Not Very Great At All (Robert Rankin in general)

Member Name: Mitnik

Product:	Robert Rankin in general
Date:	12/11/02 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some very funny bits involving Sate-Hen

Disadvantages: Too many to list Read the Op

[Op on "Greatest Show Off Earth"] - Will be moved in the Fullness of Time.

I`ve now read quite a few Robert Rankin (a Twelfth Dan Master of Dimac and Magus to the Illuminated order of the Celestial Sprout, incase you didn`t know.) books but still i haven`t decided for certain if i actually like his writing style or not, he has a certain unique humour, but it tends to dwell very near the bottom of the gutter, he lacks the wit of Pratchett and the creativity of Holt, but still.. a change is as good as a rest, so i continue to read each new novel to see if he`s finally done something to persuade me off the fence and onto one side of the garden..

This is actually Mr. Rankin's tenth book, and is based in the sleepy village of Bramfield, where the focus is on Raymond the hapless hero? of this story. who's busy leading his harmless life, doing lots of little harmless things, until.. (as often happens to hapless harmless folk, the world over.) he's sucked up by a Flying Starfish from Uranus. and from here the story leaves the harmless hapless antics behind and takes a very bizarre twist indeed.. before too long Raymond ends up for auction on Venus, where he`s purchased by a family of very strange looking beings indeed, all seems to be going well, until it becomes clear that he`s been purchased to be the meat in the sundays roast, but luckily? his rescue comes in the form of a traveling circus..

but then this isn't an ordinary traveling circus; oh no, for this is the circus of Professor Merlin, who's circus drifts between the planets in a victorian steamship, and the circus artistes perform the feats that simply can't be done. the Professor has a little job for Raymond. release the two hundred people held captive on saturn (oh and if it's not too much trouble, could he also save Planet Earth from extinction by friday...) so as you see Raymond really has left his hapless harmless life well behind him, and it`s t
he writing of the character Raymond that i`m most disappointed in, either i missed a brain transplant along the way, or Raymond getting a knock over the head or whatever, but this character just isn`t consistent. maybe i missed mention of his schizophrenic personality, but to me this whole lack of continuity was a massive disappointment.

but apart from that rather major flaw, the flow of this story certainly is manic to the point of breakneck plot twists, where the author seems to have suddenly changed his mind about what in fact happened two pages ago.. but in the end it was the comedy that kept me reading to the bitter end, the jokes range from incomprehensible to infantile, and the overall bawdiness is the kind to be found in many a pub around midnight or later, and well the aliens contained within the pages of this story are the standard b-movie aliens you`d find in many a twilight zone episode (in fact one of rankin's earlier novels is called "they came and ate us: armageddon ii, the b-movie", a title i feel would really be more appropriate to this novel than to the one it actually adorns..)

and i couldn`t finish this review without taking just a moment to say that i`m not negative towards everything in this book, no. i actually have a favourite plot line. (shock!! horror!!) you see, Raymond's not the only one that`s been having problems, his best friend Simon has been having a rough time too he's come into the possession of a book detailing the future. which begins all manner of troubles for him, and before long he's hunted by the men in grey, falsely accused of being a serial killer and thrown into the clutches of the sinister B.E.A.S.T (an end times cult that worships the demonic half-man half-chicken, sate-hen).

and that alone might make this book worth reading, but only just...

I don`t like to write negative reviews, so I have once more re-read this book to see if there is something I`ve missed
on previous readings, but sadly I`m still left feeling that Robert Rankin is just not my kind of author (for reasons stated above) There is no denying he has his fans, he even has an unofficial official website full of them but at the end of the day I`m always left feeling this book could have been so much better if it`d been left to a true comic genius the ideas here do have their comic merit and the storyline could have been a strong one but at the end of the day it`s been let down by an author who would probably be better suited to writing the innards of Adult Comedy Cards.

Summary: