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Everyone likes that nice Mr. Doveston. In fact they all like him so much, they've elected him to the post of Prime Minister. And as a student in the teachings of Hugo Rune, Mr. Doveston knows just how to sort the country out from the ground up. And it all starts with footwear. ... Read more

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We read him for his exuberant salmagundi of old jokes, myths, urban and otherwise, catchphrases, liberatingly crazy ideas, running gags, recurring characters and locations, unreliable autobiographical anecdotes, and not forgetting the now legendary 'load of old toot'. He becomes funnier the more you read him' Mat Coward, Independent on The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag Society's plug is about to be pulled, big time. At the stroke of midnight on 31 December 1999, computer systems all over the world will crash and plunge us into chaos. But so what if it's the downfall of civilization? These things happen. We'll just have to take it on the chin. Or at least up the nose. Because rejoice and give thanks, snuff is making a comeback. And who do we thank for this? Who is the man who brings joy to the nostrils of the nation? The tender blender with the blinder grinder? The master blaster with the louder powder? The geezer with the sneezer that's a real crowd pleaser? Mr Doveston, that's who, and this is his story. So forget about impending doom and enter the glamorous world of snuff-snorting. Oh, and don't forget to bring a hanky. Things could get a little messy later.Robert Rankin's novel gleefully chronicles the collapse of civilisation, as the world slides into chaos with a smile on its face and a finger up its nose. Is it prophetic vision of an imminent dystopia? Or just the rabid ranting of a snuff-crazed technophobe? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Big AH-CHOO
Fantastic stuff!If only Rankin had a U.S. publisher the prices of his hysterical books would be a little more tolerable. "Snuff Fiction" is one of his best, a pseudo-memoir written in 2008 about the life of the Doveston, purveyor of the world's bestest tobacco & explosives.

While all Rankin's books are funny, this one's plot lifts it above the rest.All too often Rankin drops plot threads and writes in (intentionally) dense prose."Snuff Fiction" has his trademark hyper-kinetic writing style while, for once, admirably wrapping everything up at the end.It's a great balance of clever storytelling, some effectively disturbing passages, and overall a lot of laughs.

Buy this book! ... Read more

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Product Description
Few people noticed it at first.The changes.They weresubtle to begin with. Like when the Leader of the Oppositionchallenged the PM to step outside and settle things man to man.Andthe PM agreed.Or when the baked ham rose up against Dave while hewas standing in the check-out queue at Budgens.Small things.butthey just kept getting bigger.And by the time everyone realized thatsomething very strange was going on, it was all the too late.

The Earth had left behind the age of science and reason and moved oncemore into a time of myth.A time of legend and heroes.Of romanceand wizardry and wonder.It was time to take the mother of all giantleaps and enter -- The garden of Unearthly Delights. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Crazy as a holy trout
Weird, wacky, wild. Crazy,cracking, cold. Barmy, bonkers, batty. Strange, stupid, silly.

Sorely Maligned
This is a rare foray into pure fantasy for Rankin, and this genre switch,along with it not being part of a series - something Rankin had hithertopretty much stuck to - threw quite a few of his readers, and as such thisbook has become possibly the most underrated of his works. Having recentlyre-read it, i found "The Garden..." to be absolutely,fantastically insane, and I think Rankin should, once again, be applaudedfor having the guts to just let his imagination flow onto the page, anddamn the conventions of "sanity." Max Carrion, Imagineer, is oneof Rankin's best characters, and people should give this book more of achance. ... Read more

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QUIVER AT! horrible demonic stuff oozing out of computer screens!

SHOCK HORROR! Elvis Presley pulling his face off

GASP AT! a talking brussels sprout!

SEE! Cannibals on the rampage!

HEAR! Fido the Dog do Frankie Howerd impressions!

SEE! Rex Mundi, Rambo Bloodaxe, Deathblade Eric, Hugo Rune and a cast of millions caught up in Events Beyond Their Control!

THRILL TO! all the loose ends from Armageddon The Musical magically tied up!

WATCH! A comic genius doing the business!

SEE? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Not the best Rankin
Being an avid Rankin reader, I was a bit disappointed about this follow-upto the excellent original. Armageddon II contains the trademark humour ofall Rankin books, but has a poorly-planned, confused plot and an endingwhich ultimately makes the entire tome pointless. Worth a read but if youare new to Rankin "Sprout Mask Replica", the original Armageddonor even "Nostradamus Ate My Hamster" would be better to beginwith.

A note to all Hugo Rune fans: If you didn't know, he plays anactive role in "The Book of Ultimate Truths". Read that NOW!

Even funnier than the brilliant original!
The continuing adventures of Rex Mundi, Elvis and Barry the Time Sprout amongst others, which surpasses even the original which was hysterical. This is the funniest book of its type since The Hitchhiker's Guide to theGalaxy. The best parts of the book are the introductions to each chapterwhich seem to be totally unrelated to the story but gain more relevance asthe book goes on; the best one with the two wildly differing accounts ofHugo Rune turning himself invisible.A must read if you like that sort ofthing.

the funniest ever!!!
This was one of the wittiest, and most comical books I have ever read.It made me laugh continuously from beginning to end.Much in the vein of Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett.Make sure to pick up the other twobooks in the series.

