Judge Anderson: Sins of the Father
By Mitchel Scanlon

What to expect: Anderson thinking her way through another adventure. This one altogether more disturbing than before.

Review by Richmond Clements

22nd March 2007

With his first two Anderson books, Scanlon set out his stall from the start. These were dark books from the beginning, with the second one displaying a particular level of visceral violence as Anderson tracked down a serial killer.

This one, however, is on a different level. Not in violent and gory ways, but in the subject matter the author has decided to tackle with this volume. There were a couple of moments in the opening chapter where I thought, ‘Is this book going to be about..?’ Then thought ‘Naw, they wouldn’t’.

But they did. It is a brave decision, for my money, and one that works. It makes for an, in places, uncomfortable read, but never a distasteful one. ‘But what’, I hear you ask, ‘Is this book about?’ That would be telling, I’m afraid, and I’m a strictly no spoilers kind of guy. Let’s just say that, thematically, this is the most adult novel in the 2000AD range to date.

As to the book itself- is it any good? Well, yes it is. Pretty much everything I have said about the previous instalments holds true with this one. Scanlon write a fine Mega City 1. It positively drips atmosphere, as he takes us down, literally, to the depths of the City. We are shown around the underbelly of MC-1- the world of mutant workers toiling in illegal drug factories. And this is where we meet the main character of the novel, a simple minded mutant who has come to the city for a very special reason. I say main character deliberately, as to my perception we spend more time in the narrative with him than we do with Anderson. This might not be the case on a page by page count, but it is how it seems. Which is, of course, not a negative if the character is interesting, and thankfully he is, by turn terrible then sympathetic as his tale unfolds.

You know, I can’t think of much in this book to really pick on as a negative. I can remember only one instance in there that annoyed me, and that was when a Judge delivered a line to Anderson along the lines of, ‘I sent it to MAC, the Justice Dept Central computer’.  Now Anderson, of course, would know fine well just what MAC was and did not need this superfluous information. Yes, I know the reader did, but I’m sure there were other ways of delivering it.

In the previous two books, my major criticism of Scanlon was with his portrayal of Anderson herself. In this book though, I think he’s got her more or less right. At least, there where no incidents that jarred as unrealistic. As before, we find Anderson partnered up, this time not with a cynical or hostile street judge, but with an angry Psi Dept rookie, and the pair have some nice scenes together.

So, all in all, this is a solid book. Entertaining and disturbing in equal and correct measures. I hope Scanlon has more of these in the pipeline.