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Now that we live in THE FUTURE, more and more media set in THE FUTURE is now set in the past. I’ve been trying to convince Kyoto Secunda and her Clone Sister Kyoto Secunda Prime that we used to have space stations and moon bases back in 2001 (I could even show then pictures and video) but they were phased out because of budget cuts (thanks Obama!). They don’t believe me. Kids today are too cynical.

So some random collision of neurons in my brain led me to recall the existence of this… NYPD 2025 by Hal Stryker. I read it around the time it was published in 1985 and even then found it bad, really bad, really, really bad. And this from a guy who thought Dragonlance was better than Lord of the Rings.

So now that I stand on the threshold of 2025, how does this stand up?

Oh…

My…

G-d…

Casual racism, cliches, casual sexism, snuff films, editors are for the weak, I have strong opinions on the Scottish and the Irish, I don’t know how guns work, lasers are magic, I have very strong opinions on India, I do not know or care about physics, or law, I’m not sure how puberty works, and I have EXTREMELY STRONG opinions on bleeding heart liberals.

So let’s dig into Hal Strikers NYPD 2025, #1 in a dynamic new series!



Now granted it’s been 40 years and Hal Stryker (or at least his real self George H Smith) passed away in 1996 but there is no reason to believe we won’t get a book 2 in time for 2025 itself!

Note: as a $2.95 paperback from 40 years ago NYPD 2025 does not offer much in the way of art, just the fairly generic cover with a flying car and a generic sci fi city. And I am sure you will be shocked to hear that a 40 year bit of pulp fiction has not attracted a community of fan art either.

Shocking!

So I will be falling back on Bing image generators to fill that gap and break up the walls of text. I know, I know, and if you want to click away now feel free.

Still with me?

OK. Let’s do this.

In a work of the Near Future
Where Decent People live in Fear
Where Justice is Dying and
The Law protects The Guilty—
The Combat Operations Police Come Roaring IN!
The bleeding heart law makers have taking lethal weapons out of the hands of the law enforcers – and in the world’s largest city criminals are on a perpetual holiday. Rape, murder, robbery, and sabotage are the order of the day. The answer:
COP
COMBAT OPERATIONS POLICE
A special enforcement unit made up of the toughest, bravest, and most cunning street-smart fighting men, using the best in weaponry – including Andy Jumbles, an android, indestructible against bullet, dynamite, or laser. The are heading right into the deadly shadows of Manhattan to stomp the human trash that rules the dark – and give the city back to its people!
NYPD 2025

Wow.

I may need to lie down after typing up the back cover.

So come back next time as we dig into the "plot" of NYPD 2025.

And we're back!

The story opens with our hero Captain Zack… something.



I’m sure they give him a surname somewhere, OK it’s not here, nor there, nope not in chapter 3 either. Ah let’s just call him Zack Stryker because he’s as much of an author insert as one could ask for and Stryker is such a comically manly name it would totally fit him. So yeah Captain Zack Slaughter was just ordered to return to the United States after spending the last 20 years killing commies in Central America and Mexico as the last survivor of his special forces unit. But rather than a hero’s welcome he’s going to be put on trial for his war crimes by President For Life Buchanan’s corrupt commie-loving regime. Don’t worry though, Captain Zack Slayer fought alongside patriotic Mexicans like Julio the former Mexican Army colonel and Carla the former opera contralto or Juan the former party hack turned hero and he would die before he’d betray them! (Or recall their surnames, I mean how many Mexicans named Juan could there be anyway?) But then he’s kidnapped by the Cubans and the East Germans who are going to brainwash him into being a snuff film star.

All this is like page 3 by the way.

Then, suddenly, without warning, in complete surprise, the Snuff Film Studio is attacked by… well…

OK.

Y’know how like in GI Joe they all started out wearing some pretty practical green fatigues (except Scarlet of course who came to battle fresh from her aerobics class, not that I am judging) mainly because they had like 3 sets of molds and darn it they were going to get their money’s worth out of them.



But pretty soon they had guys in arctic gear and cowboy hats and full dress uniforms which, in order to the faithful to the toys, they would wear everywhere no matter if made sense or not so like they’d be fighting Cobra on a glacier in Himalayas and one guy would be wearing a sailor suit, another a neon orange space suit thing, and another a wetsuit and flippers and some other guy would have no shirt and no shoes because his bag is like karate and stuff. OK?




