The Neural Atrocity (The DNA Cowboys #3)

The Neural Atrocity, by Mick Farren

No month stated, 1977  Mayflower Books

The DNA Cowboys “trilogy” wraps up with this third installment that begins soon after Synaptic Manhunt. In fact the two installments come off as one novel, whereas first installment The Quest Of The DNA Cowboys still seems like a book disconnected from the series. Even more so with this last one, as all the characters continue with the retconning that occurred in Synaptic Manhunt; The Minstrel Boy is a “nothings”-navigating “tracker” and prepubescent adult AA Catto is a would-be conqueror, looking to dominate the entire ruined Earth with her minions of black-armored shock troops. 

Catto is even more unhinged this time around. Mick Farren clearly intends her to be some sort of post-apocalypse Hitler, and her scenes, which all take place in the city of Quahal (which she first conquered last volume), are certainly inspired by Hitler in the bunker in the final days of the war. Catto becomes increasingly insane as the novel progresses, her only ally Nancy, the pearl-skinned hooker who joined up with Catto last volume. The two enjoy more lesbian shenanigans, but Nancy finds herself more and more the victim of Catto’s frequent tantrums. 

Speaking of which, Farren continues pushing buttons: The Quest Of The DNA Cowboys featured a random part where Reave, one of the titular “DNA Cowboys” (though the phrase has still not appeared in the books themselves), had sex with some albino dude. Well late in The Neural Atrocity, the Minstrel Boy and Billy Oblivion are approached by monks who claim to be there to serve their every need (male monks, just to confirm), and the Minstrel Boy puts them to the test by having one of them give him a blowjob! 

One new thing Mick Farren introduces here is that Catto has developed a penchant for having Stuff Central (ie the vast computer that serves up whatever a person orders) create clones of previous celebrities, and Catto will have her sadistic way with them until she has them dumped in the compost bin or whatever. So there’s lots of annoying stuff where Catto will have this resplendent meal with all these clones of long-dead notables, and the one that gets the most attention is the clone of Elvis. Catto and Nancy enjoy this one the most, so there’s a bit of clone-sex and sadism at play too. 

But for the most part The Neural Atrocity is focused on war and carnage; when we meet Billy and the Minstrel Boy, they’re in a new city that is being waylaid by Catto’s shock troops. Once again they’ve hooked up with, uh, hookers, and once again Billy’s become the pimp of the one he’s with – a recurring bit from the previous book. Despite the war raging outside, Billy is more upset that the Minstrel Boy has two girls in his room, while Billy is stuck with just one. 

There’s a goofy part where Billy has sex with this hooker…but he’s had so much sex with her over the weeks (as it’s literally all she wants to do) that he’s grown bored with it. So Farren actually writes an entire scene in which Billy goes through the motions, humping dutifully away just to get it over with. Almost as if Farren were spoofing the entire “exploitative” angle of pulp – I mean there’s nothing like a fairly explicit sex scene in which the protagonist is bored – but also it ties back to the previous book, where Billy was bored being stuck with his previous hooker girlfriend. Maybe Farren’s trying to tell us that hookers are only fun if you don’t start a relationship with them… 

As ever though our heroes are kind of lame. Billy and the Minstrel Boy do little except hide and have sex with their hookers; there’s no part where they decide to wipe out their old enemy Catto. This job falls to that other loser from the previous book: Jeb Stuart Ho, the kung-fu monk who was introduced as such a badass but ultimately turned out to be a buffoon…one who didn’t even succeed in his mission to kill AA Catto, but instead went back to his temple to report his failure. This time he’s given a pep talk by his leaders and goes back out into the fray again, determined to stop Catto and her attack on the world for real this time. 

Action is given more focus this volume, but again Ho carries the brunt of it. There’s a bit of kung-fu and swordplay, and again he uses a pistol. But Farren is more focused on the atrocities carried out by Catto’s troops, and the relish Catto takes in hearing about them. But as mentioned she becomes increasingly nuts as the book proceeds, with Farren hammering the “Hitler in the bunker” stuff, complete with Catto being whacked-out on various drugs and paranoid to the point of delusions. Catto carries the brunt of the narrative; her or Jeb Stuart Ho, to the point that the supposed DNA Cowboys – Billy and the Minstrel Boy – barely appear. 

You’ll notice there’s one DNA Cowboy I’m not mentioning. SPOILER ALERT – skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know. But anyway, I have not mentioned Reave. This is because he was killed off in the final pages of Synaptic Manhunt. But it happened so casually, with such little exploitation, that it almost seemed as if Farren were implying that Reave was just injured and not really dead – as it happened, he was shot at while escaping with some others, and fell down, but he was off in the distance and it’s possible he could’ve just been hurt; even Billy seemed unsure. Well, Reave isn’t even mentioned in The Neural Atrocity, which would indicate he’s well and truly dead…except for the fact that he seems to appear in The Last Stand Of The DNA Cowboys, the fourth volume of this, uh, “trilogy.” 

Well, that’s it for the spoilers, but I’ll also hint that the finale of this one wasn’t very satisfactory. I kept hoping for some comeuppance for a certain increasingly-annoying character, but it didn’t happen, and Jeb Stuart Ho proved himself as buffoonish as ever. Worse yet, Billy and the Minstrel Boy spend the last quarter of the novel just trying to escape the apocalyptic events (Stuff Central being shut down, the vanishing of certain towns, etc),  So the two of them basically disappear for long stretches. 

So then, the DNA Cowboys Trilogy comes to a vague and surreal finale, with Billy and the Minstrel Boy going through the nothings to some new town, with no idea what to do. This is how Mick Farren left the characters for several years…until he decided for whatever reason to revisit them in 1989’s The Last Stand Of The DNA Cowboys. Curiously, this one was initially a paperback original in the US, even though the original books had never been published here. I have that one as well, and will read it anon – it’s longer than the original three volumes, and a glance at its contents would indicate it’s more of a “real” novel, at least when compared to the surreal escapades of the original books.