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The Fall of Deadworld Omnibus
Three new novellas set in the world of the perennially popular Judge Dredd villains, The Dark Judges.
A brand-new omnibus collection featuring three new novellas set in the world of Judge Dredd's iconic villains, The Dark Judges.
Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Fall
In time, the world will become a graveyard, a charnel pit for billions.
In time, a tiny few will be all that remains, fighting back against the terrible, rotting "greys" until none are left.
In time, the Dark Judges will rule unquestioned over an empty world.
But first must come the fall...
A brand-new omnibus collection featuring three new novellas set in the world of Judge Dredd's iconic villains, The Dark Judges.
Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Fall
In time, the world will become a graveyard, a charnel pit for billions.
In time, a tiny few will be all that remains, fighting back against the terrible, rotting "greys" until none are left.
In time, the Dark Judges will rule unquestioned over an empty world.
But first must come the fall...
- GenresScience Fiction
450 pages, Paperback
Published June 23, 2020
8 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Matt Smith
98 books5 followersLibrarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Matt Smith worked for publisher Pan Macmillan as a desk editor before becoming Assistant Editor on 2000 AD, Britain's award-winning weekly SF anthology title - a comic he had read religiously for the previous fifteen years. He has been editor of the galaxy's greatest comic since 2002, and lives in Oxford.
Matt Smith worked for publisher Pan Macmillan as a desk editor before becoming Assistant Editor on 2000 AD, Britain's award-winning weekly SF anthology title - a comic he had read religiously for the previous fifteen years. He has been editor of the galaxy's greatest comic since 2002, and lives in Oxford.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 24, 2022
A more or less pointless effort which adds little to the Deadworld mythos and generally fails to entertain in its own right.
The first book opens with a huge info dump in which the narrator basically gives us his entire life story. For some reason I ignored this red flag and kept reading. Things actually did get better at this point, and the first book in the trilogy is a solid 3- star affair with plenty of action and suspense.
The trilogy falls off a cliff with books 2 and 3. The paper-thin plot is padded out with masses of repetitive exposition and POV rumination. The structure is a mess and there's no real sense of rising action.
Whilst the Deadworld strips expanded the Dredd mythos with numerous examples of wild creativity, these novels demonstrate no real creativity at all and essentially just retread the same material ad nauseum.
Whilst the scope of the strips is epic, the scope we have here is almost suffocatingly narrow. There's just not enough plot for a work of prose fiction, which has the potential for an even wider scope than the comics.
The best Dredd strips featuring the DJs - like Necropolis for example - were enhanced by choice moments of black humour. Even the Deadworld strips were funny at times. Here we have a humourless, grimdark experience which seems to take itself way too seriously.
Finally, perhaps the greatest sin committed here is that Smith somehow manages to make the Dark Judges and the Sisters of Death boring. All they do is rant pompously and engage in pathetic infighting. They lack the sense of fun, mischief, and excitement they possess in the strips.
This one was a real disappointment, especially given the quality of some of Smith's other work.
The first book opens with a huge info dump in which the narrator basically gives us his entire life story. For some reason I ignored this red flag and kept reading. Things actually did get better at this point, and the first book in the trilogy is a solid 3- star affair with plenty of action and suspense.
The trilogy falls off a cliff with books 2 and 3. The paper-thin plot is padded out with masses of repetitive exposition and POV rumination. The structure is a mess and there's no real sense of rising action.
Whilst the Deadworld strips expanded the Dredd mythos with numerous examples of wild creativity, these novels demonstrate no real creativity at all and essentially just retread the same material ad nauseum.
Whilst the scope of the strips is epic, the scope we have here is almost suffocatingly narrow. There's just not enough plot for a work of prose fiction, which has the potential for an even wider scope than the comics.
The best Dredd strips featuring the DJs - like Necropolis for example - were enhanced by choice moments of black humour. Even the Deadworld strips were funny at times. Here we have a humourless, grimdark experience which seems to take itself way too seriously.
Finally, perhaps the greatest sin committed here is that Smith somehow manages to make the Dark Judges and the Sisters of Death boring. All they do is rant pompously and engage in pathetic infighting. They lack the sense of fun, mischief, and excitement they possess in the strips.
