The Bladerunner

by Alan E. Nourse

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.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Classics, Cyberpunk, Novels, Dystopia, Medical

245 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Alan Edward Nourse was an American science fiction (SF) author and physician. He also wrote under the name Dr. X
He wrote both juvenile and adult science fiction, as well as nonfiction works about medicine and science.
Alan Nourse was born to Benjamin and Grace (Ogg) Nourse. He attended high school in Long Island, New York. He served in the U.S. Navy after World War II. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1951 from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. He married Ann Morton on June 11, 1952 in Lynden, New Jersey. He received a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree in 1955 from the University of Pennsylvania. He served his one year internship at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, Washington. He practiced medicine in North Bend, Washington from 1958 to 1963 and also pursued his writing career.
He had helped pay for his medical education by writing science fiction for magazines. After retiring from medicine, he continued writing. His regular column in Good Housekeeping magazine earned him the nickname "Family Doctor".
He was a friend of fellow author Avram Davidson. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1964 novel Farnham's Freehold to Nourse. Heinlein in part dedicated his 1982 novel Friday to Nourse's wife Ann.

His novel 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).
His novel Star Surgeon has been recorded as a public domain audio book at LibriVox
His pen names included "Al Edwards" and "Doctor X".

He died in Thorp, Washington.

Reviews

[ᴹᵗᴮᵈ멘붕 · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is an excellent book. way ahead of it's time. must read for anyone especially fans of dystopian retrofuture and sci-fi. very well written, you can tell Nourse was a legit M.D. i was fascinated by the connection that this book had with William S. Burroughs and Philip K Dick two of my favorite people of all time. after reading Dicks "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ((Bladerunner))" and Burroughs "Blade Runner the Movie: screenplay" and adding them to my library, i was determined to find a copy of Alan E Nourse 1973 Bladerunner. it took quite a bit longer to obtain a copy of this book in mint condition for a reasonable price but my patience really paid off and im glad it was totally worth it. after reading this i am definitely interested in following up with some of his other works such as "The Invaders are Coming".

[Benji's Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written, though not my go-to style of science-fiction when I decide to read the genre. I love action and a little (or a lot) of cheese in my stories and this didn't really have that. I read for the escape.

On the surface, I bet I could pull in any fan of the genre by saying that it takes place in the distant future of 2009, where robots are trained to perform surgery and such. Performances for those who can't afford a hospital visit are done in secret, against the law and the people who supply all the things needed to perform those things are called "Blade Runners". Not to be confused with the film of the same name, though this book did inspire the title of one of my favorite sci-fi films.

In fact, when adapting Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", director Ridley Scott wanted to name the film, "Blade Runner" because it sounded cool, but then later found out it was technically copyrighted by Alan E. Nourse, the dude who wrote this book, but he was nice enough to let him use it or some such thing. I'm a bit foggy on the details, since reading about it in "FUTURE NOIR: the Making of Blade Runner" by Paul M. Sammon.

Finding out about this novel through that making of book, is what led me to seek out this one. I went in knowing it wouldn't be anything like the film, with the exception of the name, and I didn't really know what to expect going in.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. So it sounded cool at first! The first act even starts out cool, then it turns into a realistic snooze-fest talking mostly about Healthcare and stuff. The book was truly ahead of its time and it's strange you don't hear a lot of people bring it up, especially in the dystopian fiction groups, but maybe it just didn't have enough action to really pull them in either.

The First Act was great! Second was meh. Lastly, the Third Act, was sort of a mixture of both, but I did enjoy the ending. And don't get me wrong, I know not all books are going to be shoot-em-ups or anything, I just happened to go into this one thinking that it would have a little more, so I was disappointed. This was in no way, written badly. It just has to have the right audience, willing to sit through lectures and the like. I speed-read through numerous pages at one point.

It just wasn't for me.

[David Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not going to hold back for this one. This is a not at all outdated classic of science fiction and would make a great movie if only they had a title for it. I can't believe there's no current paper edition of it and even the old ones can't be found on library shelves. Thank goodness for e-books. Of course we aren't really going to see a revival of compulsory eugenics in the west, let alone this kind of draconian approach, but Nourse was very aware of the problems that the medical systems of the United States and the United Kingdom were having at the time he was writing, so he managed to create a plausible-seeming future health crisis for his teenage medical supply smuggler to have to deal with. Enjoyed greatly.

