The Edge Of Human

The sequel to the blockbuster science fiction masterwork continues the story of bounty hunter Rick Deckard, who tracks down renegade androids in the dark, seedy streets of Los Angeles in the eerie future and includes some surprising twists on the original. 100,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo.

Jeter's recent spate of tie-in novels (a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel, etc.)?his primary production since Wolf Flow (1992)?likely has reached its apex with this book, which notably is not a sequel to the late Philip K. Dick's classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but to the hit film based on it, Blade Runner. That movie, set in an apocalyptically dismal L.A. of the near future, became a cult classic, especially after the release of the director's cut, which raised ambiguities scarcely hinted at in the original version. Jeter trades on these uncertainties as the replicant-hunter Deckard returns from Northern California to search for an alleged sixth replicant. Several characters from the movie make appearances here, including a few believed to be dead. Most significant is Roy Batty, who claims to be the human upon whom one of the replicants was based; in his own search for the sixth replicant, Batty teams up with a medically enhanced Dave Holden, Deckard's former partner, who is at various times convinced that virtually everyone in the novel is a replicant. Like Dick, Jeter has a gift for limning believable conspiracies wherever a character turns. Featuring numerous questions of identity and twists of plot, as well as masterful depictions of a decaying L.A. reminiscent of Jeter's Madlands, this novel should fascinate even readers new to the Blade Runner universe.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Blade Runner, the ingenious movie version of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, has been widely acclaimed as one of the best sf films. With Dick long gone, Jeter undertakes the further adventures of twenty-first-century L.A. detective Deckard, whose recent narrow victory over a violent android "replicant" prompted a retreat to the wilderness with his replicant lover Rachel. But there is at least one more vendetta-minded replicant still on the loose. Sarah Tyrell, sole surviving heir to the powerful replicant-manufacturing Tyrell Corporation and the human model for Rachel, pulls Deckard out of retirement and into a no-win predicament. Not only are there more replicants than anyone guessed, but Deckard is now wanted for the murder of Pris, who was not, as he had assumed, a replicant but fully human. Jeter masterfully reproduces the gritty film noir atmosphere of the movie while providing previously undisclosed and fascinating character background. Must reading for the film's large cult following. Carl Hays