The bladerunner [Hardcover]

Alan Edward Nourse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1974

In 2014 seventeen-year-old Billy Gimp risks great danger as a procurer of illegal medical supplies for a skilled surgeon determined to provide health care for people considered unqualified for legal medical aid.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 245 pages
• Publisher: D. McKay Co; 1St Edition edition (1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679202897
• ISBN-13: 978-0679202899
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,827,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting 'proto-cyberpunk' medical SF adventure, September 29, 2008

By 

J. Higgins (Jessup MD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Bladerunner (Paperback)

Alan E. Nourse (1928 - 1992) was a physician and the author of a sizeable (and well-written) collection of SF short stories and novels, most of which were aimed at juveniles (the term `Young Adult' wasn't really in use in the 1950s). I remember his short story collection `The Counterfeit Man' as one of the perennial SF titles offered to kids as part of the Scholastic (paperback) Book Club purchasing program present in many elementary and junior high schools in the Baby Boomer era.

`The Bladerunner' (1974, ages 12 to adult) has a confusing history with regard to its title. A screenplay based on Nourse's novel and written by William Burroughs failed to attract attention from the major studios when shopped in the mid 70's; subsequently the screenplay was adapted to a novelette and published in 1979 as `Blade Runner: A Movie'. From what I remember from reading this truncated version, it too-clearly reflected Burroughs's fixation with pederasty, and even the more `progressive' studio execs probably felt uncomfortable with the thought of catering to the fantasies of a filthy old pervert, however great his standing in the literary world.

I've no idea if Warner Bros. paid any sort of licensing fee to Nourse or Ballantine / Del Rey for using the title for its 1982 film adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel `Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?'. If not, they certainly should have, because `The Bladerunner' is a good novel in its own right despite having the misfortune to share a title with one of the most influential SF films of the past 50 years.

`Bladerunner' is set in approximately 2015, after the 1994 `Health Riots' marked the economic collapse of the American health care system. Anyone seeking treatment in any medical facility may find themselves subject to sterilization under Eugenics Laws designed to reduce the incidence of disease in the population. Unsurprisingly, many elect to have their medical needs met at home using a clandestine system of care performed by idealistic MDs who disagree with the System. `Bladerunner' refers to those young men who serve as couriers for contraband drugs and surgical supplies between patients and the doctors, most of whom have entirely legitimate practices in hospitals and clinics in the wealthier sections of the city.

Billy Gimp is one such Bladerunner, working for surgeon `Doc' John Long and his able nurse Molly. The trio sets out several times a week to lower-income neighborhoods of New York and its surrounding environs to conduct kitchen-table tonsillectomies and other surgical procedures. Billy and his companions must be watchful for surveillance by the Big Brother-ish Health Control police, since a conviction for providing black market health care can result in imprisonment for Billy, and the loss of a license for Doc.

When Billy does find himself under surveillance, he quickly learns that it is not unique to his own bladerunning operation, but rather, has expanded to the entire underground medicine infrastructure. Does the increased scrutiny by the authorities have anything to do with the `Shanghai Flu' ? Could the Flu be the start of an epidemic of a new and lethal disease, and his clients in the black market the medical equivalent of canaries in a coal mine ? Can the authorities set aside their ideology to ally with the bladerunners, and stop a catastrophe from snuffing out half of the population of the United States ?

In my opinion `The Bladerunner' is a very readable example of proto-cyberpunk SF. It shares with the genre the near-future setting, the psychological backdrop of paranoia and alienation from `conventional' society, an urban megalopolis subject to pervasive government oversight, and a sense of the `street finding its own use for things'.

Billy Gimp is a prototypical cyberpunk `hero', with his club foot, trashed apartment, and contempt for authority sharpened by a life of deprivation in the grimy alleys of the Lower City. The novel lacks the emphasis on sex, (illegal) drugs, and rock n' roll found in the cyberpunk Canon (this is a novel intended for young adults and older readers, after all), but it serves as a kind of predecessor to Neuromancer, still a decade away from hitting the shelves.

And... I guess it's just coincidence that there's a Molly in Bladerunner and a Molly in Neuromancer ? ....hmmm...

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book , but nothing to do with the movie of same title, September 6, 2011

By 

xfrogman - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The bladerunner (Hardcover)

I read this book as a teen and just recently re-read it as an adult. As a teen, I found it boring and short of action, but as an adult I was able to realize the meaning and true story of government meddling in the field of medical insurance and treatment. This book was written in the sixties man and now we truly have government meddling in medical care eerily bordering on some of the practices described in this book. Pretty good read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent. Deserves to be in print., February 20, 2010

By 

Mr. Jones - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Bladerunner (Paperback)

Nourse's Blade Runner deserves to be in print.
This is a fantastice novel that is a lot more interesting and thought-provoking that the limp movie of the same title. It's a travesty that Ridley Scott was somehow able to use Blade Runner as the title for his movie.

In 1974, Nourse predicts a future consisting of robot surgeries, computer courts, and health care system implementing sterilization. Many of these visions of the future have come to fruition (see China's family planning policy). Of course, the rage these days is robot-assisted prostate surgery. Who knows what the future will bring?

What would Nourse have said about Twitter?