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Weirdly timely for a book written in 1972. It is 2012. The cost of healthcare has gotten out of hand because people are living longer and having fewer babies. There aren't enough working young people to support the overwhelming cost of healthcare. The economy is reeling from the 2010 stock-market crash. Eugenics policies are in place requiring sterilization in exchange for healthcare to everyone who doesn't pass the eugenics standards. So, there is an underground healthcare industry and the Bladerunners smuggle medical supplies to underground doctors and assist them as they practice medicine in people's homes. This prescient and fun book tells the story of a Bladerunner and his doctor and the dangers they face when everything comes apart.

Don't expect the story that is in the Ridley Scott movie. They have nothing to do with one another.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, which I had picked up originally because of the name, was surprisingly good! Although the only thing it has in common with the movie of the same name is that it takes place in a cyberpunked future, the story was still very interesting and had enough science-fiction elements to keep me interested. Although the story focuses more on a tyrannical organization called Health Control which restricts health care to those who submit to sterilization, the world in which it takes place could be lifted from any sort of dystopian future story, be it 1984 or any William Gibson novel. It saddens me that this well-written book has not gotten more attention than it has, but it's definitely worth a read to anyone interested in the genres I've mentioned.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Крепкий честный медицинский триллер (и не упомню, когда я читал медицинскую фантастику) с нормальным здоровым премисом (здравоохранению кранты - но ему и так примерно кранты, особенно сейчас, так что из начала 70-х это смотрится совсем фантастикой ближнего действия) и долей шизовой евгеники. К фильму, понятно, никакого отношения, а "бегущий по лезвию бритвы" - известный мисномер (на самом деле он, конечно, "курьер по скальпелям"), просто Ридли Скотт слово купил, а остальное сделали местные локализаторы. Тамошний черный рынок смотрится совсем не экзотикой, что добавляет актуальности. Ну а метафорически это развить на что-нибудь другое - дело совсем плевое, чем Барроуз и занялся в свое время. Ипохондрикам не рекомендуется, кстати, - там из гриппа развивается что-то совсем уж чудовищное, хоть и правдоподобное.

[Carol Tensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

How odd to be reading a futuristic novel that takes place in 2009. Nourse, who was a medical doctor, predicted that healthcare would lead to a monetary crisis. A program of eugenics is devised to solve the problem. In order to receive medical treatment, one must be free of hereditary diseases or agree to sterilization. This leads to an enormous medical underground. As a 21st century reader, I feel that rationing healthcare based on genetic worthiness seems as heartless as rationing it based on ability to pay (or procure insurance). It's a shame that this novel is out of print. I think that it would generate some lively debate. This is the first novel I've read by Nourse. I also recommend reading some of his short stories, notably "Tiger by the Tail".

[Beregond · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Vision of the Future that Still Rings True Today

From the 60s a tale of single payer government-run health care in the 21st century that rings even more true today than it did when I first read it almost fifty years ago.

Healthcare is provided for free if you qualify. But since there is infinite demand for a free good the qualifications are rather steep - Sterilization. If you don't qualify there are doctors who will perform illegal procedures using supplies gathered by black market dealers - Blade runners. The system limps along, mostly doing well enough to get by, until a super bug starts to create a strain too great for the system.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

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. One of my favorite authors wrote this great story about illegal medicine of the future. At the present time, the story is only available as a used book (if you can find it). The film of a similar name (Blade Runner) is an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story and unrelated, except by the title.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book - nothing to do with the movie, but good nonetheless. It felt a lot like 2030 by Albert Brooks. The main difference is when Nourse wrote the book it was a pretty far-fetched notion - now, not so much.

If you like scifi and political commentary you'll dig this book.

[Christian Orton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not expect much from this book before beginning my read. However, it has a very Philip K Dick feel to it. Definitely worth the read.

[Ira (SF Words of Wonder) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Check out my full, spoiler free, video review HERE.

This is a science fiction, medical thriller with some cyberpunk elements. To combat overpopulation a medical eugenics program has been implemented. In order to receive medical attention, a person needs to agree to be sterilized. This has created an underground medical industry that our main characters all play a role in. At the same time there is a flu outbreak that is highly contagious and can morph into meningitis. This was pretty entertaining overall but a lot of this future Nourse came up with just seemed very implausible.

[Hannibal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic. The covid pandemic reminded me a lot of the book. I can also see where Ridley Scott was influenced for Blade Runner. Highly recommend reading

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basic story - It's a near-future time with universal healthcare for those willing to pay a substantial price, and none for those unwilling to pay it. The system works to a degree until a real public health crisis arises, at which point disaster is almost certain.

