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Dredd - Kingdom of the Blind
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20th
November 04 |
Judge Dredd: Kingdom
of the Blind
David Bishop
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this book from Amazon.co.uk
What to Expect:
Big budget, widescreen mayhem. People dying. Lots of people dying.
Review by Richmond
Clements
With the review
of the last novel by Bishop, Bad Moon Rising, I think that I nailed my colours
firmly to the mast as a fan of his novels. So, does this one live up to the high
levels of expectation that I’ve had for it?
Well, yes it does.
In places. Let me explain...
The book begins
well, with the tale of a Cadet Judge being sent in undercover into the organisation
of Big Crime Boss Jesus Bludd. Yes, Jesus Bludd. But, to the credit of the author,
he manages to avoid the (to me at least) pun that’s almost crying out to
be made about the name.
So, as I said,
it starts with as undercover cop tale, and an entertaining one. Then, the second
act abruptly shifts gear, as we’re back focusing on Dredd as he is drawn
into a 24 style race against time. Again, as with the first act, this is an enjoyable
read, with some neat set pieces and one rather, to me at least, confusingly written
sequence involving a mo-pad. Then
the story shift gear yet again for the final act, and becomes a classic Bondian
showdown. As with the previous acts, this one is a good read.
That’s three
entertaining acts to the story, so what’s the problem?
I’ll tell
you. To me it reads like a couple of different, shorter, stories that have been
fused together to make one big one. I have a sneaking suspicion that this may
even have begun life as a script of a Big Finish audio. There are large sections
of the novel that read like they’d be perfect fodder for one of the CDs,
that and the inclusion of Bishop’s magnificent creation Enigma Smith, the
self centred reporter from many an audio.
Character ways,
Bishop can write Dredd fine, though in places here, he just doesn’t sound
right. Jesus Bludd is a pretty good villain, with his origin set firmly in the
continuity of the comic and in one of Dredd’s more famous brief encounters,
and his brutal sidekick is as interesting, if not more so. One
thing that Bishop does more successfully, though at times it feels like he’s
padding, is paint us bigger picture of what’s going on in the city. Especially
prescient is his reality show, where one of the contestants is a corpse. Prescient
because Channel 4 in the UK are currently planning a series where the viewer gets
to watch a body decompose.
Not the best of
the Dredd novels then, its separate parts are very good, but the novel does not
add up to the sum of them all.
Buy
this book from Amazon.co.uk
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