So the snuff filmers – who sprinkle in Spanish and German words just to remind us they are Filthy Foreigners and Commies – are assaulted by the elite forces of NYPD COP 10, a colorful and diverse a band as you could as for as they not only have a stereotypical Irish Cop named Murphy...



but also a stereotypical Scottish highlander cop named McTavish.



There’s also a soft-spoken African American “Professor” who lets his Tommy gun do the talking and some dude named Ferret who I can’t recall a darn thing about. They are led by a woman in a gold Greek mask wearing black judge’s robes. She’s Judge Portia van Wyck who is not only a gorgeous green-eyed blonde with great gams and a needle pistol, but also worships the Greek gods (except when she calls them by Roman names, which just annoys me, yes I know Mercury is Hermes, but it’s like mixing up your Earth 1 Superman and your Earth 2 Superman and your Post-Crisis Superman and your New 52 Superman and your Post Rebirth Superman, it’s just sloppy).



So yeah we spend about 1/3 of the book as they rescue him from the 200 story snuff-film headquarters. This includes a sequence where Captain Zach Stabber picks up a pistol that fires 22mm rounds from a 100 round magazine.

22mm rounds.

That’s .87 caliber. That’s almost twice the size of a heavy machine gun round. You’re basically in the territory of small cannons here. And in a 100 round clip? In a pistol? That has to weigh 100 pounds just by itself. Maybe he meant .22 caliber rounds?

I can forgive a lot from a 40 year pulp fiction book, but not knowing how guns work? What do you think I am here for if not cool cyberpunk firearms?
So anyway Captain Zack Savage, who, mind you, was just being tortured and could barely stand, he spends the next 50 pages or so garroting, stabbing, and machine gunning various foreigners until the elite NYPD COP TEN team take off in their atomic-powered laser-powered flying car.

Yes, it can fly through the power of lasers, the elevators are also powered by lasers. We live in the future.

So anyway Judge van Wyck announces their two prisoners will be sentenced to death, but they point out the bleeding heart liberals abolished the death penalty! Caught in this legal quandary Judge van Wyck decides she has no choice but to let them go. Out the door. At 50,000 feet.
This could be a cool scene if it happened at 5,000 feet but, y’know it happened at 50,000 feet. Twice the altitude of an airliner. An altitude where opening the hatch will create explosive decompression and suck everyone out. But meh, physics is for commies anyway.
So having established her bona fedes as badass Judge van Wyck turns to Captain Zack Sampson to decide his fate.

In her penthouse.

Over drinks.

Which we will see next time!

Holy gak what a ride! I'm hooked.



I love these threads K_K. Please never stop making them.


EDIT - Also that pump action revolver shotgun is fething awesome. That looks exactly like the sort of futuristic weapon that would fire 22mm bullets.

But they kept Manhattan safe! I hope Trump turns up as a presidential challenger in the next instalment.

If the Scotsman doesn’t spend half his time pished, and the other half calling people a bawbag?

I’ll be ever so disappointed.

Man, you change a couple tiny details (ex. commies -> terrorists), rebrand it to NYPD 2045 and I know you have a large swath of the middle of the country that would eat this stuff up!

What's Stryker's estate up to these days? I may have a business proposition for them...

I'm just staring at the cover and remembering those good old days when you could buy a book for $2.95.

 Snrub wrote:
EDIT - Also that pump action revolver shotgun is fething awesome. That looks exactly like the sort of futuristic weapon that would fire 22mm bullets.

Don't the Votann make use of some suitably confused weapons like that?

And we’re back, with the trial of Captain Zack Sabre!

He is bound to a chair in Judge van Wyck’s luxury penthouse overlooking the polluted cyberpunk dystopia of New York 2025, and plied with exotic drinks from the Mars colonies served by the Judge’s robot butler. Then we finally see Judge Portia without her gold gas mask.

Oh did I mention that everyone wears cartoony rubber gas masks whenever they are outside? I probably should have. Y’see the bleeding heart liberal greens have morphed into the Luddites who hate all technology and have destroyed all the nuclear power plants (presumably except the nuclear fuel for the flying cars that the author introduced a few pages ago…) so cities have no choice but to burn dirty coal, covering them in ‘The Smudge’ and everyone has to wear gasmasks outside.

