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Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human (1995) is a novel by K. W. Jeter, and a continuation of both the film Blade Runner, and the novel upon which it was based, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Plot

After the events shown in the movie, Deckard has retired to an isolated shack outside the city. He has stolen the replicant Rachael in a Tyrell transport container, which slows down the replicant aging process to prevent lengthy transportation counting against their four-year lifespan, only releasing her for brief intervals.

Deckard is approached by a woman identical to Rachael, who explains she is Sarah Tyrell, human niece of Eldon Tyrell, heiress to the entire Tyrell Corporation and the human template (templant) for the Rachael replicant.

Sarah asks Deckard to hunt down the "missing" sixth replicant, as mentioned by Bryant in the movie. She explains this was part of a conspiracy against Tyrell - Bryant had removed the data on the sixth replicant from the files. The U.N. organiser of the colonisation program had forced Tyrell to make replicants more human - and thus the U.N. are truly responsible for the replicant rebellion. The U.N. and the police are attempting to shift the blame to Tyrell, gaining public support to destroy the corporation, and part of the plan involves arranging the deaths of the blade runners, so that the public believe that their last line of defence has failed.

Deckard breaks into the police headquarters, but finds Bryant has been replaced by a "persynth" simulation, derived from archives of his behaviour, and that the real Bryant is dead. Deckard flees to a safe-house for blade runners, where he is attacked by a half-completed replicant Pris. Sebastian, the engineer from the original film, is now hiding out in the building and has attempted to rebuild her. After stopping the attack, he and Deckard discuss Eldon Tyrell's death.

Meanwhile, Dave Holden - the injured blade runner shot by the Leon replicant at the start of the original movie - is kidnapped from hospital by a man claiming to be the Roy Batty templant, who has been hired as a mercenary to hunt down the sixth replicant. He arranges for Holden to be given organ implants to keep him alive. He also claims that replicants had always been used to supervise and control other replicants, and thus all blade runners - including Holden - are replicants.

Batty believes that Deckard is the sixth replicant, and they break into Deckard's apartment. Holden incapacitates Batty and travels to the safe-house to try and convince Deckard to team up with him, but Deckard refuses and Holden leaves. A few moments later, Sarah Tyrell arrives at the safe-house, shoots the incomplete Pris, and demands that Deckard leave with her as Sebastian breaks down in tears. Meanwhile, her guards remove the transport container from Deckard's shack.

Outside the safe-house, Holden has been watching from his spinner. He identified Sarah from her spinner's records and, having heard the gunshot, assumed that Sarah shot Deckard or vice versa; when he sees them both leave, he wrongly reasons that one of them shot Sebastian because he - being a replicant engineer - had discovered that Deckard was the replicant. With his organ implants failing, Holden is forced to release Batty to aid him.

Sarah takes Deckard back to the Tyrell building, where he is released. Deckard returns to the safe-house where Holden and Batty are already waiting; they both attack Deckard. During the fight, Batty jumps over a gap too wide for a normal human, leading Deckard to claim that Batty must be the sixth replicant. Holden overhears the conversation, and shoots Batty.

Deckard refuses to confirm or deny Holden's belief that Batty was the replicant, and returns to Tyrell where he finds what he initially believes to be a sleeping Sarah. He is about to shoot her when Sarah's face appears on a video screen, telling him that the sleeping woman is the replicant Rachael. Deckard states that there is no sixth replicant and that Sarah is the one behind the conspiracy to destroy Tyrell. Sarah confirms this: an act of vengeance against her uncle Eldon, who had the Rachael replicant made, then loved the replicant while ignoring her. The report that no blade runner could find the sixth replicant causes the U.N. to trigger explosive devices planted in the building. Deckard flees with Rachael, and they are rescued by Holden.

Deckard and Rachael use assumed identities to leave for an off-world colony, while Holden, still unsure if he is a replicant or not, rejoins the police force. In the course of his work, he visits Deckard's old shack, and finds the transport capsule still there, but deactivated, and with Rachael dead inside - the "Sarah" on the video screen at Tyrell was a persynth, and the woman lying sprawled on the bed, whom Deckard rescued, was the real Sarah. Holden is left wondering whether Deckard was unaware of this, or if he knew, but played along because he also got what he wanted.

Characters

• Rick Deckard: The Tyrell Corporation finally locates him, residing at a cabin in the woods with the frozen Rachael. In exchange for getting Rachael back, Deckard agrees to hunt the missing sixth replicant.
• Roy Batty: The man which Tyrell used as the template for his combat replicants is in fact a man of considerable instability, suffering from a brain disorder that prevents him from experiencing fear.
• Sarah Tyrell: The niece of Eldon Tyrell, Sarah locates and hires Deckard to eliminate the final replicant in order to retain her corporation's hold over the market.
• Dave Holden: Starting off bed-ridden after his attack by the replicant Leon, Holden is rescued by Roy who in turn leads him to some startling revelations.
• J.R. Isidore: A lowly employee of a vet's office, Isidore also works as an underground replicant sympathizer, having made modifications to replicants in order to help them escape detection.

Relationship to other works

The book's plot draws from other material related to Blade Runner in a number of ways:

• Deckard, Pris, Sebastian, Leon, Batty, and Holden all appeared in Blade Runner.
• Many of the parts of the "conspiracy" are based on errors or plot holes identified by fans of the original movie, such as Leon's ability to bring a gun into the Tyrell building, or the reference to the sixth replicant.
• The character of John Isidore, and his "pet hospital", is taken from Dick's original novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, although that book contained no suggestion that the shop ran a sideline in modifying replicants.
• Blade Runner's Sebastian was based on Electric Sheep's Isidore, though Jeter features them as separate characters in The Edge of Human.
• The idea of replicant models being mass-produced, and in particular a woman identical to Rachael existing, is also from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; although in that book, Pris was the replicant double of Rachael, and there was no suggestion that replicants were constructed based on human templates.
• The etymology of the term "blade runner" is revealed to come from the German phrase bleib ruhig, meaning "keep quiet." It was supposedly developed by the Tyrell Corporation to prevent news about replicants malfunctioning.

However, it also contradicts material in some ways:

• Sebastian was stated as being dead in the movie, yet he is alive in The Edge of Human.
• Pris was clearly stated as being a replicant in both the movie and the original novel, yet The Edge of Human claims she was human.
• Pris was clearly destroyed by Deckard in both the movie and the original novel. Sebastian's ability to bring Pris back to life as a replicant introduces numerous problems: the book implies that Sebastian somehow was able to do this without realising that her original body was human. It is likewise unclear why Deckard would have left her, or any suspected replicant he retired, in a state from which they could be repaired.
• "The Final Cut" of Blade Runner removed all reference to a sixth replicant, as it was normally considered a filming goof.

Reception

Michael Giltz of Entertainment Weekly gave the book a "C-", feeling that "nly hardcore fans will be satisfied by this tale" and saying that Jeter's "habit of echoing dialogue and scenes from the film is annoying and begs comparisons he would do well to avoid." Tal Cohen of Tal Cohen's Bookshelf called The Edge of Human "a good book", praising Jeter's "further, and deeper, investigation of the questions Philip K. Dick originally asked", but criticized the book for its "needless grandioseness" and for "rel on Blade Runner too heavily, the number of new characters introduced is extremely small..."

Ian Kaplan of BearCave.com gave the book three stars out of five, saying that while he was "not entirely satisified" and felt that the "story tends to be shallow", "Jeter does deal with the moral dilemma of the Blade Runners who hunt down beings that are virtually human in every way." J. Patton of The Bent Cover praised Jeter for " try to emulate the late Phillip K. Dick", adding, "This book also has all the grittiness and dark edges that the movie showed off so well, along with a very fast pace that will keep you reading into the wee hours of the night."

See also

• Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night
• Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon

References

1. Review Michael Giltz, Entertainment Weekly, Nov 17, 1995
2. Review Tal Cohen, Tal Cohen's Bookshelf, 28 August 1999
3. Review Ian Kaplan, BearCave.com, Feb 1996
4. Review J. Patton, The Bent Cover

• 1995 novels
• Blade Runner spin-offs
• Novels by K. W. Jeter
• Science fiction novels