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Dredd - Swine Fever
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11th
June 05 |
Judge
Dredd - Swine Fever
Andrew
Cartmel
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this book from Amazon.co.uk
What to Expect:
Dredd faces off against a horde of super intelligent pigs.
Review by Richmond
Clements
This book promised
quite a lot. Its spectacular cover told of the classic lunacy we expect from the
best Dredd’s. There’s even a nuclear explosion going off and everything!
It was written
by Andrew Cartmel, who was the script editor on the very best of the McCoy Doctor
Who adventures, as well as author of some of the better Who novels.
So, given this, it was a surprise to see this book fail to
deliver on almost every level possible.
‘It couldn’t
be that bad’, I hear you cry, ‘after all, you’ve liked all the
books up to now?’ But, believe
me, it gives me no pleasure to say any of this, but this is a bad book.
I’ll zero
in on a few of the major problems I had. Firstly, there are some dreadful lapses
in logic in the story telling. Early in the book, Dredd and his team of Judges
storm the villains’ secret base. The bad guys escape, and Dredd deduces
that the base is wired to self destruct, so he begins a frantic search for the
bomb. Meanwhile, the baddies are making their getaway; they have 2 minutes before
they are too far away to set of the bomb. But, instead of setting it off there
and then, they wait, for some reason, the full two minutes, thus giving Dredd
the time to track down the bomb.
Then you’ve
got characters recalling actions in a scene where they didn’t even appear.
Next, there is
the use of Dredd’s world. Cartmel has written Dredd before in the Megazine
(Blood Sports meg 3.11), I haven’t read it, so I can’t comment on
his ‘take’ on the world, but here it looks like he has skimmed over
a couple of strips by way of research. For example, a cursory read would tell
you that MC-1 does not use concrete in its buildings, but they do here. Mega
City Municipal Dump? In a city where everything, including the dead, is recycled,
why would there be a huge dump? Justice Department staff picnics?
And this one is
the best: one of the characters, a rookie Psi Judge, lives in her own con-apt,
where she takes three day weekends off, watching the cable channels she subscribes
to, drinking dry martini and maybe going shopping with her friends. At this point,
I had given up on the book, but forced myself to read on, because it wouldn’t
be fair to review it and not read it all.
It doesn’t
get any better. We have Judges going on compassionate leave, firing cling net
and grappling hook rounds and going swimming in public swimming pools.
I am prepared to accept that this is all supposed to be funny. I don’t find
Bec and Kawl remotely amusing, but people I know and respect do, so this book
might well fall into that category.
The Psi Judge
mentioned above, to be fair, is a pretty well drawn character even though her
ability, while original and interesting, is also illogical. And there’s
also the other bit I had a problem with... Now, I’m no prude, but having
her possess the body of a pig, and having sex with another pig?
Disappointing
on every turn, doubly so because of the obvious talent the writer has displayed
in the past. It’s the first book in the Black Flame range that I would recommend
you do not buy.
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this book from Amazon.co.uk
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