So yeah, so she take off her gold mask and – this may shock you – she’s actually a gorgeous blond!




So yeah, long story short she finds Captain Zack Ward –

See I knew he had a last name! we finally learn it 1/3 of the way into the book! He’s even surprised that she managed to “dig it up”. I’m not sure why it would be a secret, it’s just a bit of a letdown, I mean when the author’s pen name is manlier than the protagonist’s I feel a bit disappointed.
So anyway she finds Captain Zack Warrington guilty on all counts and as punishment, sentences him to become the commander of NYPD COP TEN and take on the nom de guerre of CAPTAIN DEATH! (Which is totally something judges can do.)

An unexpected twist I am sure no one saw coming.

Did I mention he gets a mask, it turns out Captain Death’s symbol is… A SKULL!



So yeah, then we get exposition and eventually a plot. America is ruled by President-for-life Buchanan a flower child who idealizes Gandhi and Lenin, has legalized all drugs, disarmed the police and opened the borders. How bad are things? The American Civil Liberties Union has disbanded since they know America’s civil rights are in good hands. That’s how bad things are.



Also we have Mars colonies. Presumably powered by coal.

And vat-grown androids and sex clones.

Judge Portia kindly offers Captain Zack “Death” Wilkinson the services of one but he says he’s prefer the real thing while leering at the Judge. A real charmer.

Somehow Captain Zack “Death” Woolford never heard any of this during his 20 years of fighting alongside Juan, Julio, Carla, and Guillermo the former matador turned freedom fighter in the bloody killing fields of Mexico. No one slipped him a copy of Time Magazine? No one mentioned the sex clones? No one? Or maybe Captain Zack “Death” Wilcox was just in deep denial that the country would remain unchanging while he was gone.



And it turns out in the grim darkness of the near future snuff films are all the rage and the most popular one stars The Slasher of Slaughter Gulch. The Slasher is a truly memorable character with an orange turban, a purple veil and both a scimitar and a kris knife. He moves like a ballet dancer, carving up victims with artistic flourishes. So everything is done to emphasize that this guy is a unamerican, no doubt one of the foreigners President-for-life Buchanan allowed in thanks to his open borders campaign. Wouldn’t it be a shock if the dude turns out to be an American after all?



So anyway, in pursuit of ever higher ratings they have kidnapped the President’s daughter Indira Buchanan (named for the martyred Indian Prime Minister we are told) and now Captain Zack “Death” Wimperfield must save her.



(I do like how Bing AI just assumes that when I talk about a traitor hippy commie president I mean Obama)

Just to bring home the point Judge Portia shows Captain Zack “Death” Windsor the latest snuff film, a frankly gross scene where the heroine is both described as pre-pubescent and as having large breasts. And then carved up in graphic detail. I… there’s a lot to unpack there and I’m not getting paid for this. Moving on.

We finally meet the rest of NYPD COP TEN: the Irish cop, the Scottish cop, the two-headed, four armed, invulnerable android Andy Jumbles, and so on. Maybe this was setup for the next volume (coming soon I’m sure!) because they don’t do a darn thing for the rest of the book.



Captain Zack “Death” Waitrose decides to infiltrate the snuff studio using the clever alias of Zack Martin and the clever disguise of… um… not disguising himself. From the people who kidnapped him a few chapters back.

He saves a female star – Foxxy van Pelt – from an army of Slasher imitators, and then several cars full of assassins. Foxxy van Pelt (yes we have two Dutch names, maybe because it’s NY? Maybe because the author was running low of proper WASPy names to give the good guys?) has two emotions, screaming in fear and being hot for Captain Zack “Death” Wainright.



After saving her and killing dozens of bad guys Captain Zack “Death” Walczak announces it’s time to figure out who the Slasher is. There’s no reason for this, he could be anyone in New York, or just a role several people take on, I mean we just had a small army of Slasher imitators! But no, he’s going to crack this case. He then names several suspects who he never met. As a genre-savvy reader I’d noticed them of course, how the author prominently mentioned the pole-dancing news caster, the conservative minister who hates snuff films, the liberal who supports them etc, but Captain Zack “Death” Wallaby never met them, and no reason to suspect any of them. But I guess he read the outline so a few chapters later he announces he knows who the Slasher is but won’t tell us due to reasons.

