replicant n. 1
an artificial being in the form of a human or other creature; an android
Introduced in, and chiefly associated with, the 1982 film Blade Runner. The 1968 book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, on which the film is based, uses the term android (or andy).
SF Encyclopedia
Robotics
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1980
The big religious boys said that replicants, no matter how human, were objects, only God could make people.
Blade Runner (film script) 22 Dec. (scene 30) -
1983 Starburst (#62) Oct. 16/2
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The Captain of a supply ship…takes pity on the lonely man and on one of his trips leaves him a perfect replica robot woman….Corry is, at first, repulsed by the replicant but ultimately comes to love her.
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1991 Locus May 66/3
He got into this crazy stuff about…replicants.
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2000
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Nick Lowe
bibliography
Like replicants for androids, the deathkiss word ‘superhero’ is avoided altogether for the techy euphemism ‘mutant,’ even though the one thing that all the homines superiores seem to have in common is really dumb comiesy superpowers that could only have been invented by a Marvel bullpensman on a bad caffeine high: controlling weather, doing ice sculptures, projecting something called ‘optic blasts’ (which have given generations of writers migraines of their own trying to rationalize).
Mutant Popcorn in Interzone (#161) Nov. 42/1
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2004
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Kathi Maio
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The hero of the movie, a defense research scientist named Spencer Olham…is accused of not being who he believes himself to be by a ruthless security agent, Major Hathaway…. Hathaway claims that Olham is actually a replicant smart bomb.
Films in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May 116/1 -
2004
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Nancy Kress
bibliography
‘We have one new replicant with us on the ship.’ ‘Welcome new replicant!’ we say, and there is more rejoicing.
My Mother, Dancing in Asimov’s Science Fiction June 14 -
2012
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Sam Hawksmoor
bibliography
As far as Strindberg was concerned they weren’t even human. These were just replicants. And like all lab rats, their feelings were not a matter for his concern.
The Hunting 57
Research requirements
antedating 1980
Earliest cite
in Blade Runner script
Last modified 2022-02-10 18:19:06
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entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
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