The Final Programme – review
Man, this book was some weird shit.
I could almost leave it at that. Michael Moorcock just spent like 160 pages melting my brains out my ears. This is how.
The Final Programme is the first Jerry Cornelius book. Jerry is a good old British lad who doesn’t mind a bit of the old spy skullduggery and some bedding of the women.
Jerry is off to find his brother, Frank, and stop him from doing bad things. Frank has their sister Catherine and he doesn’t seem like the best carer in the world. He secluded away within the family fortress, which includes hypno-towers that freeze people long enough for the guards to shoot them. This is the sort of world this sort of family lives in. It’s pretty hectic.
Jerry eventually ends up in one of the Scandinavian countries and also beds a mighty fine wench, and I won’t even spoil the ending. To repeat it would be akin to trying to describe the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey. But with more robot cock turned into the opposite genitalia.
I can’t say whether I liked this book or not, truthfully. It’s an experience I will say that, and I guess the fact that I’m not going to race out and read the next one should say something. I’m also not going to stay away from Jerry Cornelius altogether, he was an interesting cat, but there are surely other things for me to read that I’ll enjoy more.
The fact that this comic is apparently some sort of an influence on Matt Fraction’s Casanova was my main inspiration for wanting to read this book. If this is indeed an inspirational source then I’ll flat out say that Casanova does it better. But perhaps that’s just my opinion.
If you dig a little craziness in your sci-fi then this’ll feed your appetite but don’t take it on my recommendation. This isn’t the sort of book that I would recommend to anyone purely because you are then linked to that book forever more in that person’s mind. They’ll think of the book when they think of you and vice versa, and I think i can keep better company.
Posted on March 30th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under: books
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