2000AD novels - what am I missing?

[positronic]

This is a very interesting thread topic. I had no idea there were so many!

I'd just started reading the A.B.C. Warriors: The Medusa War novel by Pat Mills & Alan Mitchell published by Black Flame. Usually I don't give the novels much shrift as at all canonical, but Pat Mills' name on this made me change my mind. I'm still in the early chapters of the book, so I won't weigh in yet with on any judgment of it.

What (if indeed anything) this novel has to do with the ABC Warriors story arcs "The Third Element" and "The Shadow Warriors" (both collected in The Mek-Files 03 hardcover), which together comprise what in the comic is considered "The Medusa War", is unclear to me so far, beyond the fact that the novel takes place upon the Warriors return to Mars, and that Medusa is awakening and reacting violently against the encroachment of human colonists on Mars.

Flipping through the book at the back pages, I saw that it mentioned "The war will continue in Book Two: Rage Against the Machines", but I had no idea that a sequel was actually ever published (they fooled me by thinking it would again be authored by Mills & Alan Mitchell, or at least the latter on his own). I'll have to look for that one now.

[Dash Decent]

The three Dante novels were also collected in an omnibus, "From Russia with Lust".

Don't read the blurb on the back cover of "Day of the Dogs", it gives away a plot twist.

Collects:  City Fathers, Cold Light of Day, Wear Iron.

Not sure if these three stories were ever published separately - perhaps only in the digital realm?

Yes, digital only until collected in the omnibus. Ditto Dredd Year Two and Anderson Year One.

I know that the Stallone movie received both a novelisation and a junior novelisation.  Did the 2012 movie get it's own novel?

Unfortunately not.

[Krakajac]

Cheers, DD.  Thanks for that further info!

[sheridan]

I'll also throw this up.  I've got the original three printed novels, but it might be of interest to someone?  The 'I Am The Law' omnibus...

Collects : Dredd vs Death, Bad Moon Rising and Black Atlantic (the first three Black Flame novels).

I had two out of the three in that, though I have a similar collection (received as a birthday present) with Karl Urban's face looking out and collecting Dredd Vs Death, Kingdom of the Blind and The Final Cut.

[sheridan]

This is a very interesting thread topic. I had no idea there were so many!

I have quite a few but didn't realise how many I didn't have!

I'd just started reading the A.B.C. Warriors: The Medusa War novel by Pat Mills & Alan Mitchell published by Black Flame.

Flipping through the book at the back pages, I saw that it mentioned "The war will continue in Book Two: Rage Against the Machines", but I had no idea that a sequel was actually ever published (they fooled me by thinking it would again be authored by Mills & Alan Mitchell, or at least the latter on his own). I'll have to look for that one now.

The second one is by Mike Wild and I can confirm that Rage Against the Machines did come out, as I have a copy sitting on my bookshelf!

[DarkDaysBish-OP]

The Fiends of the Eastern Front omnibus also contains Blood and Honour, an essay on how the trilogy came about including extracts from my original pitch documents for the series. Pretty sure that was written as a bonus inclusion for the omnibus and hasn't been reprinted elsewhere since...

Lurking on my hard drive is the 35,000 words that got cut from Fiends of the Rising Sun, intended for use in the second volume of my Japanese Fiends series. Alas, the Black Flame imprint closed down and I never got to continue that story.

davidbishop

[Krakajac]

"Pretty sure that was written as a bonus inclusion for the omnibus and hasn't been reprinted elsewhere since..."

Music to the ears of a completist.  Just purchased the omnibus (all 672 pages of it!).



"Lurking on my hard drive is the 35,000 words that got cut from Fiends of the Rising Sun, intended for use in the second volume of my Japanese Fiends series. Alas, the Black Flame imprint closed down and I never got to continue that story."

Now that's some cool trivia - thanks for sharing!

[positronic]

@Krackajac -

I didn't get the sense of whether you were looking to collect all the variants of a particular book, but Barney shows a version of Eclipse by David Bishop with a different cover than the one you've shown from your collection. In case you're interested in collecting these variant-cover printings, here it is:

[positronic]

Mentioned upthread, for Year One there were two ebooks published previously, then one more that made its debut in the print collection.  As well as the Year Two book, I'm hoping for something similar with the two Anderson ebooks published so far.

I'm curious as to what connection (adaptation, one way or the other? sequels?) Matt Smith's Judge Dredd Year One prose novels might have to this IDW miniseries (here in the collected edition), with artwork by Simon Coleby:



And the same question applies to Matt Smith's Judge Anderson for IDW:

[rogue69]

there was 2 versions of the novelisation of the Stallone Judge Dredd film from Boxtree, the regular version & the junior novelisation.

