Swine Fever by Andrew Cartmel

This book is the last of the books that Fantomas gave me for my birthday last year.

I have finally gotten around to reading it and one can only conclude that Fantomas bears some huge grudge against me - despite his claims that he is not responsible for what is purchased with his voucher, as what else could he have expected me to get?

Now, allow me to don my Nerd-Rage hat as I review this one star title for you all.

The plot summary is that Judge Dredd solves a case involving the illegal selling of pork made form intelligent mutant pigs in Mega-City. Except he doesn't really, as he is hardly in the story at all, the main character of the novel being a young Psi-Judge. That part is not so bad as Dredd is really just a framing device for the crazy happenings of Mega-City One and I can understand it being hard to centre the story around him.

However it didn't take long for the warning bells to go off in one's head as most of the incidental details of the story completely avoid any attempt at following the 30 odd years of Dredd continuity.

Here's a rundown of some of them:

• cadet Judges having their own apartment instead of senior judges only
• said apartment being stocked with illegal alcohol taken from a crime scene - and no fear shown by the cadet judge when Dredd comes to visit
• all but two of the Judges we meet are incompetent buffoons despite their 15 years of training, most are physically unfit being overweight or sickly
• an unending stream of flatulence jokes about one of the Judges - said flatulence being caused by all the fast food he eats
• said fast food being purchased from vending machines in Justice Department, using money that the Judges have - in the comic the Judges are not paid and eat for free at justice Department.
• "net rounds" for the lawgiver when standard cling nets would have sufficed for the story (double whammy is now my second most hated ammo type), other new rounds other than the standard 6 also appeared at various points
• pork being legalised when many other harmful substances are banned for the peoples own good - even synthi versions are sometimes banned for still being harmful
• a complete absence of the Justice Department surveillance system
• ending with a Justice department picnic

When one discussed several of these points with Badger a week or so ago he informed me that the author, Mr Cartmel, had overseen the last three seasons of the original run of Dr Who before it was cancelled. Not having watched those series I can only guess that the good doctors continuity was also completely ignored in favour of whatever Mr Cartmel wanted to do.



Thankfully my next read shall be a recommendation from ElfBoy.
.