This one was a real disappointment, especially given the quality of some of Smith's other work.
June 8, 2021
Interesting storyline, fits well into the original (2000AD comic) Judge Death cannon (as far as I can remember).
The main story is, I suppose by it's nature, bleak, very bleak and it's relentless.
it's certainly not a 'cosy catastrophe' story. Everyone is ultimately doomed (the living AND the dead), as is the fauna and flora, civilisation, the climate - everything is broken and unfixable. There is no survivor colony to make for, no hidden safe bunker, no vaccine to seek, no plucky resistance fighters, or special forces to come to the rescue.
I've not come across a post-app novel that takes it to this level.
The main story is, I suppose by it's nature, bleak, very bleak and it's relentless.
it's certainly not a 'cosy catastrophe' story. Everyone is ultimately doomed (the living AND the dead), as is the fauna and flora, civilisation, the climate - everything is broken and unfixable. There is no survivor colony to make for, no hidden safe bunker, no vaccine to seek, no plucky resistance fighters, or special forces to come to the rescue.
I've not come across a post-app novel that takes it to this level.
July 7, 2023
A curate's egg of a collection of very varying quality in my opinion and falls into the very well trodden trap of poor franchise literature.
Red Mosquito – So so and reminds me of a Tharg’s Future Shock. Never really gets going and ends abruptly to the point of ‘that’s it?’. Written in an annoying first person. 3/5
Bone White Seeds – Hard work and I wasn’t enthused to wade through to the end but persisted. It is written from the viewpoints of two characters in first person which works excellently in series like Wild Cards but doesn't here, one of which is though a very annoying daily journal mechanic. Then for some reason it drops that and becomes just first person. Couldn’t ever read it again. 2/5
Grey Flesh Flies – Excellent and not just because it features the Dark Judges and Sisters. Written in third person this is what I would have expected the other two to be. Somewhat truncated by the novella format and it goes off track at the end with a doomsday cult but worth wading through the other two, and the epilogue ties up the WTH? that make RM a little clearer to understand its link but that is somewhat convoluted. 4/5
If I had bought the novellas separately I would have struggled with RM and stopped at BWS, the series would have been excellent if it had been one book in the writing style of GFF, very strange the distinct differences between the writing styles of each.
I like the Fall of Deadworld strip, this is entertaining to a point but is overall low quality and suffers greatly from the episodic novella format.
Red Mosquito – So so and reminds me of a Tharg’s Future Shock. Never really gets going and ends abruptly to the point of ‘that’s it?’. Written in an annoying first person. 3/5
Bone White Seeds – Hard work and I wasn’t enthused to wade through to the end but persisted. It is written from the viewpoints of two characters in first person which works excellently in series like Wild Cards but doesn't here, one of which is though a very annoying daily journal mechanic. Then for some reason it drops that and becomes just first person. Couldn’t ever read it again. 2/5
Grey Flesh Flies – Excellent and not just because it features the Dark Judges and Sisters. Written in third person this is what I would have expected the other two to be. Somewhat truncated by the novella format and it goes off track at the end with a doomsday cult but worth wading through the other two, and the epilogue ties up the WTH? that make RM a little clearer to understand its link but that is somewhat convoluted. 4/5
If I had bought the novellas separately I would have struggled with RM and stopped at BWS, the series would have been excellent if it had been one book in the writing style of GFF, very strange the distinct differences between the writing styles of each.
I like the Fall of Deadworld strip, this is entertaining to a point but is overall low quality and suffers greatly from the episodic novella format.
July 4, 2021
Another huge hit from Abaddon Books, which honestly shouldn’t be a surprise as they’ve been hitting it out of the park for years now, especially with their Dredd related material.
And speaking of Dredd…while the characters in this book are technically related to old Stoney Face and other characters out of 2000 AD’s most famous creation, not once does The Fall of Deadworld feel like anything in that fictional universe.
Instead, everything in Deadworld is essentially a horror story, mixed in with brain dead Judge zombies and a post apocalyptic feel. Obviously judge Death is not a new creation but Smith’s characterization and backstory of the killer judge felt fresh and original. As did his take on just his Death came to power. Feeding off Kek-W’s graphic novel storyline and molding it into a prose collection made for an entirely original story set in the same fictional universe.
