Monday 10 September 2012

SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: Dredd: Collecting Dredd Vs Death, The Kingdom of the Blind, The Final Cut - Gordon Rennie, David Bishop and Matthew Smith

Release Date: 31/07/12

SYNOPSIS:

DREDD 3D is the R-rated adaptation of the comic book from DNA Films, the British production company behind 28 Days Later and Sunshine.

Starring Karl Urban (RED, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek) as Judge Joe Dredd and Olivia Thirlby (Juno) as Judge Cassandra Anderson, the movie is gritty and violent, and promises to finally and truly bring the insane world of Mega-City One from the comic book page to the silver screen.

To mark this, 2000 AD and Abaddon Books have collected three novels starring the ultimate lawman of the future in one omnibus edition.

In Dredd Vs Death, Judge Dredd teams up with his movie co-star Judge Anderson to investigate a trail of carnage left by a cult obsessed with with Judge Death, who believes all life is a crime.

In Kingdom of the Blind, Judge Dredd hits the streets as senior Judges gather for a treaty signing, just as a notorious crime boss prepares to step out of the shadows and seize control of the city.

And in The Final Cut, Dredd uncovers a grisly series of murders that point the finger at the an underground movie scene with unlikely allies in the corridors of power.

Written by Gordon Rennie, David Bishop, and Matthew Smith, this omnibus of Dredd stories is the perfect introduction to movie-goers keen to read more of the eponymous lawman’s violent exploits in a world gone to hell.


REVIEW:

Any book that gives me a solid dose of Mega City One’s top judge, jury and executioner is a book that quickly finds itself at the top of my reading pile and whilst most of us are used to reading about Dredd in the graphic novels, this outing is purely written word where so much has to be conveyed within the pages to make it work, not an enviable task for any author let alone the ones brave enough to attempt it, so what did they do to help bring him to life in the readers imagination?

To be honest the first thing I’ve got to say is you really have to leave the graphic novel Dredd at the door as with a different medium comes a whole host of different angles, for example the writer has to convey so much action into the sequence that some parts are going to be left out which will disappoint some Dredd-Heads but thrill others. The three stories work well to the best of their abilities within although for me the first was the weakest as it was based on the PS2 game which was more just an FPS rather than a tale with a solid story.

All in the authors have done a reasonable job of bringing the judge to the reader and with the new film out now, a great many others will be introduced to the character possibly for the first time without having had the years of GN fun that a number of us have gone through and whilst this title will work well for them, for others it won’t. In my opinion, I did enjoy it although I do think that a fair few people will possibly call this the Marmite of Dredd books. All in its reasonable, you get three stories but if you’re a dyed in the wool GN Dredder then perhaps you might want to miss this.


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