Jenny is bored; really bored... until she discovers that there is a local election. At twelve, Jenny has no idea that becoming an MP is an unrealistic idea, so she goes ahead and enters herself as a candidate. Supported by her Gran, Jenny unexpectedly wins the election and travels to London to take her seat. Unhappy with what this actually means she declares herself dictator of England...

The Young Dictator is a new satirical novel by Rhys Hughes, a welsh author who is well on the way to complete his thousand story cycle. In his latest novel Hughes has decided to pile surreal situations and characters to create a cornucopia of the weird.

From a stylistic point of view Hughes lets Jenny tell the story, so it is appropriate that the language is what one would expect from a teenager, whose written form is basic, containing a mixture of naive language use infused with the occasional vocabulary which is a little beyond her years. I’m guessing that this was a deliberate artistic choice as I have read other works by the author which presented a more mature use of style.

We follow Jenny from her initial dictatorship of England, which is opposed by the middle classes, headed by her mum and dad to her eventual conquest of the universe and hell. Through all this, she is accompanied by the malevolent presence of her Gran.

Much of the story is presented with little in the way of explanation or discussion. Like many her age, Jenny lacks the empathy which will come with maturity and so accepts both the wonderful and the horrific with an equal outlook of mild disinterest.

Although this is a political satire aimed at the young adult audience, Hughes makes no effort to moralise or force his own political theories on the audience; he would rather offer puns which highlight the stupidity of most of the political masses.

The style may turn some off, but overall Dictator must rank as one of the weirdest books of 2013.

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Charles Packer