Hoo-boy, this is Fully Strapped, Always Packed (1993). This one is darker than dark. Ostensibly a weapons sourcebook – and there are plenty of gun stats in the back – most of the book is taken up by fiction depicting how widespread gun ownership and violence in the world of Underground has entirely warped the fabric of society. Daaaark.

We’ve got simulation transcripts in which the Marx Brothers are captured and tortured by a super group. We’ve got a transcript of a TV reality show called Combat Combat Combat that is basically filmed in a live war zone. We’ve got excerpts from Disposable Hero Quarterly, a gun magazine (ha, like they’d have printed magazines in the future) that oscillates between conspiracy theory-addled militia screeds and literal gun porn.

Past that are three sort of epistolary short stories, told in a dizzying array of fonts. There’s the story of a heretic who goes to war with the Neo-Vatican (previously Nicarauga), which is pretty forgettable, but ends with a sampling of different translations of a Bible verse across several futuristic versions of the bible, including the the National Rifle Association Holy Bible.

Next is paperwork detailing an arms manufacturer’s marketing plans which is pretty on-brand silly. Finally there is an ugly story I am not sure how to summarize, so I am opting to not. Like I said on Monday, sometimes it is super hard to have satire hit the mark.

Most Underground books I have read feel weirdly contemporary despite being 25+ years old. This one, though, feel reaallly 1993.