Audio Review // Crime Chronicles: Stranger Than Truth by David Bishop

Slick Dickens, Judge Dredd and a Crime Story That Gets Very Meta. I've mentioned before that I'm a big fan of the Big Finish Judge Dredd audio dramas, which makes it particularly frustrating that so many of them are now difficult to find, or, when you do find them, they're being sold for absolutely ridiculous prices.

So whenever I stumble across one at a sensible price, I grab it. Today's find is Crime Chronicles: Stranger Than Truth by David Bishop. This one takes us back to one of the more ridiculous, and entertaining, corners of the Judge Dredd universe…Slick Dickens.

If that name doesn't mean anything to you, don't worry. We'll get to him soon.

The Details

Title: Crime Chronicles: Stranger Than Truth
Author: David Bishop
Performers: Toby Longworth & Helen Kay
Running Time: 1 hour 11 minutes
Format: Audio Drama
Publisher: Big Finish

The Fluff
Truman Kaput has spent years imprisoned in the iso-cubes of Mega-City One. His crime? Writing lurid detective novels in which his fictional hero, Slick Dickens, repeatedly outwits the cowardly bully known as Judge Dredd. Kaput's work has been banned, but now a new Slick Dickens novel is being serialised, and each chapter predicts a murder that is about to happen. Has Slick Dickens somehow escaped from the pages? Is someone using the novels as a blueprint for murder? Or is there something much stranger going on? Can Dredd stop the killer before the final chapter is written: I Killed Judge Dredd?

Review

It's been a while since I've listened to one of the Crime Chronicles stories, and I had forgotten quite how much I enjoy this format. From what I can tell, the main difference between these and some of the other Big Finish Judge Dredd productions is the scale of the cast. Rather than having a huge collection of actors, Stranger Than Truth relies heavily on Toby Longworth and Helen Kay, with narration doing a lot of the heavy lifting to build the world around them.

And honestly? It works. The story also gives us another outing for a character I've always found hilarious: Slick Dickens. For anyone unfamiliar with him, Slick Dickens is a fictional character within the Judge Dredd universe. Yes. A fictional character, and apparently he's the only fictional character who has ever managed to kill Judge Dredd. Which makes the whole situation considerably more interesting when a new Slick Dickens novel starts predicting actual murders in Mega-City One.

Enter Eliza Blunt, a journalist from Brit-Cit, who arrives looking for a story about Truman Kaput, the imprisoned author behind the Slick Dickens novels. Before long, the line between fiction and reality starts getting very blurry. Are the murders being copied from the books? Has someone managed to bring Slick Dickens into the real world? Has Truman Kaput somehow escaped? Or is there something else going on?

This is where I think David Bishop has a lot of fun with the concept. It's essentially a detective story wrapped inside another detective story, with Judge Dredd wandering through the middle of it all. I really enjoyed that. There's also something wonderfully Judge Dredd about the idea of an author being imprisoned because his fictional books repeatedly make Dredd look like an incompetent bully. Mega-City One really does have a wonderful approach to freedom of expression.

The Big Finish Magic

The voice acting is excellent. Toby Longworth is, as always, fantastic as Dredd, while Helen Kay does a great job bringing the other elements of the story to life. The sound effects also deserve a mention. They help create that sense that we're actually moving through Mega-City One rather than simply listening to someone read a script. For me, that's one of the big strengths of these productions. You can put your headphones on and suddenly you're walking through Mega-City One with Dredd, and for just over an hour, that's a pretty good place to be.

Could Slick Dickens Work in Sector 102?

So naturally, whilst listening to this, my brain eventually wandered off towards Sector 102. Because of course it did. The idea of fictional characters, stories and propaganda becoming part of the real world is something I could definitely play with. I'm imagining a writer in Sector 102 who creates sensationalised crime novels based on the Justice Department. Maybe his fictional Judge is based on a real Sector Judge, but the stories portray them as some larger-than-life hero. Then people start copying the crimes from the books. Or perhaps someone starts writing stories about the Spillways, including things that shouldn't be publicly known. Suddenly, Sector 102 security is dealing with crimes that appear to have been predicted in a cheap pulp novel. That could be fun.

Then there's Truman Kaput himself. I could easily imagine a Sector 102 equivalent: a disgraced writer, journalist or former Justice Department information clerk who knows far too much about the Sector and has turned it into fiction. Maybe Kelp Pharmacy even sponsors some of the books. "Any resemblance to actual Kelp Pharmacy employees, facilities, medical incidents or unexplained disappearances is entirely coincidental." Yeah. I could work with that.

Final Thoughts

Stranger Than Truth is well worth the hour, or so it takes to listen to. It's not the biggest or most explosive Judge Dredd story I've experienced, but that's not really what it's trying to be. It's a fun little mystery that plays around with the idea of fiction becoming reality while giving us another entertaining appearance from Slick Dickens. The voice acting is excellent, the sound design pulls you into Mega-City One, and David Bishop manages to keep the mystery interesting throughout. I'd definitely recommend it to Judge Dredd fans.

I would suggest having at least some knowledge of the characters before jumping in, though. The story plays with existing Dredd lore, and knowing who Slick Dickens and Truman Kaput are definitely adds to the fun, and now I've got another idea for Sector 102. Which, let's be honest, is probably the real danger of me reading these things. I finish a Judge Dredd story and immediately start thinking about how I can steal the idea for my own tabletop world.

Until next time, Drokk heads!

And if you happen to find a reasonably priced copy of one of these old Big Finish dramas...

Grab it.

Because apparently we're collecting these things now.