June 29, 2007
25 years ago this week, Blade Runner debuted in American theaters. It was set in a Los Angeles of the future, but its portrayals of race and racism had plenty of resonance in 1982. Reporter Phillip Martin looks back on a classic of cyborgian social criticism.
Sputnik, Viktor, and Tor analyze Philip K. Dick’s works including Blade Runner (a.k.a. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), A Scanner Darkly, Ubik, Valis, Paycheck, and The Minority Report. They also compare Philip K. Dick’s real life struggles with the plots of his stories.
Philip K Dick is now world famous, thanks to films like Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report. But in the last years of his life he encountered something so strange and troubling he couldn’t stop writing about it. Writer Ken Hollings asks: was it Phil’s fault God talked to him or was it God’s? Broadcast on Monday 16 January 2006, 20:30 on BBC Radio 4.