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Warriors: The Medusa War
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2nd
May 04 |
 ABC
Warriors: The Medusa War
Pat Mills
and Alan Mitchell
Buy
this book from Amazon.co.uk
What to Expect:
The meknificent seven blazing a trail across Mars, increasing the peace and
spreading the word, blowing things up and arguing with each other. Hey! It's the
ABC Warriors, what else do you want?
Review by Richmond
Clements
When the details
of this latest series of novels were released, one title stood out at me as a
must-read. The idea of a Dredd novel was nothing new, but one about the ABC Warriors
was a new departure and having it written by Mills was doubly intriguing. But
then, given how he feels about anybody else writing his creations, it had to be
him, didn't it?
Mills requires
no introduction to anybody here, but I for one was not familiar with the name
Alan Mitchell. He has, it seems, worked with Mills in the past, on Toxic and,
I'm informed by the board on this site, Third World War.
The first thing
that is noticeable is the lack of originality on the cover. Oh, it's a great,
indeed classic, picture, but it is wrong. Ro-Jaws isn't even in the dammed book!
The book itself
was a surprise to begin with. It is in fact a prequel to the current run of ABC
stories in 2000AD, revealing to the reader as it does, the reasons the robots
came back to Mars. And along the way, explains what happened to Morrigun, and
just where Steelhorn came in. The whole exercise is continuity heavy, and is constantly
referring back to previous ABC tales, and as if to settle recent board arguments,
Mills firmly sets the ABC Warriors in the world of the Volgan war, and, one can
assume,
Bill Savage. Not Dredd though... I think.
That is not to
say the continuity will get in the way of what's going on, after all, this is
not a book that is going to be picked up by the casual reader.
You probably want
some idea of the storyline now, don't you? Well, it doesn't have any sort of what
you would call normal story structure. No first second and third act here. What
you get are a series of smaller tales, set within a larger one, as the Warriors
tangle with another robot warrior called MD (which stands for quite a few different
things, so don't ask), and his scheming human masters.
So it reads like
it has been adapted from a comic strip or two. If this had been written
as a comic strip, then I think the ABC Warriors would easily equal, if not surpass,
The Books of Invasion in page count. And on top of this, we are promised another
book at the end!
But is it any good?
Even as you ask me that question, that's not what you really want to know, is
it? We know that Mills can write and that when he's on form he is unbeatable.
You just want to know if he spends the time preaching, don't you?
Well, he doesn't.
Yes, there are moments, thinly disguised references to current politicians and
the like. No polemics about how everything is the fault of Christians and men.
When it comes
to the writing style, sometimes this book falls between two stools. I get the
impression that the writers could not make up their mind if they were writing
for and adult, or what they like to call 'young adult' audience. Perhaps this
dichotomy is one of the drawbacks of having two voices trying to tell the tale.
So perhaps it is
a good time to tell you about the epiphany I had about half way through this book?
I was reading,
all but in despair at what I was seeing. Alongside the assured and effortless
characterisations of the Warriors, we had appalling puns and really bad jokes.
Then, I realised the obvious: the puns were supposed to be appalling, and the
jokes really bad! Once I got by this, I was able to enjoy the novel a lot more.
Seeing Mills, not only having fun, but gently poking fun was an interesting experience,
and one that will colour the way I look at his future work. I have the feeling
that Pat has his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek more often than we give him
credit for...
A word of warning
though. When I say the jokes and puns are bad, I'm not kidding. How about a clone
cowboy, who is hidden inside his horse, with only his gun pointing out of the
animals' mouth? He's called 'A Man Called Horse'. That is the level we are working
at here.
If you like that
sort of thing, buy this book. If you like the ABC Warriors, then buy it too. Mills
should do more of this type of thing, as he seems to be having fun here.
Buy
this book from Amazon.co.uk
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