De nuevo basada en el universo cinematográfico de Ridley Scott, Blade Runner 3 se aleja de la obra de Philip K. Dick.

Vuelve Rick Deckard, el ex blade runner que ha entablado con sus enemigos, los androides rebeldes, una relación de amor-odio. Vuelve Dave Holden, el viejo camarada de Deckard, portador de un presagio de horror y muerte. Vuelve Sarah Tyrell, la amante de Deckard y heredera de la corporación qué creo a los replicantes, convertida en rehen de un complot macabro. Los replicantes se sublevan convencidos que son mas humanos que los humanos. Y Deckard siente que se cierra en torno a él el cerco tendido por fuerzas perversas conjuradas para destruirle. El tiempo se agota.

Based on the reviews I had read before starting this book (and finishing Edge of Human), I almost decided not to read this book. I am glad that I overrode my reluctance.

It is true that portions of the book deal with the plot of the movie Blade Runner. However, that is what most sequels do, is build on the material that they are developed from. I was expecting a bunch of retread, and every chapter I read, had a little trepidation of that. For the most part, my trepidation's were unfounded. I found this to be an introspective discovery of the meaning of humanity (much as I found the 2nd book). Despair, madness, even love are threaded through this book in a method that I found meaningful.

That said, it did take me some time to complete this book. Some portions moved rather slowly, other portions I was able to read through quite quickly.

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I spent a lot of time reading this book to make sure that I followed everything plot-wise. I have to say it was worth it to me but couldn't guarantee that it would be equally so for anybody else. I loved the original Philip K. Dick novel and Jeter tries his best to follow all the details of the book and more so of the Ridely Scott movie. The original novel is set is San Francisco, but the movie is set in Los Angeles. The book by Jeter follows the narrative of Los Angeles.
This book traces Deckard (former LAPD retirer of androids) as he moves from a Mars colony of earthlings to an offworld base. The story is confusing so Jeter has to recap often which would likely be found by most readers as distasteful. Most of the action is near the end and so the book ends with a Phillip Marlowe flourish. I found this ending interesting as I'm a fan of Raymond Chandler. The best part of the book for me were the descriptions of the emotional attachments Deckard had with Rachael while interacting with both Rachael child and Sara Tyrell who were part of the Philip K.Dick world or merging and separating of identities. Jeter doesn't have the poet philosopher of Dick in him, but I love his tenacity to describe as best he can the world which Dick's creations inhabit. I really appreciated Jeter's determination to finish a work that bore a strong resemblance to Dick's original creative story. Fans of science fiction and Philip K. Dick would like this but only the most adventurous of other genre would be pleased with this selection. ( )

In Replicant Night, K.W. Jeter picks up where he left off in his previous Blade Runner entry, The Edge of Human, although that title would be more fitting for this novel. The story begins with Rick Deckard and Sarah Tyrell living in the U.N.'s Martian colony, their plans for emigrating to the interstellar colonies quashed by the cessation of outbound transport. Rick becomes wrapped up in a conspiracy to aid replicants currently rebelling against their human masters in those colonies while Sarah discovers more of the Tyrell Corporation's dirty secrets.
The background of the Salander 3 expands on ideas that Philip K. Dick first wrote about in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and the powdered deities bear a resemblance to the machines used the that book as part of Mercerism, but most of the story focuses on conspiracies-within-conspiracies. Jeter continues to pose the questions about the nature of humanity, with the Tyrell Corporation's slogan of "Realer than Real" recurring throughout the story. At one point, Deckard states, "We're not the ones who get to decide who's human and who's not" (p. 304). Jeter also maintains the nihilist streak that pervaded the original novel and film, with Sarah thinking to herself, "The dead were the only ones who escaped. For the living, there was only the past and the future, the same thing in either direction, and equally painful" (p. 131). Those who enjoyed Jeter's previous novel, the ways it sought to mesh Dick's novel with Ridley Scott's 1982 film, and the questions it posed in the manner of the two works will likely enjoy those parts of Replicant Night, though the plot is almost painfully complicated at parts. ( )

My reaction to reading this novel in 1999. Spoilers follow.

While I appreciated that parts of this book were a homage to Philip K. Dick, I didn’t like this book. I found large parts of it tedious and other parts implausible.

The Martian setting - arid, desolate, and producing people who eventually almost lapse into total catatonia and a new generation of children who seem alien seemed to be inspired – at least as I remember it, by Dick’s Martian Time-Slip. The talking briefcase – a very Dick touch – I liked with its artificial copy of Roy Baty’s consciousness. I also liked the very Dick-like stage setting of Deckard’s life undergoing a real and fake reprise – and change – (at least the events in the film Blade Runner) in the orbital movie studio where a movie of his android hunt are recreated.

However, the middle part was frequently tedious. The worst part was the idea of a cable monopoly (in keeping with what seems an anti-corporate view attitude by Jeter in general) being necessary to staving off sensory deprivation on Mars. Are future generations in the electronic age so bereft of ingenuity that they can’t stage (a la Old West pioneers) their own amusements in plays, sporting events, and games? I found that unbelievable. I also thought Jeter belabored the plot device of Sarah Tyrell confronting her own past and insanity when she entered the Salander 3 and met Rachael Tyrell.

Tyrell and Deckard’s murderous relationship seemed reasonable, though, given the events of Blade Runner 2. We don’t get a clear explanation of early stardrive toxicity, and, in keeping with Jeter’s horror writer tendency to present fantastic elements with little or no sf rationale, we get J. R. Sebastian as pocket universe god, a pocket universe entered simply via drug ingestion. Nor does Deckard, as first implied, enter a virtual universe somehow encoded in a drug molecule or sensory experience created by it. Deckard takes physical relics out of the pocket universe. The notion of alternate universes entered by various means, including drugs, is Dickian too, but he carried it off with breezier élan than Jeter. The same holds true for Jeter’s conspiracy plots. The plots are so convoluted and counterintuitive that, in two assassins, Deckard has characters answering objections by Deckard that sound like surrogate plot objections that the reader has. And Jeter, by novel’s end, doesn’t really convince us of the believability of the plot, and the final revelation, human and android exchanging places in space, was not that exciting.

This novel had Dick features – confused reality, eccentric mechanical devices, conspiracies, domestic trouble, and mental illness – (not to mention being based on a Dick novel), but it did not capture the charm of even his lesser novels. ( )