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Rating: 
Summary: Just like old times
Review: This was a heck of an entertaining read. First time author, Simon Spurrier, was obviously heavily influenced by the late Douglas Adams in terms of writing style. However, where Adams could get tremendously boring, especially in his later books, Spurrier's work is non-stop, fast-paced, and addictive. It was also amazingly funny.
As a big fan of the original Strontium Dog comic, I was thrilled enough just to be getting to read a full length novel about my favourite mutants. But the story, the characters, the worlds, they were so true to the spirit of the original that it felt like I was reading the comic again.
Another plus was that this story was set early in the history of the comic, so all of my favourite characters were still alive (Alpha, Sternhammer, Stix, Harvey and Knee). The original comic killed everyone off, including the two lead characters, around 1989, and from there it just devolved into a series of uninteresting stories about other characters, none of whom were up to par with the originals. It's good to see that you can convincingly write novels set early in the careers of characters you already know are dead and not lose any of the tension.
Oh yeah, the plot. Johnny Alpha and Kid Knee, two Search and Destroy agents are on the trail of one of the universe's most appalling mass murderers - Mr Grinn. Grinn is always several steps ahead of them, and their pursuit of him becomes somewhat epic, until the final showdown on Splut Mundi, where Grinn has scheduled his latest work of genocide. Add to all of this the fact that Alpha and Knee are being pursued by their sinister (and somewhat more organised) rival, Stix, and you have the makings of a face off of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly proportions (thought with more sophisticated technology and a higher body count).
In short, I'd recommend this book to anyone who loved the original comic, likes a good laugh, or is a fan of action. I can't praise this book enough.
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