Quick question about Black Flame Dredd stories

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

Just wondering if they're canon or not?

[Richard]

That's probably a matter of opinion, but I assume every novel is canon unless it is contradicted by the comic. ~~~~

[sheridan]

These ones (plus other 2000AD IP)?


Judge Dredd
Dredd vs Death
Bad Moon Rising
Black Atlantic
Eclipse
Kingdom of the Blind
The Final Cut
Swine Fever
Whiteout
Psykogeddon

ABC Warriors
The Medusa War
Rage Against the Machines

Strontium Dog
Bad Timing
Prophet Margin
Ruthless
Day of the Dogs
A Fistful of Strontium

Durham Red
The Unquiet Grave
The Omega Solution
The Encoded Heart
Manticore Reborn
Black Dawn

Rogue Trooper
Crucible
Blood Relative
The Quartz Massacre

Nikolai Dante
The Strangelove Gambit
Imperial Black
Honour Be Damned

Fiends of the Eastern Front
Operation Vampyr
The Blood Red Army
Twilight of the Dead
Fiends of the Rising Sun

Anderson: Psi Division
Fear the Darkness
Red Shadows
Sins of the Father

Caballistics, Inc.
Hell on Earth
Better the Devil

Sláine
Slaine the Exile
Slaine the Defiler

Dredd vs Death probably isn't canon by any definition as it's a tie-in to the zombie-tastic Rebellion computer game (though I'd have to re-read it to see if it actually contradicts anything in the comics).

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

Basically yes, those ones

[JayzusB.Christ]

Remember the old Virgin Dredd novels?  Only read one myself, the Dredd / Armitage crossover by Dave Stone.  I really liked it; it fleshed out Brit Cit and gave it its own identity in a way no writer had done before.

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

I loved those old Virgin novels- the "best one" (or at least the one I liked best) was Cursed Earth Asylum, by Mr Bishop of this parish. I always wanted that one to bleed over into the comic, somehow. As far as I remember, sadly though it didnt.

In fact, I feel like reading it again.

SBT

[Richard]

There's no reason why the computer game, or the novel based on it, can't be canon. They can't both be though, because there are differences between them, but either of them could be.

Unless they're directly contradicted by the comic, but I don't think they are (but I'm not going to check).

I felt sorry for Stephen Marley, who did meticulous research for Dread Dominion (sic), and did a totally accurate history of Dredd's world with no errors, and incorporated all of it into the plot of his novel, of which the most important part was a detailed description of Joe Dredd arresting the original Rico Dredd, only for John Wagner to write a new and totally different version of that scene in the prog about six years later. Wagner is my favourite writer, but Marley's scene was better. (It's still a good novel though, and worth reading if you can get it.)

Dave Stone's Deathmasques is the best Armitage story he ever did, and his best Dredd novel. Even if it hadn't been a Dredd novel or an Armitage novel, the story would still have been a good book in its own right.

Cursed Earth Asylum was okay, but it would have been better if it had ended before the last paragraph. But out of Bishop's novels I prefer The Savage Amusement, which was desperately exciting and I stayed up very late at night to finish it because I couldn't wait to find out how it ended. I still have it, but I don't dare to re-read it in case it's not as good as I remember (I was a teenager at the time).

Those three are my favourites out of the Virgin books.

[Richard]

Sorry Batman, I know you asked about Black Flame, but since we've already derailed the thread I'm going to supplement sheridan's list with a list of Virgin books:

The Savage Amusement
Deathmasques
Dreddlocked
Cursed Earth Asylum
The Medusa Seed
Dread _{(with an a)} Dominion
Wetworks
Silencer
The Hundredfold Problem

There was also a Doctor Who novel by Dave Stone called Burning Heart, which was commissioned to be a crossover with Judge Dredd, but when the 1995 film turned out to be shit they changed their minds and made him disguise Dredd as a new character. It's still basically him though, so it's a sort of non-canonical Dredd novel by someone who has also written four other Dredd novels.

Wetworks has a prologue which specifically states that the book is not canon.

[sheridan]

Sorry Batman, I know you asked about Black Flame, but since we've already derailed the thread I'm going to supplement sheridan's list with a list of Virgin books:

The Savage Amusement
Deathmasques
Dreddlocked
Cursed Earth Asylum
The Medusa Seed
Dread _{(with an a)} Dominion
Wetworks
Silencer
The Hundredfold Problem

There was also a Doctor Who novel by Dave Stone called Burning Heart, which was commissioned to be a crossover with Judge Dredd, but when the 1995 film turned out to be shit they changed their minds and made him disguise Dredd as a new character. It's still basically him though, so it's a sort of non-canonical Dredd novel by someone who has also written four other Dredd novels.

Wetworks has a prologue which specifically states that the book is not canon.

While we're talking about re-writes, The Hundredfold Problem also got rewritten without Dredd.

Just dug my copy of Burning Heart out - a very SJS-style Judg Adjudicator Joseph Craator with his LawgiMulti-Function Gun on the cover (not shown: the LawmaMicro-Antipersonnel Vehicle).

[Lobo Baggins]

While we're talking about re-writes, The Hundredfold Problem also got rewritten without Dredd.

That shouldn't have taken long - I think you'd just need to change three names and all traces of anything Dredd related would completely disappear. Bloody awful book...