Blade Runner 2019: Los Angeles
by Michael Green & Mike Johnson; ill. Andres Guinaldo (Titan, 2019)
This Blade Runner prequel does a passable job in capturing the murky, near-future dystopian vibes of the original film. The storytelling is straightforward, the art bleak and uncompromising. Ash is a more action-minded protagonist than Deckard but her assignment carries similar ambiguities.
Blade Runner 2049
dir. Denis Villeneuve (2017)
A sequel that stays genuinely true to the original, both evoking it directly and building on its themes. Most tellingly, Blade Runner 2049 eschews action scenes in favour of character, and makes its murky near-future dystopia a given rather than the focus.
Black Man
by Richard Morgan (Gollancz, 2007)
Anybody looking for the written equivalent of Blade Runner should try the immersive, unromanticised near-future science fiction of Richard Morgan. Black Man (or, rebranded with North American irony, Thirteen) is a stark, at times gruesome classic, pitting genetic manipulation against human prejudice.