourse novel of the same name, it simply repeats well-worn themes dealt with more effectively elsewhere in his work. It seems to be the collected results of an aborted attempt to write a novel or screenplay, and from these insipid, lifeless scenes it is easy to see why it was aborted. The only question is: why display the lifeless corpse to the reading public? Methinks his manager was behind this unwise decision$$$

For completists only.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Confused? I can help!, March 3, 2009

By 

Robert Bruce Scott ""Scotty"" (Arvada, Colorado) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blade Runner: A Movie (Paperback)

After reading the other reviews, I thought I would answer some of the questions that occur from reading the amazon blurb and the reviews. This is not a review of the book; it is an attempt to help you understand what happened between 3 different books - all of which are titled Blade Runner.

Alan E. Nourse wrote the original book titled "The Bladerunner". (IMPORTANT - note the difference in the titles. One has a "space" between "Blade Runner", the other title "The Bladerunner" does not have a "space".) It is totally a different book and plot from the Philip K Dick novel originally titled "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". The plot is as described above or on the amazon page regarding the original Alan E Nourse book. When the movie (Blade Runner) was made, the directors/producers changed the name from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" to Blade Runner. This is because the movie "Blade Runner" left out or edited out the aspects of the story that gave the original title it's meaning and pertinence. (If you have read the original Philip K Dick story you know what I mean.) I think if you watch the credits closely you will see that Alan E Nourse is given credit for the title. I don't know if they bought the title from him or not.

The book, "Blade Runner: A Movie" by William S Burroughs is essentially Burroughs attempt to rewrite Nourse's book into a form from which a movie could be made.

Here is what Wikipedia says regarding this issue: "His novel (meaning Nourse) The Bladerunner lent its name to the Blade Runner movie, but no other aspects of its plot or characters, which were taken from Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In the late 1970s an attempt to adapt The Bladerunner for the screen was made, with Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs commissioned to write a story treatment; no film was ever developed but the story treatment was later published as the novella, Blade Runner (a movie)." The first sentence of this quote is a poorly written sentence. The author of the wikipedia article was trying to say that ONLY the title "Blade Runner" was borrowed from Nourse. Everything else in the movie is stricly from the Philip K Dick novel.

I have not read the Burroughs version yet. I will be buying it just to round out my "collection" of items regarding an interesting story of scifi history. I greatly enjoy other William Burroughs books but suspect I won't be happy with this "interpretation" for movie making purposes. I gave it 3 stars just to give it the benefit of the doubt.