Thursday, May 7, 2020

Horn 2: Blown Dead by Ben Sloane

Horn 2: Blown Dead
by Ben Sloane
1990, Gold Eagle



Max Horn is back on Earth and is coming to terms with his family's death, toning down from kill crazy genocidal cyborg to a mere cop who plays by his own rules.  He's got a new partner, which gives the book a buddy cop vibe.

The baddies this time around are using virtual reality to skim off bets for the Superbowl, only the hacker has a side deal to take the 200,000 member crowd hostage for drug cartels.

Relatively early in the virtual reality wave of the 90s, after Gibson and Sega, but before Lawnmower Man.  The first installment had jazz, this one has beat poetry, but the series doesn't commit to the late 50s the way Blade Runner did to the 40s.

Good cyborg fighting, but way too many pages for way too little action.  The first volume was unrelenting bleak, where this one feels like an Action Pack made for TV movie from the 90s, like Tek War.

Paperback from AbeBooks

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