Judge Anderson Psi-Files Volume 2

[The Bissler]

Apologies if someone has already created a thread for this - I did look back but couldn't find one.

I was wondering what other readers thought about this latest volume of Anderson's adventures?  I had read a few very critical reviews of this book before I bought it, so was not that excited about reading it.  When I eventually did, I was pleasantly surprised - though I'm wondering now if I enjoyed it more because my expectations were set fairly low.

While I did find that Alan Grant seemed to bludgeon the reader with a "HERE-IS-MY-POINT" sledgehammer that bordered on treating the readers as fools, I did actually enjoy the fact that this volume at least attempted to do something different with Anderson's character.  I liked that she was removed from her normal environment and her character changed and developed as the stories went on.  Yes, John Wagner had already done something similar with Dredd in the Democracy-Necropolis phase of stories, but I thought that giving Anderson's stories an existentialist focus was a new and brave move. 

I thought it was interesting to see a romantic subplot - again, there have been several Dredd tales where Judges have been involved in illicit relationships, but this was the first time I can remember reading one where some time and effort had went in to building up the bond between the two lovers (Anderson and [spoiler] Amisov[/spoiler]).  That to me seemed pretty unusual for anything set in the Dredd universe. [spoiler]  Coupled with her despair over Judge Corey's suicide, the fact that this relationship ended with Amisov's death gave Anderson a real sense of loss, and a chance for character development that was unusual for her character (normally Dredd & Anderson come through each adventure relatively unscathed and unchanged by their experiences). [/spoiler]

What I did have a problem with was the progression of Anderson's relationship with [spoiler]Orlok the Assassin. For her to have gone from a position of being an enemy of this character to a potential love interest pushed suspension of disbelief beyond the limit.  Anderson fought in the Apocalypse War and had witnessed first-hand the death and destruction that Orlok was responsible for.  The idea that she could forgive him, let alone feel that he was some kindred spirit with whom she could contemplate any kind of romantic involvement wasy absurd. [/spoiler]

In conclusion, that fact that this book offered something new and different to the character of Anderson was something I found intriguing, interesting but not always succesful!