For the record I fingered Indira Buchanan and that she faked her kidnapping.

So some more stuff happens. Captain Zack “Death” Worthington kills some people, I think they were mafia or something, IDK, they’re dead now. One of them was Hindu, no doubt one of the many foreigners allowed into the country by President-for-Life Buchanan’s open borders policy. Captain Zack “Death” Wakayama of course can tell people’s religion and immigration status by sight, a skill learned serving with Juan, Julio, Carla, Guillermo and Pedro the former llama herder turned guerilla bomb maker in the bloody killing fields of Mexico.

So anyway we’re cutting to the climax now, the evil snuff film corporation is going to kill both Foxxy van Pelt and Indira Buchanan live on 3D, feely TV for millions of slobbering fans. Fortunately our hero Captain Zack “Death” Winchester is on set in his clever guise as Colonel Zack “Kill” Marrion. And sure enough the Slasher soon jumps out and… slashes!



But Captain Zach “Death” Williamson is there with his US Marine ka-bar knife, a weapon that gets more background than any member of NYPD COP TEN, and can kill a grizzly bear in combat. (Note: Hal Stryker and Pinnacle Crossfire do not endorse engaging grizzly bears in combat armed only with a ka-bar).



Why a ka-bar you ask? I am glad you raised this question since I have many thoughts on it. Note how the Slasher uses two foreign blades, an Arab scimitar and a Javanese kris blade and wears a turban and veil. So against this is an exotically foreign-coded villain our all-American hero picks up a knife specifically created for the USMC in World War II. Not a lot to unpack there but it’s worth noting.

But what about the gun with the 100 22mm rounds?! Isn’t that the most compelling character so far? In fact why engage the crazy knife fighter in hand-to-hand when you can shoot him from a safe distance?

Look the gun with the 100 22mm rounds is gone, this is the ka-bar’s time, the ka-bar gets more backstory than the rest of the team, deal with it.

So yeah while we were arguing about ka-bars Captain Zack “Death” Williamsonshiresmith easily defeated, disarmed and demasked the Slasher. And it’s…

(last chance to place bets)

Indira Buchanan!



I was right!


Except it’s not, she was just posing as the Slasher for a thrill!

Darn!

The real Slasher pops out and there’s another fight, and yeah, Captain Zach “Death” Wentworth literally fights him with his left hand with his right hand behind his back. In fact the point is made he wants to humiliate the Slasher in front of millions of fans, hence no 22mm bullets. So yeah, he once again easily defeats, disarms and demasks the Slasher. And it’s…

(really the last chance to place bets)

Sheldon Gilbert! The liberal arts activist who thinks snuff films are cool.



So yeah. OK. Why not.

Also in the course of the fight Gilbert reveals that he knows the protagonist’s name… CAPTAIN DEATH!

Which alarms Captain Zach “Death” Winchester because it must mean there is a mole inside NYPD COP TEN! Except um, dude you announced “I am Captain Death” a couple of pages ago. I remembered that, then I flipped back and confirmed it. Maybe the Slasher, like, heard you? If he’d said Captain Zack “Death” Wildman then yeah, we’d all wonder how he dug that up, and suspect a mole, but… you literally said your codename!

So anyway Scooby Doo ending, everyone is sent off to jail but with Indira Buchanan vows that she’s gonna tell her dad, who you will recall is President-For-Life Buchanan, and see to it that NYPD COP TEN never gets a penny of funding again!

Fortunately Foxxy van Pelt (you may recall Foxxy van Pelt, she’s the love interest) is worth billions and will fund NYPD COP TEN out of her pocket.

So Judge Portia (you may recall Judge Portia, she’s the other love interest but she’s like more of that will-they-or-won’t-they kind of thing) orders Captain Zack “Death” Wanderlust to stick close to her and keep her happy, which he cheerfully agrees to.

The End?

Well it’s been 40 years and the author passed away 20 years ago and the publishing imprint is long gone so I’m gonna say yes.

Tune in next time for some wrap up thoughts.

There's a lot I'm not saying about your synopsis because of the politics ban on Dakka...

Wow.

A lot to unpack.




The 80s conservative politics are just amazing in this. The weird thing is how prophetic they are. OK sure there was the commies taking over central America thing, that was normal, but note how Captain Zack “Death” Warren totally would have beaten them all if only the liberals in the government had wanted him to win, a common cliché about Vietnam. Also the police who cannot protect the public because the liberals gave more rights to the criminals than to citizens, a trope that runs through to today.

