V For Vendetta by Steve Moore

From The Week of March 21, 2010

I have a hot and cold relationship with dystopian science fiction. I can't get enough of it! And yet, every bite of that forbidden fruit just doesn't taste as sweet as it should. Perhaps we all have our own, private notions of what the future would look like, if twisted darkly, and that these imaginings clash with the visions we encounter from others. Nonetheless, while this dissonance is in play with V For Vendetta, the book's pacy plot, savage characters and Big-Brothery villainy overcome its flaws and my dissonance to succeed where other stories of its like have failed.

The defining, 0-to-10 scale of dystopian fiction is pessimism, with 0 being fluffy fiction with pretentions to be Dystopian and 10 being "I'm off to get some razorblades because there's no longer any point in living." V For Vendetta comes in around a 7. For though its characters are violent and cruel, and though the totalitarian government is mammoth and unstoppable, a thick vein of anti-establishment triumphalism runs through the story, a vein which pumps some serious energy in the form of hope into the lives of the eponymous V and his new protege, Evey. Caught out on a dangerous, London street after leaving a party later than she planned, Evey is, in good, damsel tradition, plucked from the grubby hands of men who intend her harm by a masked vigilante with exceptional, physical prowess. Delivered into the vigilante's lair, Evey is offered the opportunity to return to her normal life, but though she wavers, as anyone would, she ultimately opts to follow in her master's footsteps, learning from him and, in the process, taking upon herself his great mission of setting back to right what went so spectacularly wrong. Though V is something of a cartoon -- imagine Batman without all the gadgets and the butler --, Evey is a believable heroine with believable fears and understandable incredulity at the situation into which she has been thrust. V may get his name in the title, but it's Evey who carries the story.

These novels are always, to varying degrees, warnings to the people, to be mindful of big institutions which take unto themselves powers they should not have. And to the extent that this book will convince anyone to act more responsibly should totalitarianism come a-knockin', it is a failure. No, this is good fun in a dark world. And nothing more. But good fun is worthwhile. (3/5 Stars)