Hostage London
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Hostage London |
| Publisher: | Nut Hatch & Entropy Press |
| Editor: | |
| Author(s): | Sara Lansing and Barbara Jones |
| Cover Artist(s): | |
| Illustrator(s): | |
| Date(s): | 1999 |
| Series?: | yes |
| Medium: | |
| Size: | |
| Genre: | |
| Fandom: | Professionals |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | Entropy Press flyer |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Hostage London is a gen Professionals novel in a series by Sara Lansing and Barbara Jones.
Note: This zine is sometimes mistakenly titled, "Dead Reckoning" on some zine lists. [1]
You can read a sample of it here.
The Series
Series order taken from a 1999 Entropy Press flyer. Note that the zine order (and content) differs from what is noted at Palely Loitering.
- Goblin (1992)
- Knife's Edge (1993)
- Operation Assegai (1995)
- Hellburner (1997)
- Deep Fire (1998)
- Hostage London (1999)
Publisher's Announcement
Entropy has a selection of new titles in preparation, these being Sara Lansing's and Barb Jones' sixth Professionals novel, Hostage London, an all-out revel in the genuine, original, gritty reality of the series, mated to a 1987 timeframe with computers, terrorism and all the continuing animosity of long-standing hatreds. This one is definitely on its way for 1999, and it'll be well worth the wait. [2]
Summary
Summary from the flyer:
Their eagerly-awaited sixth Professionals adventure brings Lansing & Jones together with all the force you’ve come to expect! Terrorism is impersonal unless it happens to you. A betting shop is blown up. A Post Office is raked with machine gun fire. These things just happen. Right? But CI-5 was formed to combat the new wave, the criminals who had played the authorities at their established game and learned how to win. Now CI-5 have inadvertently bred a superior species of criminal, and they play for keeps. They play to win. And winner takes all.
In the bluster and rain of a British winter, aching for the green of spring, a new power reaches out and takes the city of London in its invisible grip. Silently, below the level of public consciousness, ten million people are abruptly held to ransom. Not chemical weapons, not nuclear contamination, not random acts of violence, but an insidious, invisible grip that waits with a spider’s patience for nature herself to close the choke-hold.
The Thames Flood Barrier is one of the milestones of British engineering, the mighty erectable barricade that protects London, holds back the press of the tide itself to prevent the city’s low-lying areas from flooding during periods of king-tides, storm surges and other extreme events, exacerbated by the gradual onset of global warming. Rarely used, never seen, the system is hardly thought of by the public. But it exists, it cost a fortune ... and it is horribly vulnerable.
The weather is hard, the tide is high, and London Town will drown if the barrier fails. And fail it shall if demands go unheeded! This is classic Professionals action, a London-arena story filled with politics and intrigue, corruption and vice, the dirty streets that George Cowley means to sweep clean one day at a time.
The CI-5 A-Squad are in the thick of a fight the public will never know anything about, so long as Cowley’s hand-picked team can win their race against the inexorable tick of nature’s clock.
The tide is rising. The wind is blowing hard from the east. And the Thames is lapping very, very high! Pretty soon somebody will notice, and then all hell will break loose as million attempt to flee from a city that becomes a prison. A death trap. And then the terrorists’ demands will seem paltry by comparison to chaos and human misery!