A fun read, reminiscent of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy with it's seemingly completely unrelated scenes.  

 

A private eye gets stuck in some sort of virtual reality and has to escape to save the world by using the least most obvious least most obvious way so the guy who put him in there doesn't stop him.  Why he doesn't call it the second least most obvious way I don't know.  Maybe that's too obvious.

 

 

It was also Free Book Friday when I rolled, but this particular books covers both options so I'm going with the obvious one. Or the least obvious.

 

 

 

Hopefully this will be better than the last two.

Earlier this year, someone on an online forum I frequent offered to send a mystery box of books to anyone who would be willing to pay to have them shipped. Given that I like free books, I had read enough of this person's reviews to know he had good taste in fiction, and I always like to discover new books and authors, I took him up on his offer. I received a nice selection of books in a large Flat Rate box, and this was one of the books among them.

I've heard the name Robert Rankin before, but I didn't know much about him, and now that I've finished this book, I think maybe I was thinking this guy was Rudy Rucker, or even Charles Stross (I don't know how to explain how my memory works). I mean, Rankin probably has more in common with Terry Pratchett than either of those authors, given the nature of this book. Then again, the cover of the book features what could best be described as a dominatrix teapot, so I'm not sure why I was all that surprised.

The story follows a character named Doveston, narrated by his childhood friend Edwin, who has been by his side from his days as a fast-talking street urchin to a current-day (-ish) tobacco mogul. "Story", though, might be an overly generous term, as what little plot there is is just there to keep us moving from one random encounter to another. Sure, we see what drove Doveston on his journey, but mostly this book is a collection of humorous anecdotes from his life. One of those anecdotes involves the first time Doveston grew his own tobacco (genetically modified, of course) with plans to sell them at a Woodstock-type music festival in the London borough of Brentford. Hijinks, of course, ensue, namely because Doveston and Edwin are both around fifteen at the time of this anecdote, but also because Doveston's homegrown tobacco was genetically modified.

The book made me laugh at its absurdity. Rankin has a clever, witty style, coupled with a wacky imagination that I can appreciate. Doveston has a lot of charm, but he's also rarely every up to any good for anyone else; much of his antics develop because he's trying to get what he wants at the expense of others (which usually turns out to be Edwin). In fact, much of the story is keeping up with Doveston and predicting what's going to happen to him next.

I enjoyed the book, but not enough to seek out any of Rankin's other books. With Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett already on my shelf, and with Rankin feeling more like an imitator than an original, I just don't see myself picking up the rest of his catalog.

OK, I get it. Rankin's stories are undoubtedly cleverer than they first seem. The Fandom of the Operator, a story in part about fans and fannishness and the death of a revered author (sadly apposite given this week's events; but then books can come to you like that), begins in 1950s Brentford, with a possibly slightly morbid child determined to attend his favourite author's funeral; it ends, having passed through various surreal and satiric locations including an insanely bureaucratic telephone exchange, a criminal court with built-in execution chamber, and the restricted section of a city library, in some hyper-dimension where psychopaths play games with the lives of men. Or some such.

 

All of which is only to say that what seems a rather dull story gradually opens out in weirdness to something bizarrely meta about authorship. But, boy, do you have to wade through a whole load of crap to get there. Stilted dialogue, deus ex machinae, irritatingly glib characters; it's all here. And, yes, it's meant to be satirical and clever and meta, and it is undoubtedly well-constructed, in that everything pieces together in the end and everything has a point, but the whole thing is framed so irritatingly and tritely that I couldn't get behind it at all.

 

It's possible that I'm entirely the wrong audience for this book; I don't laugh easily, and this book wants you to laugh. But humour is a personal thing, and your mileage may vary. Personally, I'm glad to have finished this. It's not a patch on Discworld. *sobs quietly into sleeve*

Cornelius Murphy and his friend Tuppe set off on an epic adventure to find the missing papers of self-proclaimed Grand Master of Everything, Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune's book; The Book of Ultimate Truths. Starting out in Scotland, ready to buy the remaining items of an estate belonging to an old friend of Rune's, they make one too many enemies along the way, up to and including angry Scots.

Of all the authors I read, likeable and dislikeable, Robert Rankin is the only one that has taught me something in every single book. It may only be trivial matters, though can often be cultural gems, but every single book I read of his I have to hop on to Google and find out what he's talking about. His wonderful references to obscure little facts, or passing mentions of wonderful people who were alive long ago and have been forgotten by most, have been instrumental in my education of non-academic fancies.

I have yet to read every Rankin book, but thus far I have gleamed knowledge of the cornerstones of past cultures, from the academic to the (more often than not) occult. Crowley, Babbage, Tesla, Dadd: all were introduced to me via Rankin. Popular Culture also gets its foot in, from musicians to TV personalities: the kind of people that, as a young'un, have by-passed me because if it's not current, it's not popular, right?

Robert Rankin's writing is not sublime. It is often long-winded and he is very over-fond of the running gag. But he is the only writer who has ever made me laugh out loud in public (at a Cricket match, no less) and also sitting alone in my room. I cannot pick the book up again due to being unable to breath. No other writer has done that: not even Sir Terry Pratchett. He writes in the style of that secret voice we have in our mind, the one that is laughing at the person who has just tripped over, and won't stop giggling even as we help them up. It is the childlike voice that holds nothing sacred.