I don’t have the space to put too many jokes into my Locus reviews. That’s a good thing. Unlike some critics (John Self and Adam Roberts come to mind), I’m not as adept with the acerbic one-sentence zinger.

With this review, I was going to bemoan the fact that my musical tastes never matured beyond my teenage love affair with Bryan Adams. I cut this down in the review to “stunted musical tastes”. I’m happy I did. The Bryan Adams gag isn’t funny, even if it is sort of true. My musical knowledge is non-existent.

This is all relevant (well, sort of) because—and I’m sure some of you have figured this out already—Logic is a famous rapper. I did not know this. Nor did I know that Ultra 85 is his second novel; his first was Supermarket (accompanied by an album). As far as I know, Logic hasn’t taken the same path with Ultra 85. But then, the novel’s focus—from a creative point of view—is on the tent pole films of the 80s and 90s. Music doesn’t get much of a look in.*

Set a century from now, the Earth is dead, nuked out of existence. What’s left of humanity lives on a starship cum space station called Babel. A select few, the founding families who bankrolled the trip to outer space, i.e. the Ultra 85, live on a tidally locked planet called Paradise. Our two heroes, obsessed with films and pop culture in general, search the outer reaches of space in their small craft for precious minerals and anti-matter to keep Babel going. The Ultra 85 are, of course, arseholes. They have banned all entertainment (thus the obsession with pop culture). There are other cruelties (yes, this is a dystopia in spaaaaace), but if you want to know more you can read my Locus review. Let’s just say that it’s all very evil, requiring our heroes, along with an anti-matter and pop-culture-powered mecha, to do some kick arse-ing.

I don’t think there’s much that’s new here. But that’s not to say I didn’t have fun with Ultra 85. I read a lot of earnest, dour stuff, and while I love it, even I need an escapist break from experimental dystopias and post-apocalyptic nightmares. Ultra 85 gave me that break. It’s funny. It’s violent (in a Tarantino sort of way). It moves at a rapid pace. If the novel’s message is simplistic: freedom is good, enslavement in spaaaaace is bad, that’s OK. Sometimes, we need the reminder.

(You can read my full review of Ultra 85 in the September 2024 edition of Locus).

*I’m wrong. There is an album.