Then there’s the fear that liberal degenerates will spread perversion and pornography, there’d been rumblings about it before but it would really hit the mainstream later. Things like Meece Report wouldn’t come until 1986 and the Maplethorn controversy in 1989. Even weirder is when Hal Stryker needs to show how bad President-For-Life Buchanan is, (being president-for-life is apparently not enough to show he’s a bad guy) he talks about how the ACLU endorsed him. A few years later in 1988 George HW Bush will attack Mike Dukakis as a “card carrying member of the ACLU” and echo of Joe McCarthy calling people card-carrying members of the Communist Party. And of course there are the open borders. So I have to give it to George “Hal Stryker” Smith for knowing his audience.



Another odd bit is how the main bad guy, despite his exotic trappings, is a WASPy rich white dude. And that the President-for-Life who gets all the blame for the state of things is also a WASP as far as I can tell. You’d think this might be a chance to stop and reexamine if foreigners are really the source of problems, but no. Either Smith didn’t see the issue or he figured if they’re both foreign-loving liberals then they’re not REAL Americans like Captain Zack “Death” Whiteskin.

The whole anti-porn thing is just odd since parts of the book are pornographic to the point that John Norman would tell him to tone it down a bit. Plus this is by George “Hal Stryker” Smith who is the author of… (deep breath)…

Whip of Passion (1959; Newstand Library)
Brutal Ecstacy (1960; Novel Book)
Scourge of the Blood Cult (1961)
Satan's Daughter (1961; as by Jan Hudson; Epic 113) reprinted as by Anonymous, Moonlight Reader MR113
Love Cult (1961; as by Jan Hudson; a "Jake Reynolds" novel; Pike 205)
Soft Lips on Black Velvet (1961; a "St. Germain" novel)
Fever Hot Woman (1962)
Girls Afire (1962; as by Jan Hudson)
Strange Harem (1962; as by Jan Hudson; France Book F24)
Flames of Desire (1963; as by M J Deer)("M D Deer" is a misprint on the title page)
Gang Girls (1963; as by Jan Hudson; Boudoir 1024)
The Virtuous Harlots (1963; as by Jan Hudson; Neva Paperbacks 644)
Country Club Lesbian (1963; as by Jerry Jason; Brandon House)
Sexodus! (1963; as by Jerry Jason)
Bedroom Payoff (1964; as by Jerry August)
Strip Artist (1964; Playtime Books)
The Lovemakers (1965; as by Jan Hudson; Beacon Books B894X)(later as Sweet Invitation, 1974, Softcover Library London)
Lesbian Triangle (1965; as by Jerry Jason)
Orgy Buyer (1965; as by John Dexter)
Four Bed Wildcat (1966; as by Jerry August)
Those Sexy Saucer People (1967; as Jan Hudson; Greenleaf Classic GC220)
Novice Sex Queen (1968; as Jeremy August; Brandon 2062)
Girl in Heat (1972; as George Devlin; Midwood 60203)
Swappers Unlimited (1974; as George Devlin; Midwood 60348)
Blonde Vixen (1978; as George Devlin; Midwood 61135) rp as 61765, 1981

Note: This is an abridged list, for his full oeuvre please see Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Smith_(fiction_author)

So I find it hard to believe that he is deeply offended at Hollywood smut, maybe he was taking the piss? Give ‘em what they think they want? Or maybe he was just cashing a check. Regardless it’s an interesting snapshot of conservative talking points.

And the dedication to conservative tropes also shackles him. He wants his cyberpunk dystopia cities to be shrouded in smog, but rather than going with deregulation and evil corporations polluting, instead he blames… (checks notes)… environmentalists. So there’s that. Of course a near-future dystopia book where the cops are the heroes is basically cyberpunk without the punk, cyber-establishment.



It does make me wonder if normal cyberpunk, see through a conservative lens, is just as one-dimensional and shrill. Say what you will about the EVL corporation and their policy on toxic waste, they do make some quality products.

I do have to wonder how this came about. The publisher – Pinnacle Crossfire – was an imprint that put out low budget mass-market sci fi books like V tie-in novels.



https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?48

Remember V? I mean the 2000s reboot was dull, the 80s TV series was pants, but those first two miniseries, they were ace. I’m sure I had some of these books.

