REVIEW: Anderson Versus Death
My first foray in the the off-screen world of Judge Dredd is the absolutely wild and very Anna Smith Spark Anderson Versus Death. I went in expecting a kind of brutal cyberpunk police procedural, landed in the head of a psi-judge, and witnessed the world and everything inside it burn over and over again.
And if that sounds wild, then buckle up because Anderson versus Death is—as I find myself saying every time I review one of Smith Spark’s books—an absolute experience.
In Anderson Versus Death Judge Anderson chases a criminal through a building. She reaches out to his mind to scan him and finds an absolute horror that enters her own mind and tries to take over so it can destroy the world through her body. And so starts a tale told almost entirely with the psychic mind of Anderson, as she battles Judge Death to stop him from turning Mega City One and everything else on the planet into the Deadworld he, Judge Mortis, Judge Fear, and Judge Fire so desire.
The story is a psychedelic roller coaster as Anderson wages mental war on Death—a losing battle when Death cannot be killed. We move through city scape after city scape, sometimes with people dying, sometimes with all the people already dead, sometimes with a colleague, and sometimes with a new lost friend. Always, the ever marching Dark Judges try to get Anderson to surrender—to give up so they can take over.
As a book set in an established IP, there is definitely some nuances that flew right over my head—as my exposure to that world is limited to two awesome movies and one comic I think I remember reading when I was 15—that I’m sure fans of the wider franchise would pick up on and probably love. As always with Smith Spark’s work, there is a level of her books that are accessible to everyone, but there are always multiple layers under that you can pick up on if you care or dare to look.
Overall if you were to ask what would any SFF IP look like if Anna Smith Spark were to put her undeniably recognisable stamp on it—then this would be exactly it. Worlds dying. Epic scope and a feeling of being small against the scale of the story. Brutal. Brutal. Brutal. Drowning in blood and bodies. Deep moral questions and characters taken beyond their breaking point throughout. Desperate need for a drink, or a cuppa, or a popcorn read to reset immediately after.
Anderson Versus Death is a wild ride. You should get on your Lawmaster and go check it out.
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