Pig Iron by Jim X Dodge
218-page paperback
ISBN 9781916864269
Out Now
Science fiction meets western in a dystopian tale of good versus evil.
Pig Iron is a term for crude and low-quality iron. This could be a metaphor for the unrefined nature of the lead character who narrates this book in the first person. The protagonist is a former cop and spends much of his time concerned about the whereabouts of his sidearm, which would also be a pig iron, so take your pick.
Pig Iron is at heart a fantasy meets sci-fi yarn in lasers blasting vein of old-school SF writers like Harry Harrison. It has weapons action and there are surprises lurking around corners, both real and metaphorical. It also starts in a claustrophobic post-apocalyptic urban landscape. Consequently, it meshes nicely with the dystopian universe of many 2000AD strips.
The Republic of North America has been usurped by a bad guy called The Regent who has all manner of space-age enhancements to make his troops nigh on invincible. This and the futuristic weapons are what makes this sci-fi rather than a shoot’em up Western with a gunslinger reluctantly finding he has a softer side. A plot that involves the lead character hooking up with a child moves this away from Mad Max territory and more toward The Last Of Us, or True Grit. The way they band together with various folk en route taps the same WORD as The Walking Dead or Lord Of The Rings. Setting out to kill the bad guy to save the world is a story as old as stories themselves. There are famously only 7 basic stories in literature so similarities will abound.
Overall the writing is pretty good, with believable characters – at least in the context of the overall story arc. Some are likeable, some not so. There is action aplenty graphically described and the violence is forensic at times with a satisfying crunch. On the downside I rolled my eyes at the sex references. They were clumsy and adolescent, not particularly adding anything to the plot, just an attempt at titillation, but they weren’t frequent enough to ruin the book.
This isn’t high literature, and for this genre, you wouldn’t want that. It would kill the mood and energy that Jim X Dodge has gone to so much effort to create. At 218 pages this is akin to those sci-fi and fantasy potboilers that were all the rage in the 70s and 80s.
Available from Earth Island and bookshops – support your local independent bookshop!
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Words by Nathan Brown. His Louder Than War author archive can be found here.
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