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Dog: Bad Timing
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16th
May 04 |
 Strontium
Dog : Bad Timing
Rebecca Levene
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this book from Amazon.co.uk
What to Expect:
Johnny and Middenface on a race against time to find a killer. Lots of guns,
electronux and beam polarisers.
Review by Richmond
Clements
Johnny Alpha is
my favourite comic character ever. As you can imagine, I was concerned when I
saw this book. My favourite character in a book? Sounds great! But it isn’t
written by Wagner or Grant, but by someone I've never heard of. Rebecca Levene
is the partner of Gareth Roberts, who has himself written a few rather good Doctor
Who novels. I wouldn’t normally mention this sort of information, but she
found it important enough to contain in her bio, so I thought I'd share it with
you.
But, to the book:
what have we got here? Johnny and Middenface are hired to track down a killer.
So far so good, but the twist is that they are hired by another criminal, although
when I say hired, I don't really mean it literally. Alongside Johnny and McNulty
are a range of imaginative muties: the hapless "Team X" and another
bounty hunter called One-Eyed Jack (who has a great gimmick), the Blimp (another
brilliant creation), as well as none other than Durham Red herself, all racing
to get to their quarry first on the planet Epsilon 5.
Johnny Alpha has
always been little more than a western in space, up to the point were a story
like Incident on Mayger Minor is nothing more than a rehash of the movie Shane.
This is where the book throws up another surprise, in that it is not built around
a western format, but a solid sci-fi idea. The planet to which the Strontium Dogs
are sent has been hit with a time bomb device, which has caused time on the planet
to move at four-hundred times its normal speed. This premise gives much scope
for Levene to have fun with the story, as the hunters encounter bees that fly
so fast they cannot be seen, trees that grow super fast and bodies turning to
skeletons in no time.
While reading,
I would usually make mental notes about what I'm going to write in these reviews,
so that I at least have a vague idea of how to start. Here, I've been sitting
for over an hour trying to figure out what the sneck I should write! That sounds
like bad news, but it is not. I hadn't thought of anything to write, because while
I was reading, I was enjoying the tale so much, that I forgot that I was supposed
to be reviewing it!
The only thing
that slowed the story down was the number of typos, some of which required me
to re-read again to figure out what the sentence was supposed to say. My favourite
was, "At the monet, a horrible screeching sound tore through the air."
Oh, and for continuity
fans, the story is set after the death of Wulf, a fact that gives Johnny a rather
nice character moment with another of the muties. In fact, the character moments
are something that stand out here. Johnny, much as I love him, hasn't much depth
in the strip, which is fine in a comic, but just wouldn't last in a longer text
tale like this. So it is to Levene’s credit that she does such a good job
of fleshing him out. Not that it matters, because Middenface steals just about
every scene he's in.
This book is easily
the best one in the series so far, but be warned. If you read it you’ll
end up with a sore bum, because this book kicks ass.
Buy
this book from Amazon.co.uk
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