Publisher – Abaddon Books

Published – Out Now

Price - £2.48

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 2047 A.D.

There’s a new threat on the streets of America. Driven by radical dogma and fired by their hatred of the Judges, they’re somehow able to turn ordinary citizens into enraged killers. And they have the gall to call themselves ‘The Patriots.’
Judges Charlotte Clarkson and Niamh Douglas are assigned to the case: track the radicals to their source and uproot them...

Quick confession my understanding of the Judge Dredd universe is very limited. I know it it a dark British satirical view of the future. I did enjoy the Dredd movie and some my best friends happily extol the virtues of the comics – but there is such a lot of then I never really get time to have a look. But when I heard Joseph Elliott-Colman had written a prose novella that helped act as a prequel to what is the current 200AD timeline I was very tempted. I found a smart, politically astute and tense thriller exploring why the Judges came into being and debating when can revolution go too far or so badly it makes things worse?

Its New York 2036. The world has got tougher and crime is rising. The concept of Judges – a single person acting as police officer, judge and executioner is finally being trialled with the hope that a more direct approach may get the world back on track. The old NYC police view them with suspicion. Many people in the world see it as the dawn of fascism. Two Judges Charlotte Clarkson and Niamh Douglas have been given a mission to track down a bunch of potential terrorists trying to cause chaos. Their mission will find out a plot that threatens millions but will also decide the future of the Judges.

This was a really interesting story for a newbie to 2000AD. As it’s a prequel Elliott-Coleman has chosen a setting familiar to the modern reader a world that’s like our own but actually worse – closer to getting full on authoritarian. The story explores how people react to authoritarian measures and how certain types of rebellion can make it worse. The plot centres on a ‘left-wing’ group of terrorists known as The Patriots keen to create a revolution by any means necessary to bring down the oppressors. The newly assigned Judges explore how a peaceful university student appears to have inspired terrorism; taking them into secret government intelligence projects and a black ops programme from the 1970s that threatens huge levels of the population.

What I will stress right now is this is not a novella saying that the left is just as bad as the right in making the world a bad place. Instead we get a lot of thoughtful analysis on the ways that revolution can and cannot work. On both sides are certain people less interested in protecting people and more exploiting situations to seed what they want. In contrast both our Judges are quite passionate about protecting people and shown very human in their love of rap music; tv and culture and supporting the people at the bottom. Its also very diverse with a collection of officers who are of different ethnicities, genders and sexualities. The driver here is a group that their bosses equate to the Baader Meinhoff terrorist group – dedicated to a cause and keen to hurt people on their way to power. As we see the approach that they have chosen has actually really risked a lot of innocent lives and that leads to consequences and exploits the population and the bosses. It’s not a story in praise of what the Judges become but it does suggest the tactics for revolution need to be delivered carefully or risk actually encouraging the state to get tougher with public support.

On top of that political analysis we also get a really tense SF thriller. The Judges get drawn into an attack on a house that is well paces and at times scary. It also doesn’t revel in the violence but still done really well. It explores the arrival of more psychics within the population and how that talent can eb used for good and evil. There are lots of gun fights, reversals and revelations all within a fairly short novella – you can tell dear reader I loved it, but I really don’t want to spoil the journey for you.

I think if you are a classic 2000AD fan then you’ll like the idea of a story exploring how that world comes into being (I am fairly sure there are many Easter eggs here I cannot spot) but at the same time for a newbie like me it is a refreshingly intelligent SF thriller that provides a great mix of action, reveals and a look at how we can end up welcoming the darker times of the future. Well worth your time.