A few intrepid doctors, nurses, and "blade runner" assistants strive to illegally provide healthcare to people outside the system at great risk to their lives and reputations.

This book is well-written and prescient about the current healthcare crisis. The ending seems rushed and "pat," but the basic ideas are good. A more nuanced ending would make it better. It was one of the most memorable books of my teenage years and still holds up well today. It should be required reading for anyone who minimizes the danger of Covid-19.

Politically, The Bladerunner has an interesting mix of Libertarian, Conservative, and Progressive ideas. People of any persuasion will be offended by parts of it and love others. :-)

[Scott Shjefte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast read dystopia novel, interesting premises but disappointing that with large effort everything clicked together and the bad guys rolled over changing to be beneficial. Enjoyed the read but it was just to 'pat' of an ending.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nourse predicts a dark future, which given the age of this book, is more like an alternative history. It had became too expensive to provide medical care to the entire US population, so only those who have undergone sterilization have access to treatment. In parallel with this is the rise of a cult called the Naturists that violently reject science and medicine. Enter the Bladerunners, people who supply black market medical care, including kitchen table surgery, to those who have no other access to health care. It's a powder keg waiting for a spark, and indeed a rising pandemic provides it, blowing the system sky high!

The tale is told thru the eyes of Billy Gimp, who supplies equipment and assistance to "Doc" Long who provides the other viewpoint to our story. They and the others that show up are decent characters, there are no villains in this book except for a knife wielding cultist. The plot is simple and quick with few surprises and while the head doctor is a woman, there's still a bit of the male gaze going on, giving this book a slightly dated feel. Its intense action and quick plot resolution makes this a fast read.

This is Malthusian based science fiction, a prediction that thankfully never came true. Living in a horribly overpopulated was a popular science fiction trope at one time, indeed any intelligent person living prior to 1969 could look at the rapidly rising %change in population growth and extrapolate a living nightmare. The rate peaked in 1968 at 2.1% and has dropped down to 1.08%, I would take both figures with a bit of salt, I'm not sure how accurate the population figures for China or Russia are. It's possible China might be worse off than Japan or Korea in this instance. When will world population reach its maximum, 2050, 2100, latter or earlier? My ouija board planchette flew out a window when I asked this question and I haven't found it since. While there are many causes, some of the most influential are; rising urbanization, education (especially girls) as well as alternative careers for women.

Still worth a read, an interesting example of a classic SF trope.

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

The novel The Bladerunner is a 1974 science fiction novel by Alan E. Nourse, about underground medical services and smuggling. The novel's protagonist is Billy Gimp, a man with a clubfoot who runs "blades" for Doc (Doctor John Long) as part of an illegal black market for medical services. The setting is a society where free, comprehensive medical treatment is available for anyone so long as they qualify for treatment under the Eugenics Laws. Preconditions for medical care include sterilization, and no legitimate medical care is available for anyone who does not qualify or does not wish to undergo the sterilization procedure (including children over the age of five). These conditions have created illegal medical services in which bladerunners supply black market medical supplies for underground practitioners, who generally go out at night to see patients and perform surgery. As an epidemic breaks out among the underclass, Billy must save his city from the plague.

[Anima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone knows “Bladerunner” the movie which was actually just a copycat of the title to this book, which is not related to Do Androids ... Much unknown but Quite timely, this story is believable in a not to unlike what is happening in society today sense. I recommend getting your hands on it, if you can.

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I initially thought this was the novel of the movie (which I hadn't yet seen), but it turned out to be about smuggling medical equipment to underground doctors in an oppressive future where certain classes of society aren't supposed to get medical treatment.

[Len Appleby]

[ note: this review was rejected by amazon.com for violation of their Community Guidelines ]

‘The Bladerunner’ first was published in hardback in October 1974 by David McKay. A mass-market paperback version (213 pp.) was issued by Ballantine in December 1975, with cover art by Karl Swanson.

Sadly, both the hardcover and paperback versions are long out of print, and have steep asking prices. An eBook edition is available from Prologue Books.

Alan E. Nourse (1928 – 1992) published a sizeable collection of SF short stories and novels, most of which were aimed at juveniles (the term ‘Young Adult’ wasn’t really in use in that era) throughout the 50s, 60s, and early 70s. A physician, Nourse often addressed medical themes in his works.

