Collecting issues 5-8 of the ongoing series we return to the story of Aahna ‘Ash’ Ashina and Cleo whom she saved at the end of the last book. Several years have passed and they are now on the run. Cleo has grown-up a bit and attached to Ash as they have made it off earth. The story centers around Cleo (pretending to be a boy to stay in hiding) who is separated from Ash.
The story really picks up when Ash is found and pulled back into being a hunter.
As a Dickian it is interesting to see the frontier that was mentioned in the source material but not shown. Friend of our Dickheads podcast Evan Lampe who has written and podcasted about PKD for years often talked about Phil and the frontier. In the early years, the off-camera frontier was an ongoing theme that he revisited from time to time. It is not as if he didn’t ever take us to the frontier (some of the best examples are Martian Time-Slip and Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
That said the frontier in Do Androids and Blade Runner both remain nothing more than a commercial pitch and a legend mentioned but unseen. For the creators of the book actually showing us the Off-world colonies does come with serious risk. Blade Runner fans have had decades to fill in those gaps. The good news is we only saw one off-world mining colony so there is still room for the story to grow into the legend.
The one colony we saw was pretty drab and ugly and does kinda look like somewhere the Nostromo might pick-up ore. Certainly, this didn’t look like a place worth leaving earth for. The art didn’t feel as strong to me in this set of issues. The story also was not quite as strong as the last one. I was entertained but not as blown away as I was by the first volume.
When I finished the first volume I wished there was a movie of that story, but I was happy with this one as is. The first volume seemed to explore the themes a little stronger with the ethics of replicants tied more directly to the narrative. Also, the grey area between ethical and non-ethical replicants was lost. Everyone but Cleo and her friend seemed like awful people.
Still entertaining but not as strong as the first volume. Excited to read part 3!
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