Just Finished Reading: Dead Things by Richard Calder

In the near future the world is suffering under the disease known as META. The virus turns females into Dead Girls who become obsessed with sex, and males into Dead Boys who become obsessed with death. The virus also distorts the perceptions of those it infects and has started to bend reality itself. Lord Dagon – a Dead Boy Inquisitor - along with his sassy weapon called Gun has just returned to Earth from a millennia long Galactic killing spree. Arriving before he originally left (care of the wonders of Relativity) Dagon and his fellow Inquisitors vow to end META once and for all by detonating the Reality Bomb in the heart of the infection. But on the eve of their greatest body count Dagon finds out that reality is not what it seems – and neither is he.

As you can probably tell from the synopsis above, this was hardly a straight forward novel. Reality is warped and the narrator is far from reliable. Memories are either false or have been tampered with and Dagon is also quite possibly insane. Added to this was the sheer weirdness of the future world so you can appreciate that this was at times a very difficult read. The first 100 pages in particular were very strange and I admit in my younger days I probably would have given up well before then. However, at just about the half way point the plot took a serious 90 degree shift which helped explain all of the preceding craziness. If you do feel up to this challenge I must warn you that this novel is certainly not for the faint hearted. There is much death and much sex both of which go beyond the merely kinky. If you are of a sensitive nature this is most definitely not the book for you. However, if you do have the stomach for it the novel is often rewarding both in its poetic style and haunting imagery. It undoubtedly burnt itself into my consciousness! A very strange read but I’m glad that I finally finished the trilogy which started with Dead Girls and Dead Boys.