Hey guys John here with another quick read. This time it's a Judge Dredd book, published by Virgin books back in the 1990's. I have a few of these and I'm looking forward to reading them all. So let us begin with:
Judge Dredd: The Savage Amusement by David Bishop
Synopsis:
"It's election day in Mega-City One, Judge Death is leading the polls. He's running for mayor on the 'All Life is a Crime' ticket. But if the Psi-Judges predictions are right, the Big Meg may soon be a crime free zone.
Out on the streets, the city's top lawman is doing his job. A robot-torturing maniac has taken over Weather Control - but Judge Dredd can handle it. Then he finds out that a satellite housing development is heading straight for the ground, and someone has let the super villains out of Iso-block 666. Mean while, a clone killing virus is spreading through the ranks of the judges...
Even for Mega-City One, it's shaping up to be a bad day."
Opinion:
First of wow, that's a huge amount of info and story line going on. As I started to read, we get introduced to a mind numbing amount of characters and a huge selection of locations. All with a critical part to play in the main story. This has two effects on me as the reader: 1) It left me a little over whelmed, as you have to absorb a lot of info quickly. 2) Proves how chaotic and populous the Mega-City of the future is and I love that part of it.
The story itself is set during the reign of Chief Judge McGruder (the era I started reading 2000ad). It follows on from the fall out of the Apocalypse War, Necropolis and the Zombie War. A lot of the city is in ruins, huge amounts of the populous are dead and the Judges Department is stretched to breaking point. This helps to set up just how on a knifes edge MC-1 is, with just one more disaster the cities infra structure could collapse. And the rule of Law could be over.
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| Chief Judge McGruder, before the beard. |
The book itself reads like a comic, if that makes sense. Which I have to say is a positive as its quick paced story and held my attention which is quite a feat. Author David Bishop has done a great job of capturing the weird and wacky world of Mega-City One and it's varied citizens. This book has sparked my imagination and I'm looking forward to coming up ideas to use in my games.
My only negative point was the fact that maybe too many characters were used in this story. And too many main characters from the comic was used, it's nice to have them there. But sometimes it felt more like filler than plot driven writing. And it was hard to keep track of them all and their deeds.
Highlights of the book for me include the Quote headers at the start of every chapter, which I will be posting later. I also enjoyed the whole mayoral election, with characters ranging from Tony Tubbs, to Country and Western singers and even a goat! Now I highly recommend this book, if you can find it on ebay. But be warned if you are new to the Dredd-verse, I recommend hanging off reading this until your more accustomed to the comics.
Rating.... 3 Dredd's out 5