So anyway, my first thought was it was publisher/editor-driven thing but the apparent politics that go beyond appealing to a demographic make them think this was more of an author’s vanity project. The apparent errors and general “first draft” feeling only feeds my believe. If so it’s an odd one, why would the author of Sorority Sluts want to publish an anti-porn screed, which is also pornographic itself.

We may never know.

So what did I get out of this and my 4000 words or so of rambling? Well I revisited the summer of 1985 and saw how we looked from that perspective. Obviously, NYPD 2025 is not a hard science prediction but it’s kind of neat to see the big fears were slipping public morals and panic over more diversity. Hindus?! On the streets of New York?!

It’s kind of a shame we didn’t get a series. Perhaps NYPD 2026 would have given us evil Japcorps, cyberninjas with laser katanas, Red Chinese human wave attacks and vampires. Illegal immigrant vampires. And of course the revelation that the traitor is actually one of Andy Jumble’s heads, probably the female one, you know how they are.

I wonder how much the rights would cost?

NYPD 2026-Defund COP TEN, coming soon!

Well, that was entertaining as always. If you were hoping to entice me to buy this book via this review though, you may be disappointed.

I'm still giggling over the porno titles, especially "Those Sexy Saucer People".

Well they did defund Cop 10, luckily billionaires were able to step in and keep funding them!

 ZergSmasher wrote:
There's a lot I'm not saying about your synopsis because of the politics ban on Dakka...

Wait... if there's a politics ban on Dakka, how come Kid can extensively poke fun at the politics of this Major Stryker bloke?

As an Aussie I'm all for poking fun at the politics of Americans of any and all stripes or stars at any and all times, but it seems a bit unfair.

Would a retro review of some over-the-top leftie fictional screed, that pokes fun at it from a vaguely centre-right position, be acceptable round here? Can't think of a suitable candidate off the top of my head, but there must be one somewhere.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:]He wants his cyberpunk dystopia cities to be shrouded in smog, but rather than going with deregulation and evil corporations polluting, instead he blames… (checks notes)… environmentalists.

I'm not sure about the US, but in Australia, historically, there's been a certain amount of debate about whether environmentalists have been too strongly opposed to nuclear power for emotive rather than practical reasons, thus delaying a shift away from fossil fuels in a coal-rich country and shooting themselves in the foot. I would guess Stryker was running with something along those lines.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I'm still giggling over the porno titles, especially "Those Sexy Saucer People".

The ambiguity is tantalising. Does it refer to sexy people from flying saucers, or people who are sexy because they're shaped like saucers?

My favourite title though is SEXODUS! The exclamation point really makes it zing.

I think it was fairly common for writers to write erotica as a way of paying the bills back in the day, whether they actually wanted to or not. Similar to artists taking commissions of a certain specialised nature these days (though I'm sure AI is putting a dent in that revenue stream now). Maybe Stryker was working some built-up 'ugh' out of his system with the anti-porn stuff in his book.

Then again, maybe he was secretly titillated by the things he was loudly denouncing. It's not unknown for people of a certain temperament to obsessively attack something sexual that actually fascinates them. That way, they can assure everyone that they're not into that filth--including themselves. Yet meanwhile they get to talk and write and think about it all the time...

The_Real_Chris wrote:Well they did defund Cop 10, luckily billionaires were able to step in and keep funding them!

Oh good point! Thank goodness for the Wealth Creators who can step in and fix problems that the know-nothings in the government cannot!

Zenithfleet wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
There's a lot I'm not saying about your synopsis because of the politics ban on Dakka...

Wait... if there's a politics ban on Dakka, how come Kid can extensively poke fun at the politics of this Major Stryker bloke?

I think that the politics of a forgotten sci fi book from forty years ago doesn't really violate our ban on politics here. I mean the time when NYPD 2025 was written is as far from today as WWII was from the 1980s.

But I'm now reading another 80s books set in the far distant future year of 2025 - Nature's End.

In the Grim Darkness of the Near Future there is Only Pollution!

https://www.amazon.com/Natures-End-Whitley-Strieber-ebook/dp/B01H18BM1O

Unlike NYPD 2025, my memory of Nature's End was that it was not half bad. Shrill and prone to long info dumps, but not half bad.

So we'll see.