Vickers

by Mick Farren

1st edition paperback, fine (as new)

Genres: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Dystopia

Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Farren was the singer with the proto-punk English band The Deviants between 1967 and 1969, releasing three albums. In 1970 he released the solo album Mona – The Carnivorous Circus which also featured Steve Peregrin Took, John Gustafson and Paul Buckmaster, before leaving the music business to concentrate on his writing.

In the mid-1970s, he briefly returned to music releasing the EP Screwed Up, album Vampires Stole My Lunch Money and single "Broken Statue". The album featured fellow NME journalist Chrissie Hynde and Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson.

He has sporadically returned to music, collaborating with Wayne Kramer on Who Shot You Dutch? and Death Tongue, Jack Lancaster on The Deathray Tapes and Andy Colquhoun on The Deviants albums Eating Jello With a Heated Fork and Dr. Crow.

Aside from his own work, he has provided lyrics for various musician friends over the years. He has collaborated with Lemmy, co-writing "Lost Johnny" for Hawkwind, and "Keep Us on the Road" and "Damage Case" for Motörhead. With Larry Wallis, he co-wrote "When's the Fun Begin?" for the Pink Fairies and several tracks on Wallis' solo album Death in a Guitar Afternoon. He provided lyrics for the Wayne Kramer single "Get Some" in the mid-1970s, and continued to work with and for him during the 1990s.

In the early 1970s he contributed to the UK Underground press such as the International Times, also establishing Nasty Tales which he successfully defended from an obscenity charge. He went on to write for the main stream New Musical Express, where he wrote the article The Titanic Sails At Dawn, an analysis of what he saw as the malaise afflicting then-contemporary rock music which described the conditions that subsequently gave rise to punk.

To date he has written 23 novels, including the Victor Renquist novels and the DNA Cowboys sequence. His prophetic 1989 novel The Armageddon Crazy deals with a post-2000 United States which is dominated by fundamentalists who dismantle the Constitution.

Farren has written 11 works of non-fiction, a number of biographical (including four on Elvis Presley), autobiographical and culture books (such as The Black Leather Jacket) and a plethora of poetry.

Since 2003, he has been a columnist for the weekly Los Angeles CityBeat.

Farren died at the age of 69 in 2013, after collapsing onstage while performing with the Deviants at the Borderline Club in London.

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun read from Farren set in a near future dystopia where four major corporations basically fun the 'free world'. Also a bit of a time capsule as the USSR is still alive and kicking. Our lead, Vickers, works for Contec (one of the big four corps) as a corporate assassin-- a 'corpse' in other words. After returning from an orbital and killing some upstart scientist there, his boss gives him another job, a real doozy. Due to growing paranoia about the USSR and by a desire to enrich themselves, the 'big four' corps got several governments to build massive bunkers designed to survive a nuclear war. Well, in one of Contec's bunkers, it seems a high-level exec decided to make himself king. So, all Vickers has to do is get in there, scope out the scene, and off the wannabe king if necessary...

Farren had a knack for pulp and flaunts it here in style, especially in the world building. The corporations basically run the world (and space) and the various governments still around exist as toadies for them; even their military 'obeys' the corporations. The corpses are a special breed, both in that they are highly paid assassins and also how they themselves are hunted by 'bountys'; each rival corporation puts out a list of the other's corpses and offers bounties for them, so they have to dodge them all the time, making their life rather precarious. The 'fiefdom' in the bunker is set up as a male teenager's wet dream, as the women outnumber the males by 5 to 1 (gotta repopulate the planet after all!). The superrich 'special people' live on the bottom of the bunker lavishly while the menials (mostly women) live spartanly in upper tiers almost like jail dormitories. The ruthless, bean-counting corporations are classic, viewing everyone through the eyes of cost/benefit (e.g., profits). Grade A pulp fiction! 4 solid stars!

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite classic Farren but a good read anyway.

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first of Mick Farren's cyberpunk novels - Vickers, The Long Orbit, Mars: The Red Planet, The Armageddon Crazy, and The Feelies are all stand-alones, and, barring some surface similarities, are not even in the same "universe". This one is probably the closest to a "standard" cyberpunk story, with the addition of the imminent threat of nuclear annihilation (NOTE: in most of the above books, tensions between the West and Russian/Soviet Union is at least an issue). While there's nothing groundbreaking here, the author does an excellent job of sketching out a world that feels as if it has a real history. Combine that with punchy (in some cases Chandleresque) dialogue, weird subcultures, extreme violence, and freaky (but not graphic) sex, and you get a highly readable cyberpunk story. The protagonist is pretty messed up, even by the standards of Mick Farren heroes, but functional within his profession (corporate assassin). You find yourself sympathizing with him, even if he's not a good person by any standard. Note: The description that GR uses for this book is pretty terrible. 3.5 stars.

[Chase Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good cyberpunk conspiracy read.

Vickers is another one of Mick Farren's works that could qualify as cyberpunk. It is dated, as it criticizes Cold War fears and conspiracies, but the Farren's plotting, prose, and unique characters make this book a good read even today.

I should warn, the weakest part of this book is around halfway through Act 2. This isn't a long book, but that section made it feel one hundred pages longer. Once Act 3 begins, the book picks back up, but I can't stress enough how much of a slog the last half of Act 2 was.

The highlights here, as with other works by Farren, are his characters and prose. Every character is unique and the dialogue is snappy and clever. The action scenes are astonishingly violent and lightning fast all the while coherent. There are some moments in the book that seem so over-the-top that is comes off as silly. Eventually, these moments just... make sense. It is very strange, but it works!

If you want a fun critique of fear mongering politics, Cold War paranoia, or wanting a solid cyberpunk read then give this book a read.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Action-packed and fast-moving, but I think it's held back from greatness by not having the depths of the titans of the genre. This is a book that's fun, but it isn't necessarily saying something at its core, like, say, Neuromancer.

[Martin Empson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Crap. Would have given it no stars if I could have.
http://resolutereader.blogspot.co.uk/...

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another entertaining Farren, one I had not previously read. A corporatised, dystopian future, in which a hard mercenary, who works for the company, infiltrates a nuclear bunker housing thousands of people, owned by another corp. His mission—to uncover just what is going on in the bunker, however, this he finds out the hard way. Nuclear war breaks out and he is trapped, and employed as an enforcer to assassinate anyone who opposes the bunker bigwigs. The kicker in this is that there was no war, the bunker inhabitants were tricked. With a little intrigue our protagonist discovers this truth, kills the bad guys in charge, and liberates the bunkers inhabitants. Cool.

Again, with Farren, it is not the story per se, but rather the people and situations.

[Greg Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent book.

[Evanitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I though this book was pretty cool; I remember the title being different though; pretty sure it was titled "C.O.R.P.S.E" on my copy.
Loved the bunker part of the story.