Golgotha Run

Dark Future

by Dave Stone

It's the day after the day after tomorrow and the civilized world fights hard to maintain its facade. Religious cults are growing more powerful by the day, the government is in the pocket of big business and shadowy forces control the corporations. Out in the ruins of Denver sanctioned operative Eddie Kalish learns the hard way; never stop for hitchhikers!

Genres: Science Fiction, Ebooks, Post Apocalyptic, Fiction

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 27, 2005

About the author

Stone has written many spin off novels based on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and Judge Dredd.

Stone also contributed a number of comic series to 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, focusing on the Dreddverse (Judge Dredd universe). In collaboration with David Bishop and artist Shaky Kane he produced the much disliked Soul Sisters, which he has described as "a joke-trip, which through various degrees of miscommunication ended up as a joke-strip without any jokes." Working independently, he created the better received Armitage, a Dreddworld take on Inspector Morse set in a future London, and also contributed to the ongoing Judge Hershey series.

Stone’s most lasting contribution to the world of Judge Dredd might well have been his vision of Brit-Cit, which until Stone’s various novels had been a remarkably underexplored area.

Reviews

[Mole Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

In most commercial processes there is something which might be thought of as the Window of Illusory Desirability - as is well known by anyone who has bought a piece of apparently high-powered computer equipment, at what seems to be an unbelievably knock-down price, only to have the manufacturer roll out a vastly improved version, at a lower price, the very next day (ie anyone who has ever bought a piece of apparently high-powered computer equipment in their lives).
I have to admit, this one is an odd one even for me. It's probably closer to 3 1/2 or 3 3/4 stars than four. I haven't read anything Dark Future before and was completely unaware of the series' existence until I bought this one based on my love for Dave Stone's brand of weirdness. This is (compared to Stone's other works that I have read) a decidedly less cerebral tale. Not stupid but it feels more like your standard adventure tale than the very unusual plots of Sky Pirates! and Oblivion. This does make the adventure more concise and tie together better (I must admit) than Oblivion or even Sky Pirates! but also makes it more "generic" (if anything Stone has written can be called "generic"). Along with this, this feels like the sort of thing where Stone planned to write a sequel but hasn't gotten around to it yet. Though most of the plot is tied up rather well by the end, there are still a few lingering plot threads that are only touched but never drawn screaming and writhing through the narrative. I still greatly enjoyed this one, just felt that there was more to be seen that hasn't materialized yet. Maybe one day...

[Ivanhoe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Este libro lo consegui entre mis compras de Humble Bundle, que perdida de tiempo, el titulo sonaba interesante pero el libro no lo es :/

[Justin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a pretty terrible book that I wanted to like and should have liked. I love the post-apocalyptic setting of Dark Future, you see. That almost added half a star. However, the plot was dull (there's nothing more to be said about that), the characters difficult to like (there really wasn't much to them, to be honest), and the writing was terrible. He had a habit of using overly complex language apparently just to impress the reader. His humour continually fell flat for me - this attempts to be a very funny book, and maybe it appeals to some, but not me. He'd labour a joke to try and make it funnier, with his heavy-handed explanation of what he was trying to do with his joke or "clever" bit of writing getting really annoying (yeah, I got it first time...). On that note, he'd have an irritating direct voice to the reader, which on numerous occasions was used - for example - to essentially apologise to the reader for not thinking of a better way of saying something (I'm guessing he was again intending to be light and humorous). Poor grammar and frequent spelling mistakes just made it worse.

I noted that he was a script writer for computer games. Not wanting to stereotype too much, but it was clear that he took some of that approach to Golgotha Run. He appears to have been attempting to pitch this book at a male teenage audience, notably with the nubile character of Trix Desoto and the frequent hyper-masculinity, with an inexplicable (for laughs?) but pervasive theme of homophobia - it was so offensive and didn't add anything that I could fathom (eg to plot, characters, or some philosophical point). It genuinely appears as if the author was trying to be funny. The artificial intelligence in Eddie Kalish's car was by far the worst for this.

Other things grated too. The politics of the mid-noughties and Bush's "war on terror" intruded far too much and seemed so out of place in the Dark Future setting (though I get he was trying to update the Latin America-centric geopolitics of the earlier Dark Future novels). He included (and condemned, if you were wondering - pacifism and homophobia oddly coexist with him) things like Guantanamo and war in the middle east, yet I thought the US had practically ceased to be functional in the Dark Future post-apocalyptic setting; thus it was strange that the US Army popped up (in "Arbitrary Base"), though it allowed him to present them as "amusing" but unoriginal caricatures, most uninterestingly. It was very out of place, contradictory and his grinding of the war on terror axe, again, didn't help the story in the slightest.

As you might have guessed, I don't recommend this book at all. If you want to read a great Dark Future novel, go to Jack Yeovil.

[Troy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just plain terrible. Boring, hard to read, completely uninteresting.

[Hugh Smalley · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the day after the day after tomorrow and the civilized world fights hard to maintain its fagade. Religious cults are growing more powerful by the day, the government is in the pocket of big business and shadowy forces control the corporations. Out in the ruins of Denver sanctioned operative Eddie Kalish learns the hard way; never stop for hitchhikers!

[Fugo Feedback]

Otro libro que no pinta muy interesante pero se vendía en pack con el otro de Dark Future. Con suerte al menos valgan los 10$ que pagué por cada uno de ellos.