He also did an incredible job of making this version feel bleak as hell. I love stories where hope is a fleeting shot in the wind and good God did he nail that here. That and excessive amount of gore and bloodshed. Just like the 2012 Dredd film proved, this kind of stuff works best when it’s full of gore.
Anyways, while The Fall of Deadworld is a huge diversion from typical Dredd related material, it’s a great read, especially for those of us who felt like Death, Mortis, Fear, and Fire never got their fair share in the comics.
And speaking of Dredd…while the characters in this book are technically related to old Stoney Face and other characters out of 2000 AD’s most famous creation, not once does The Fall of Deadworld feel like anything in that fictional universe.
Instead, everything in Deadworld is essentially a horror story, mixed in with brain dead Judge zombies and a post apocalyptic feel. Obviously judge Death is not a new creation but Smith’s characterization and backstory of the killer judge felt fresh and original. As did his take on just his Death came to power. Feeding off Kek-W’s graphic novel storyline and molding it into a prose collection made for an entirely original story set in the same fictional universe.
He also did an incredible job of making this version feel bleak as hell. I love stories where hope is a fleeting shot in the wind and good God did he nail that here. That and excessive amount of gore and bloodshed. Just like the 2012 Dredd film proved, this kind of stuff works best when it’s full of gore.
Anyways, while The Fall of Deadworld is a huge diversion from typical Dredd related material, it’s a great read, especially for those of us who felt like Death, Mortis, Fear, and Fire never got their fair share in the comics.
July 31, 2025
I was disappointed.
This is not the universe of Mega cities, of judges like Dredd. It is a world like ours, run by corrupt and rotten judges.
Along comes an insane youngster, Sidney De'Ath, who believes that the only way to cure crime is to kill all criminals, even for jay walking, so they never commit another crime. His ideas gains followers so he kills Chief Judge Drabbon and takes over.
Aided by monster sisters from another dimension, who have taken over two girls who had contacted them, and become Nausea and Phobia, they give Sidney power, and he makes his followers. Judge Mortis, who makes all the crazy stuff, and Judges Fire and Fear.
The Judges are forced to drink a "fluid" which turns then into undead grey beings who then do Sidney's work, killing all people, and many people in turn are similarly poisoned.
Psi Judge Cafferly realises too late that the saying that all life commits crimes, is based on a tyrant's view of what "crime is", and even the undead can commit crimes.
The book could have been 100% improved if almost at the end, the "sisters" had been killed and Sidney and his followers had lost their evil powers, so allowing a slow long recovery of the Earth. But Deathworld never fell.
Sibilant hisses, with endless ssssssssss's we did not need, ffssssssssssss.
This is not the universe of Mega cities, of judges like Dredd. It is a world like ours, run by corrupt and rotten judges.
Along comes an insane youngster, Sidney De'Ath, who believes that the only way to cure crime is to kill all criminals, even for jay walking, so they never commit another crime. His ideas gains followers so he kills Chief Judge Drabbon and takes over.
Aided by monster sisters from another dimension, who have taken over two girls who had contacted them, and become Nausea and Phobia, they give Sidney power, and he makes his followers. Judge Mortis, who makes all the crazy stuff, and Judges Fire and Fear.
The Judges are forced to drink a "fluid" which turns then into undead grey beings who then do Sidney's work, killing all people, and many people in turn are similarly poisoned.
Psi Judge Cafferly realises too late that the saying that all life commits crimes, is based on a tyrant's view of what "crime is", and even the undead can commit crimes.
The book could have been 100% improved if almost at the end, the "sisters" had been killed and Sidney and his followers had lost their evil powers, so allowing a slow long recovery of the Earth. But Deathworld never fell.
Sibilant hisses, with endless ssssssssss's we did not need, ffssssssssssss.
July 1, 2021
Was pleasantly surprised by this one. Action scenes were not too frequent or annoying, feeling of despair was held well throughout the whole book, nice atmosphere. The only drawback was that it felt a bit unfinished.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews