Philip K. Dick, We Can Build You (a.k.a. The First in Our Family, a.k.a. A. Lincoln, Simulacrum)
1969-70 (collected 1972) / Audiobook / 206 pages / USA
***
Written well before Androids, but not printed for the best part of a decade, this is more or less the canonical Blade Runner origin story as the Rosen company dallies with simulacra slavery for the first time through the medium of novelty Civil War droids for the trivial amusement of off-world colonists, unaware of the dramatic irony of indentured Lincolns.With existential andys, mood organs and delectably familiar names you can draw your own conclusions about, this almost reads like the very rough first draft of the more famous work before PKD realised there might be a better way to tell that story if he started over and turned this into a different story for the remaining 75% or so.
Alan Moore and Gene Ha, Top 10: The Forty-Niners
2005 / Ecomic / 112 pages / UK/USA
***
I've not read Top 10 and don't really know what it is, but I'm going to assume this sepia prequel has more in common with the series proper than the barmy Pratchettesque fairy tale spin-off I read earlier. It doubtless would have been less confusing if I'd read things in the right order, but the deep-end discombobulation turned out to be the best part.Once that entertaining shock wore off and I got comfortable in the purpose-built city for science heroes, robots, mad scientists, miscellaneous supernatural creatures and other embarrassing war veterans America no longer has any use for, the sombre and meaningful story underneath the vintage pulp playfulness was less interesting.
Philip Pullman, La Belle Sauvage
2017 / Audiobook / 464 pages / UK
***
I didn't get to experience His Dark Materials when I was the target age for it, growing up with the more blandly ecclesiastical Narnia books instead. But even having to read from outside the magic bubble, I found it a special and admirable series that I'll be sure to pass on.
This new trilogy was apparently long-awaited by people who think that expanding on completed works is a good idea, and it's as comparable to the beloved originals as prequel afterthoughts tend to be. It's nice to spend more time in the world of dæmons, but this new volume doesn't pull its considerable weight with fresh ideas of its own beyond lessons on indoctrination and thoughtcrime that would be more valuable if the main audience this time around wasn't the grown-up fan base.
Dacre Stoker and J. D. Barker, Dracul
***
Another somewhat cynical cash-in on Dacre Stoker's ancestry, this sounded more worthwhile than the Dracula sequel J. D. Barker wrote for him a decade ago, and crafting a metafictional backstory where the Stokers and their contemporaries experience Dracula-like events would have been an inventive concept if this was still the 1980s. It gets points for authentically pastiching Dracula's found-footage style, but they didn't have to respectfully imitate that book's tiring length quite so slavishly.