Also in 1980 2000ad published the 2000ad space quiz book

[DarkDaysBish-OP]

@Krackajac -

I didn't get the sense of whether you were looking to collect all the variants of a particular book, but Barney shows a version of Eclipse by David Bishop with a different cover than the one you've shown from your collection. In case you're interested in collecting these variant-cover printings, here it is:

There are a lot of random & incorrect covers on Amazon for the Black Flame novels, many with my name erroneously on them! The only Dredd novels I've written were The Savage Amusement, Cursed Earth Asylum (probably my favourite), and Sielncer - all for Virgin Books; plus Bad Moon Rising and Kingdom of the Blind for Black Flame.

davidbishop

[Krakajac]

As Dave suggested above, lots of variant covers - when it comes to online images of the 2000AD novels.  Hence me posting pics of my physical copies.

Yep, also got the Quiz book.

Dave - pity to hear that a second 'Fiends of the Rising Sun' novel didn't see fruition.

[Taryn Tailz]

I believe there was an omnibus collection of the three Dante novels, in addition to the original printings which you already have.

[sheridan]

there was 2 versions of the novelisation of the Stallone Judge Dredd film from Boxtree, the regular version & the junior novelisation.

Also in 1980 2000ad published the 2000ad space quiz book

Technically the 2000AD Space Quiz Book was published by Mirror Group (no idea how that deal came about).  It sits on my shelf next to my novels, as do my 5 copies of the Titan Books paperback versions of certain JD stories, but that's just because they're the same size as the novels, not because I think of them as novels.

[positronic]

You appear to have missed one, Krakajac -- and understandably so, as this book would appear for all the world to be one of those cheap mass-market small-format reprints of 2000 AD comic stories. Not so! It does in fact contain a selection of short prose stories drawn from the contents of past 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Annuals, and while not actually a novel, it does fit the description of a unique assemblage of 2000 AD short fiction never before collected under one cover.

Featuring stories by New York Times best sellers Neil Gaiman and Dan Abnett, along with hit comics authors Mark Millar, Peter Milligan, Alan Grant and more, this amazing collection brings together nine thrilling and unusual short prose stories from the 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Annuals and Specials. Never seen outside of those pages until now, this ebook presents these hard-to-find tales in one collection.

Features Judge Anderson, Judge Hershey, Judge Dredd and a roster of Mega-City One's unconventional characters.

So far as I can tell, available only in ebook format...
http://rebellionstore.com/products/sweet_justice_selected_short_stories_from_the_2000_ad_and_judge_dredd_annuals

One point of confusion here is that the book is listed on the Rebellion ebook store as "128 pages" which would in fact be the same format as the ebook-first format novellas later compiled into 3-in-1 print  omnibus editions - which would include most of the new prose fiction series based on 2000 AD characters published since August 2012: Judge Dredd Year One, Judge Dredd Year Two, Judge Anderson: Rookie, Rico Dredd: The Titan Years, and Strontium Dog: The Alpha/Sternhammer Years). However, in checking Amazon, they list the same ebook at 87 pages, although this might conceivably have something to do with Amazon's reformatting of the book from Rebellion's offered Mobi and Epub into Amazon's proprietary Kindle format.

Now it would seem likely that they could easily dredge up another couple of comparable-length collections of prose fiction from past 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Annuals that could easily become another print omnibus edition. Easy-peasy.

Interestingly - when you look at all of the e-novels above - there only appears to be ONE story that won't see traditional print at some point - that being the Strontium Dog e-novel, "Among The Missing".

Well, never say never, Krakajac. The first of those Judge Dredd Year One ebooks came out in August of 2012, but it took a couple of years until it made it into print omnibus format. The first of those Alex Worley Judge Anderson: Rookie ebooks ("Heartbreaker") came out in October 2014, and the print omnibus (Judge Anderson: Year One) won't come out until June 15, 2017, so that one took even longer. While it appears that Matt Smith's Strontium Dog novella "Among the Missing" did not sell well enough to inspire another SD novella, clearly the idea is inherent in the cover copy "The Alpha/Sternhammer Years #1". It could happen yet, or even be paired up with a couple of the earlier Black Flame paperbacks in a print omnibus edition.

And in fact, if they were to want to follow up on the Judge Dredd omnibus trilogy of reprinted early Black Flame novels, they could do a 3-in-1 volume of Rogue Trooper novels, and two (if they included Matt Smith's ebook) of Strontium Dog, just based on existing prose fiction.