About the Author:
Born in England in 1949, Robert Rankin is a writer of fiction. His novels tend to be a bizarre admixture of Humor, Science Fiction, Occult, and Fantasy. The style of his novels tends to rely on running gags and dressing urban legend up as fact. Rankin has had many of his novels become best sellers.
I first became aware of Robert Rankin in a bookshop in Dallas, Texas. At the time, I was hopscotching my way around the country on a daisy-chained business trip that took me to twelve cities in twelve weeks. I had gone through all the books I had brought with me and was looking for something to entertain me for the last few days of the trip. What caught my eye was a book with Elvis on the cover: Armageddon the Musical. I have read a few of his others and they are all entertaining.
About the Book:
The main character, Gary Cheese, is just a guy trying to get through life.
We see him grow up and do all the things that guys do while growing up. He question the meaning of life, well the meaning of death, actually, he doesn't get the point of death. He falls in love. He commits a number of youthful discretions. Oh, and he steals a book of black magic from the secret section of the library (ever library has one - but then, if you knew about it it wouldn't be secret, would it?) and tries and raise his best author from the dead.Eventually, he settles down and gets a job. Well, he is more-or-less forced to get a job. It is, after all the seventies. Nobody, and I mean nobody, was unemployed in the seventies. Or, so the story goes. The first person to apply for any job got it. It was the law. The job that Gary gets is that of a Telecommunications Technician for the local telephone exchange. I won't spoil anything by explaining what, exactly that is, but suffice it to say it leaves him plenty of time to suss-out exactly what is going on at the Brentford telephone exchange.
As novels by this author go, this one was a disappointment. Sure, it had its moments, but it was not as good an many of his had been. If you are not already a fan, start with another novel. "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse" is a good one. I enjoyed it, but it was not his best work.
On my rating scale of up to five bus transfers, I rate this book three transfers. It is better than watching the recovery from a road accident, but it will definitely not keep you from talking to your neighbor on a long bus ride.
Next week: Time and Again by Jack Finney
Don Bergquist - 21-September-2005 - Lakewood, Colorado
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