"You want me to read what???"
A review, by Ryan E. Earhardt
November 4th, 2019

We all love to read novels. Great novels. Best-selling novels. I have talked a lot about such novels in the past, for example the classic Extinction Event by Bruno Lombardi and the amazing Pitiless as the Sun by Thomas Anderson. And I'm pretty sure my readers will also remember Homeland Defense by Christopher Nuttall, which I discussed last week. But this novel I'm going to talk about today is nothing like those. It's so bad it's fun. So poor it's really worth writing this review. I talk about "The Londonistan Guardsman" by Mike Huney.

The novel begins with a boring, thirty pages long introduction about the geo-political situation inside the world of 'The Londonistan Guardsman'. Set in the year 2034, set in a dystopian future version of present-day London. We are supposed to believe that the information economy has made 95% of all population in the developed world permanently unemployed, and that the corrupt, arrogant elite of the evil European Union (which includes ALL countries in Europe), has decided to crowd it's useless, unemployed population into so-called 'Sanctuary Districts', where they live in miserable, destitute conditions similar to some third world slums. As the story progresses, we are also made to believe the Muslim population of Britain rose from 2 million to 52 million within mere 15 years. It is also mentioned that the EU is locked in an epic war of attrition with the only other remaining superpower - the People's Republic China - in the Urals. If that wasn't bad enough, we also learn that the land outside of the cities is mentioned to be an uninhabitable barren wasteland due to global warming and rampant environmental mismanagement by the megacorporations. We learn that tobacco is illegal in the EU and virtually all animals have become extinct, forcing everybody to become vegetarians. Some cliches really NEVER get old, I suppose.

Into this bleak and sinister world comes the main character, Dick Riccardo. Riccardo is described as smart, absolutely flawless, the man of a man, yet he is a cyborg and 65% machine. He is also a keen tactician and fearless leader, and furthermore, we are supposed to believe Riccardo is a supreme master of martial arts, with skills the world has not seen since Bruce Lee. Riccardo's exact role is never fully described, at some points of the story, he is described as a mere guardsman, at other points he is described as the member of an 'elite police unit'.

An airplane, carrying the beautiful young journalist Stacy Wong is shot down over downtown London - in the very center of the Sanctuary District, and Dick Riccardo has been called upon to rescue her before she falls into the hands of the evil leader of the self-proclaimed 'Caliphate of Londonistan', a shady figure refered to only as 'the Hashimite' (sic).

On his way through the eponymous Londonistan, Riccardo kills no less than 269 young men, all minions of the evil 'Hashimite'. All along the way of the book we encounter plenty of outdated Muslim cliches and malevolent anti-Muslim bigotry, culminating in the iconic phrase "if ya live in here, yer a terrorist!". This brings me to something else, which I find a very annoying, not to say unbearable detail about the novel: it's language. Are we really supposed to believe, fifteen years into the future, everyone in Britain speaks like a redneck?!

Riccardo eventually finds Wong - in burka (under which she is naked, of course), ready to be sold for a slave market in Berlin. Never mind the fact that it was established earlier that 'Londonistan' is enclosed entirely twenty meter high concrete walls. After a brief encounter with the Hashimite himself - which dies rather unspectacularly from a headshot by Riccardo - the duo makes their way out of the Sanctuary District, killing another 200+ men along their way. Just as Riccardo and Wong have managed to escape from Londonistan, we learn in a sick and twisted turn that Wong was actually a spy for the Chinese (which doesn't surprise anyone, consider her name). All the non-stop action of the novel is suddenly interrupted by a silly and cheesy romance story when Riccardo and Wong enter Riccardo's apartment, and where lil' Dick finally gets to know his 'human side'. The final part of the book deals with a hot pursuit through the docks of London, with the nefarious "British Honor Guard" (which have a mentality and behaviour akin to Klingons!) on their tracks. Having escaped their chasers, Riccardo and Wong eventually set off in a boat they find at the coast, and head for the last true beacon of freedom and democracy - the United States of America.