Bad Neanderthal: All He Wants is Justice by Glen Batchelor

With some holidays and fine beach weather I got a lot of reading done. Now I just have to write up the reviews. This one was a fun read, but the humour or satire was not too subtle. I think if you liked 80's series 'The Young Ones', this one will be for you. 4 stars and currently only 99p/c.

Even though this world has Neanderthals in it, we firmly recognise it as post-Margaret Thatcher Britain. It is a not so subtle satire of that area, when the miners’ strike was brutally suppressed by police with the full support of the conservative government. This police brutality is echoed in the character of Sergeant Alf Hucker, a bad tempered, Neanderthal hating paedophile. I like the character of   Zeezee as we see his ‘growth’ from docile Neanderthal, who is incapable of lying or violence. To a lying, murdering, well almost homo-sapien in behaviour. But we remain endeared by our Zeezee as his heart is in the right place and he has the welfare and liberation of his people in mind. This book has a lot of humour in it, and most of it is not too subtle either; for example the name of sex worker and Hucker’s daughter Lovely Cox-Hucker. I enjoyed reading this and there was enough plot to make this a well balanced mix of satire and crime.

The Complete FAB Trilogy: What If John Lennon Had Lived? by Mark Gillespie

You might remember my reviews of the future of London books by Mark Gillespie. It was one of my highlights of this year so far. When I saw that this trilogy was on offer at 99p I was over at amazon in a shot. This is still a very entertaining if totally bonkers read. From alternative history to time travel it is quite a wild read. Why only 4 stars, well I had difficulty believing some of the decisions the writer had our John make and maybe it was a bit too out there for me. But give it a try, it is very entertaining.
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What would John Lennon have done had he not been assassinated on the 8th of December 1980. This is the basis of the trilogy FAB, to write an alternative history for a hypothetical John Lennon.

 To take a well-loved figure like a former Beatle and to put words and actions to him will always be controversial and maybe a bit sacrilegious, so this Beatles fan took a few sharp breaths at the direction the story was taking. However I was glad I bought the whole trilogy as the story really comes into its own in book 2.

In the second book we follow former and now obsessed FBI agent Vogel in his hunt for the fugitive John Lennon. The story moves to Britain and the world of emerging Britpop.

 Book 3 takes yet another completely unexpected turn, but was for me the most entertaining. I think by this time I had reconciled myself with the fact that the writer was not trying to blacken the name of a much loved icon but just wanted to create an entertaining story with some roots in our pop culture and a satire on the direction our world is heading. The chapter headers are Beatles songs and will maybe spur you on to rediscover some of their great songs. I would advise, sit back and enjoy this writer’s imagination. (Or if you are John Lennon, you might drop a tab of acid and enjoy FAB in glorious technicolour, but I, of course, would never advocate the use of drugs!)