I well remember purchasing his short story collection ‘The Counterfeit Man’ (1963) as one of the perennial SF titles offered to kids as part of the Scholastic (paperback) Book Club purchasing program. I suspect most of my fellow Baby Boomers also will remember ‘The Counterfeit Man’ from their own childhoods.

‘The Bladerunner’ 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 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.

‘The 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 facility may find themselves subjected 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 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 exemplar of first-generation 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, after all), but it serves as a kind of predecessor to ‘Neuromancer’, still a decade away from hitting the bookstore shelves.

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

[Babak Fakhamzadeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 1974, Nourse's description of a future some 40 years ahead, is, at times baffling spot-on, though, in the same way as Philip K. Dick can be, sometimes wildly off the mark, particularly in the advances of technology; cars fly, but it's still mainframes that need to be booked to make complex calculations. Meanwhile, sophisticated members of society smoke pipe, and, a doctor specifies he is 'in', by flipping a physical marker next to the entrance of his office. State agencies can drill a hole through your floor to put a visible, but small, listening device in your room, but pervasive surveillance is non-existent.
That said, this is the kind of retrofuturism that can produce fascinating literature.

Nourse, though on quite a bit of fire in the first half of the novel, seems to want to be done with the story, roughly after the halfway point. As with much 'good' sci-fi, Nourse investigates how society can be radically different as a consequence of small, credible, but far-reaching change.
In this case, it's the effective introduction of draconian eugenics laws, as a consequence of an ageing society and the prevalence of pandemic spreads and the need for comprehensive healthcare. Indeed, particularly now, with the COVID pandemic still a major problem throughout the world, Nourse unwittingly had the opportunity to be surprisingly prophetic. However, sadly, the second half of Nourse's book is an anticlimactic, formulaic and boring, finish to an excellent start.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine this unlikely scenario: the United States government has implemented a very unpopular national health care law that both discourages people from seeking health care and discourages doctors from providing it, while also creating a monstrous bureaucracy more interested in maintaining itself than in staving off potential epidemics before they become unmanageable?

And then, against the backdrop of this mess of well-intentioned government incompetence comes the Shanghai Flu…

What would happen if a potentially fatal virus infection were spreading across the country, an infection that seemed relatively harmless at first and did not reveal its true nature until the mild early symptoms had run their course and the virus was too well-entrenched in the victim’s body to be quelled or effectively treated?

This totally unlikely plot is the topic of The Bladerunner. I’ve been aware for almost as long as I’ve been aware of the movie that the movie “Blade Runner” was based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and that the “Blade Runner” title was taken from a completely unrelated science fiction story.

I was not aware that a script actually existed adapting this book to the screen, or that the script was written by William S. Burroughs. Sadly, it appears that Burroughs’s script also completely jettisons the novel, which is too bad. It could have been a great movie—and an important one.

In true seventies fashion, overpopulation was a solution in search of a problem. When a solution was proposed for study that perhaps health care should be tied to sterilization, the government pounced. Anyone who required health care three or more times must submit to sterilization or be ineligible for health care.

…the whole program was a bid to bribe people into submitting to sterilization as the price of healthcare, and a whole segment of the population wouldn’t bribe. God knows how many people have turned to the underground, they must number in the millions. It’s a lousy brand of medicine, nobody can do good surgery on a kitchen table, but doctors and patients alike are into it because it’s the only sane way to resist the government program.

Of course, this means that most people don’t bother to seek health care except for very serious issues. For minor issues, they simply ignore it until it goes away. For moderate issues, they turn to the underground, to doctors who work outside of the official Health Control Hospitals. These doctors, in turn, rely on illegal medicine and equipment providers for their supplies. And in between the suppliers and the doctors, you have… the bladerunners. That is, couriers who literally run illegal medical blades and other supplies from the underground suppliers to the underground doctors.

Billy Gimp is one of those bladerunners, and Dr. John Long is the underground doctor who uses him. It’s an odd sort of underground. Both take extensive care not to get caught, and yet… Dr. Long uses his real name and even sometimes gives out a phone number traceable back to him in the hospital. Billy isn’t too worried about being caught because the most they could get on him would be a misdemeanor and he’d be back out on the street in days. They’ve been part of the underground for years, possibly decades, and they’re beginning to get careless, but they still haven’t been caught… until a night raid by Health Control Services after a routine child’s tonsillectomy.

And then everything falls apart, literally. This is a very strong novel, the kind of futurism that great science fiction excels at. The ending ties things up a little too neatly, but it’s otherwise a serious look at an issue that will likely be topical and important for as long as humans are mortal and bureaucracies self-centered.

