Atrocity Week by Andrew McCoy

 Atrocity Week

by Andrew McCoy

Sphere 1978

This one went down hard.

A South African company, Ultimate Test Incorporated, takes miserable rich people on helicopter safaris to hunt Black natives across the border.  Meanwhile, Idi Amin has paid African terrorists to attack their settlement to cause political turmoil.  Violent, gory, nihilistic, unrelenting, bleak.  

While horrific, this is not a horror novel.  It's much closer to the Men's Adventure magazines, right down to the animal attacks.  Early in the book the company puts on a presentation of a baboon fighting off dozens of dogs.  The baboon is gut shot and rips out it's own entrails in a rage.

All the characters are horrible.  The hunt in question involves a Japanese businessman, a British inventor, and an American doctor.  The Japanese are straight out of the feudal era, the Brit is a sniveling piece of garbage, and the American beats his wife.

The hunts themselves are a bit monotonous, as the hunters take turns forcing their victims to run before finally shooting parts of them off.

Most of the text is miserable people being miserable to each other, but there are plenty of atrocities: murder, gang rape, torture, dismemberment.

Supposedly based on a true story, there's a smidgen of pretension to being an anti-racist exposé while just being outright racist throughout.  All the Black characters are interchangeable NPCs, barely getting a mention even when they die.  The only exception is the head terrorist, who just happens to have light skin.

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