Mick Farren - Vickers

Also known as Cor*pse this Mick Farren science fiction novel is fairly standard fare. There is little new unfortunately, which is disappointing because Farren can be an extremely talented writer (I think his novel Phiad the Gambler is superb for instance). The titular character, Vickers is a hired murderer. Through some confused mechanism he is allowed to assassinate for money on behalf of enormously powerful multinationals. Early on in the text we read that he also enjoys prostitutes and watching sex videos.

I mention this for two reasons. The first is that there is a large proportion of science fiction publishing which thinks that people will only read such novels if all the heroes have large guns and have lots of sex. The sex doesn't even need to be described, merely alluded too. The fact that Vickers spends much of the novel in an enormous underground bunker, with a ratio of 5 to one in favour of the female sex (all of whom have been selected for their attractiveness) doesn't help this.

The second reason is that rather oddly, this novel is one of those were the author failed to predict much in the way of future technologies. The novels set in the not too distant future (first published in 1986) but failed to predict the digital era - sex videos for Christ's sake, even in the 1980s people imagined holograms.

Anyway this book is crap. Don't read it. I only include it here for the sake of the completeness of the record.

Related Reviews (other crap SF)

Wilson - Darwinia 
Stross - Saturn's Children