Nourse never tells us exactly when the novel takes place, but it’s at least 2014, and possibly very close to 2014. There were riots in 1994, which was at least and approximately twenty years ago. And the Heinz-Lafferty law that instituted the sterilization requirement passed in 1996, eighteen-odd years ago.

There are interesting glimpses into the technology and social structure of the era. Job interviews start with questions about political views. This is a dark, grimy city—it could easily use the same backdrops that Ridley Scott’s movie used, despite only sharing a title. There is a loose organization of “Naturists” who refuse medical treatment after, it appears, being lied to one too many times by government health officials.

Technologically, televisions are tied into some wider network: when their helicab arrives at the apartment complex where they’re performing the tonsillectomy, they’re notified via a red dot appearing on the television screen.

Cancer is caused by something that can be fought via vaccines, although this doesn’t necessarily make Nourse prophetic; he explicitly describes medical terminology often changing to refer to what it looks like rather than what it is.

There’s a mostly throwaway engineer toward the end named “Jerry Kosinski”. It’s difficult to tell whether this was a reference to the author Jerzy Kosinski, or just randomly similar. On the one hand, Kosinski appears to be a common enough last name. On the other, one of the background themes of both The Bladerunner and Being There is the venality of government officials.

“There’s nothing personal about it, it’s just part of their policy.”
“Well, it may not be personal to them, but it’s plenty personal to me.”

[Ron Pogue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh Billy Gimp, will you ever win?

It goes like this;

DADoES? by Dick 1968

The Bladerunner by Nourse 1974

Blade Runner, a Movie by Burroughs 1979

Blade Runner (the film) by Scott 1982

But most of us saw the film first, then read Dick. The few who heard of the Burroughs treatment sought out the eBook of The Bladerunner by Nourse, which is why we are here.

It is generally held that the screen writer for the film had an old copy of this book, and suggested the title to Scott as being better than Android or Dangerous Days, and that the connection ends there.

Perhaps you just see what you want too, but when I first read this book, ant the treatment thereafter, I could see seeds of sub themes from the film, especially in the stratification of the city between the slums and the elite, but also in the division between the Health Authority and it's opponents and the discrimination against replicants in the film.

Either way it is satisfying to any fan of the franchise to be able to see the whole arc.

[Abram Cordell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A health care sci-fi book? What? Yeah! It’s pretty good! It’s actually the scariest sci-fi I’ve read because you could see some of the predictions coming to reality in a worst case scenario. The author based his future dilemma on the fact that health care costs sky rocket, the population is aging, not enough new children are being born and the younger generation gets in power and says “hey, we’re not paying for your expensive health care anymore.” Ugh, yeah, I could see that happening. The story around the ideas is serviceable, but they are haunting and so close to home (a mysterious “Shanghai flu” causing an epidemic, a court system outsourced to AI that you can feed inputs into and get verdicts on the spot) that it made for an overall good story.

[Raymond Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn’t think I’d be reading a sci-fi thriller about healthcare... The BladeRunner is a fast paced book revolving around mainly two central characters, Billy Gimp, our BladeRunner, and Dr John Long. Their world is a dystopia of Government Health Control, a Eugenics program, and a vast underground system of healthcare. Throw in robot surgery for fun! Not terribly well written, but has all the fun hallmarks of mid-century science fiction.

[Wes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book with interesting concepts, but ultimately one that was just kind of meh to me. Nourse CLEARLY has a medical background and it really does show in his writing beyond the themes and scenarios. Generally well written, but there characters aren't really all that developed. They are an interesting reflection of the world created within the story. There's a lot of meat there that could have been explored in a number of ways, but all in all this was a tidy little medical outbreak story.

[Clay Nass · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Writing style was a little frantic and blunt, which could perhaps be attributed to the fact it was written 50+ years ago. Pretty forward-looking dystopian sci fi though. It was easy to draw parallels between the medical practices in the book to the state of modern medicine in the US today.

[Shayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly hit on some interesting issues, and would recommend to someone interested in the 60s Sci-Fi scene. Shame this one didn't get made into a movie, but I think maybe it hit a little close to home.

[Nis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to contrast it with a real world pandemic, with a dicease with mild inital symptoms. I never really bought the medical regulation regime though, even reading it in the light of 70s overpopulation scares.

[Bo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mediocre in writing. A bit repetitive at several points in the book. Overall quite predictable. Interesting concept though and ahead of its time.