Armageddon the Musical - Robert Rankin

The year is 2050. It's fifty years on from the Nuclear Holocaust Event (NHE), as the media dubbed it and life on Earth has changed far beyond our recognition. Everyone lives in bunkers and watches TV to gain credits for food and medico items. Food might be pushing the term a bit though, because it's synthetically manufactured (sounds like ready-meals to me, but there you go). Rex Mundi is just starting a new job, thanks to his sister, Gloria, working for Dalai Dan, 153rd reincarnation of the Dalai lama. Dalai Dan is one of the big three nowadays. That is to say, there are no governments as such and most of what's left of civilisation is controlled ...  Read the complete review

I thought that Terry Pratchett, Terry Brooks, Tom Holt and the late and greatly missed Douglas Adams were the only people who could inject a little fun into a staid genre such as fantasy. Then I discovered Robert Rankin. Now I only take one book into the shower. Who else could come up with the idea of a time travelling sprout called "Barry", a one-eyed part-time barman called Neville and Lazlo Woodbine, pulp fiction detective extraordinary. Rankin's universe is centred on Brentford and the whole of human existence is there, in all its' absurdity. From "The Road that Dare not Speak its' Name" to "The Shrunken ...  Read the complete review

Robert Rankin is a very funny man. Armageddon the Musical is a very funny book. Do you see? Rankin writes like Captain Beefheart made music. It's all to easy the miss the importance of what he's doing due to the stench of hilarity that permeates everything he does. Arguably, his powers are dwindling nowadays, but AtM finds him their acme. It is a sprawling, insane, irreverant, and laugh-out-loud funny piece of wrong-headedness. It shouldn't work but it does. Elvis features strongly. A sprout called Barry is both a pivotal plot point and a central character. The seemingly random, throw everything in the pot and add a hearty dash of funny ...  Read the complete review