World Famous Comics: Kal Jerico II: Cardinal Crimson (Necromunda)
Kal Jerico II: Cardinal Crimson (Necromunda)
By: Will McDermott Publisher: Games Workshop Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Games Workshop Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 256 Publication Date: June 06, 2006
Return of the Jerico Book 2 of the Kal Jerico adventures picks up shortly after 'Blood Royal' ends. There's a number of references to the events of that book but little of it has to deal with this story's plot. Kal, a mix of Han Solo and Mad Max, squanders the last bounty he collected by unfortunate gambling which puts him in serious debt to information broker and master spy Nemo. He's told to bring in Jobe Francks, a vision-haunted prophet. In his way is Cardinal Crimson, an acid bathed Redemtionist fanatic. The story breaks off into several sub stories dealing with Amazonian Yolanda and sidekick Scabbs who really comes into his own in this book. Really this book is more focused towards Yolanda and Scabbs with Jerico thrown in as the back up but it's still an enjoyable book for entertainment value. It's not a deeply moral novel and it's not meant to be, it's a quick action-filled story taking place in the setting of Necromunda. The end chapter is pretty much the clincher to the third book.
Fun But Not Polished Will McDermott's latest effort in Games Workshop's 40K and Necromunda universe, and his second Kal Jerico tale, is a fairly standard action (mis)adventure following the brash and spontaneous bounty hunter Jericho, his scavvy sidekick Scabbs, and his voluptuous ex-Escher partner Yolanda. The supporting cast includes the mysterious crime boss Nemo, the uber-fanatical Cardinal Crimson of the title, and vision-touched Jobe Francks.
The novel brings to mind a combination of the Pink Panther and a B-Grade action film, and doesn't have pretensions beyond simple entertainment. The characters, or perhaps caricatures is a better word, have been firmly established in prior works, both comics and M. McDermott's first Jerico novel, Blood Royal, and they don't deviate from their assigned roles. The villains and allies fall into similar, simple stereotypical roles: Nemo is the spider at the center of the web; Crimson is the fiery orator with skeletons in the closet; and Francks is the visionary shaman.
The plot is predictable, the characters limited in their depth and motivations, and the plot applied with no small amount of force, but somehow you don't mind as much since it never pretends to be more. One significant problem is the editing: he is confused with she in one instance, and in another a character's name is completely botched.
In short: Jerico fans will enjoy, 40K readers should be mildly entertained if they're not too picky, and general sci-fi readers will only have fun if they're looking for an "airport novel."
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