The cover of this book is a nightmare to take pictures of. Even Amazon had trouble! This is the best I could do.

This last week I managed to finish a book I had bought a while back.  It failed to grab me from the off but by the time I reached the middle I kept trying to find spare moments to read on.  The book is Pax Omega by Al Ewing.

I knew of Al Ewing from his work in the fantastic British Comic 2000AD where he has written many scripts including Zombo.  After this I bought his novel El Sombra on the back of the comic and also other Pax Brittanica novels set in that universe.  I really enjoyed El Sombra with its pulp trashy literature take on the motif of the western and also steampunk.  So with that in mind when I saw Pax Omega on the shelf of my local bookshop I decided to buy it.  I will admit the blurb left me a little confused.  Was this a novel or a collection of short stories?  The answer is a clever..both!

Doc Thunder’s last stand against a deadly foe whose true identity will shock you to your core! El Sombra’s final battle against the forces of the Ultimate Reich! The Locomotive Man in a showdown with cosmic science on the prairies of the Old West! Jackson Steele defends the 25th Century against the massed armies of the Space Satan! A duel of minds in the mystery palaces of One Million AD! Blazing steam-pulp sci-fi the way you crave it! From the Big Bang to the End Of Time – eleven tales from Pax Britannia’s past, present and distant future combine into one starspanning saga set to shake the universe to its foundations or destroy it! (from the book blurb)

Pax Omega is a series of stories that are linked together in ways that become clearer as the book progresses.  From the ancient past to the vastly distant future there are conflicts fused with vision and humour.  As I said it took me a while to get into the book and that turned out to be a shame because when the tale reached the point of bringing in El Sombra and Doc Thunder it was moving at a fine pace.  Reminding me of Flash Gordon of Dick Tracey as well as many other pulp heroes the book also made good use of ‘soundbites’ from other famous science fiction tales such as the ‘Robot Detective Decker’ and so on.  It also projected in places a flash into our own world with its troubles such as the Summer 2011 London Riots.   The language was florid and varied and I enjoyed that a lot.  It was bigger than life in places.  In fact there are so many settings in this book that you don’t know what is coming next at all!  This is pulp at its best..square jawed fighting and big speech making heroes and villains.

I recommend this book but I do also think that if you like the idea of Pax Brittanica you should seek out Al’s other books (El Sombra and The Gods of Manhattan).  I have not read Gods of Manhattan and it showed, I did not know who Doc Thunder was!

Mad..Inspired..Great Pulp Fun!

GBS