''The Savage Amusement'' is an original novel written by David Bishop and based on the long-running British

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

Judge Dredd Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of ''2000 AD (comics), 2000 AD'' (1977), which is a British weekly anthology Comic book, comic. He is the ...

''. At the time of publication (1993) Bishop was editor of the ''

Judge Dredd Megazine ''Judge Dredd: The Megazine'' is a monthly British comic magazine, launched in September 1990. It is a sister publication to '' 2000 AD''. Its name is a play on words, formed from "magazine" and Judge Dredd's locale Mega-City One. Content Like ...

''.

Synopsis

Rookie Judge Harry Brisco is taking his gruelling final assessment to decide if he is fit to be a full street judge, and Judge Dredd is assigned as the supervisor who can make or break him. As they hit the streets a mystery virus begins killing all the

clones Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to: Places * Clones, County Fermanagh * Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland Biology * Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massive presence of which may indicate a pathologi ...

in the city – and Dredd himself is a clone. Meanwhile,

Mega-City One Mega-City One is a fictional city that features in the ''Judge Dredd'' comic book series and related media. A post-nuclear megalopolis covering much of what is now the Eastern United States and some of Canada, the city's exact geography depends ...

is about to hold an election for its new

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

, and opinion polls indicate that

undead The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if alive. Most commonly the term refers to corporeal forms of formerly-alive humans, such as mummies, vampires, and zombies, who have been reanimated by super ...

mass-murderer

Judge Death This is a list of characters in the British comic strip ''Judge Dredd'' appearing in '' 2000 AD'', ''Judge Dredd Megazine'' and related publications. They are listed alphabetically by surname, in categories. (Major characters have their own art ...

may win. Brisco is about to face the toughest challenge of his life.

Continuity

Brisco first appeared as a cadet in the 1985 story ''Thirteenth Assessment'' in '' 2000 AD'' #421, written by

John Wagner John Wagner (born 1949) is an American-born British comics writer. Alongside Pat Mills, he helped revitalise British comics in the 1970s, and continues to be active in the British comics industry, occasionally also working in American comics. ...

and Alan Grant.

External links

The Savage Amusement
at the '' 2000 AD'' fansite (note: the reference to Judge Dredd in the synopsis should read "Judge Death," and the "reprint material" section erroneously refers to another story). Novels by David Bishop Judge Dredd novels 1993 British novels Novels set in the 22nd century {{1990s-sf-novel-stub