2007 books

18) William S. Burroughs, Blade Runner: A Movie, 1979
Set in New York in 2014 in a time of increased longevity and shortsighted medical laws, all written as an outline for a film to be called Blade Runner. The plot and characters are borrowed from a story by Alan E. Nourse (and the title was stolen by Ridley Scott) – written in the mid-1970s, Burroughs used this blindingly fast and cynical tale to get a load off his chest about the capitalism that drives the American healthcare system and sketches out the workings of an underground alternative. It reads much quicker than normal for Burroughs and is therefore rather good fun, though as a dystopian vision it's particularly dark.