Strange
Kind of a strang book. Or should I say very strange.This is for very young kids. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Comprehensive Compendium
This book covers the entire spectrum of small arms of the American sea services in detail.I would highly recommend the book and this particular seller if you are a militaria buff.Both get a "Bravo Zulu" from me. ... Read more

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Norman's definitely dead. His dad fell out of the sky and flattened him. And as Norman didn't want any regular full-time employment before he died, he certainly doesn't want any now, especially here at the Universal Reincarnation Company. There are too many filing cabinets and too much paperwork. ... Read more

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Bloodly Brilliant
One of the most amusing and enteraining books I have read. Well written, humour all the way through and a sheep called Boris. The one bad point is that Barry the brussel sprout is not featured!!!! ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Paul Merton, Robert Rankin, Janet Street-Porter, Toni Halliday, Anastasia Robinson. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 40. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Paul Merton (born Paul James Martin; 9 July 1957) is an English comedian, writer and actor. Known for his improvisation skill, his humour is rooted in deadpan, surreal and sometimes dark comedy. Considered by a number of critics, fellow comedians and members of the public to be among Britain's greatest comedians, he is well known for his regular appearances as a team captain on the popular BBC panel game Have I Got News for You, as a regular panellist on Radio 4's Just a Minute and as one of Comedy Store's Comedy Store Players. Merton was born on 9 July 1957 in Parsons Green, London to an English father (a train driver on the London Underground) and an Irish mother. When his mother returned to work as a nurse, Merton and his younger sister were looked after by their grandfather, who lived with them in their council flat. He failed his eleven plus, and famously received an unclassified grade for metalwork at CSE before moving on to Wimbledon College, a Jesuit-run secondary school that had just become a comprehensive. His experience of victimisation there as a working-class boy became a frequent subject of his comedy. After leaving school, Merton worked at the Tooting Employment Office for three years. Merton married the actress Caroline Quentin in 1990, but they divorced in 1998. Merton subsequently had a relationship with producer and actress Sarah Parkinson; they were married unofficially in a service in the Maldives in 2000. They were officially married three months before her death from breast cancer on 23 September 2003. He married fellow improviser Suki Webster in 2009, and lives in Suffolk. Merton has suffered from...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=151389 ... Read more

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This digital document, covering the life and work of Robert P(arks) Rankin, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thomson Gale. The length of the entry is 375 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

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This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: The Antipope, the Brightonomicon, the Toyminator, the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, the Witches of Chiswick, the Book of Ultimate Truths, the Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived, a Dog Called Demolition, Knees up Mother Earth, Nostradamus Ate My Hamster, Waiting for Godalming, the Garden of Unearthly Delights, Raiders of the Lost Car Park, the Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code, Apocalypso, the Dance of the Voodoo Handbag. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Antipope is a comic fantasy novel by the British author Robert Rankin. It is Rankin's first novel, and the first book in the "now legendary" Brentford Trilogy (which, as of November 2006, consists of 8 novels). The book was first published in 1981 by Pan Books, and from 1991 by Corgi books, an imprint of Transworld Publishers. Although typically found in the Science Fiction section of bookshops, it is a difficult novel to categorise; Rankin himself wanted to create a new genre of fiction, called "Far Fetched Fiction", so that he would have his own book shelf in Smiths. The Antipope charts Brentford's anti-heroes' (Jim Pooley and John Omally) drinking, work avoidance, drinking, womanising, and further drinking as they try to foil the eponymous antipope in his demonic attempt to establish a new Holy See. Jim Pooley and John Omally live in the London borough of Brentford, spending much of their time drinking in the Flying Swan, backing horses, womanising, and being generally feckless. Their problems start when Archroy's wife sells his beloved Morris Minor for five magic beans. Or perhaps they start when a hideous tramp appears in the neighbourhood, putting the wind up Neville the part-time barman something rotten. To cut a long story short, the tramp is none other than...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=8066922 ... Read more

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A meticulous travelogue following in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson in his travels from Edinburgh to the South Seas. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

"If you don't like Stevenson, there must be something wrong with you."
So said Jorge Luis Borges about Robert Louis Stevenson.I would not make quite so emphatic a statement, but I do like the fiction of RLS -- very much so, more than I like the fiction of Borges for that matter.The quote is one of many comments by literary luminaries on RLS from Nicholas Rankin's DEAD MAN'S CHEST, which, in addition to being part literary criticism, is also part biography and part travelogue.And the sum of those parts is a very engaging book.

DEAD MAN'S CHEST is structured around the author's travels, circa 1984, to the various places around the world that RLS lived:Edinburgh, where RLS was born and raised; the Hebrides, including Earraid (the island of "Kidnapped"); France; the United States, including Monterey, Napa Valley, and Saranac Lake, N.Y.; and the Pacific, including Hawaii and Samoa, where he died, age 44.

By the end of the book, the reader has a very good feel and sense for RLS.He certainly was imaginative, likeable, humane, and compassionate.Above all, perhaps, he transcended race and social class and conventions in his dealings with others.His life would have been a remarkable and admirable one, worthy of a biography, had he never published any of his tales, novels, or poetry.Although it is not strictly a biography and does not attempt to recount RLS's life in detail from cradle to grave, DEAD MAN'S CHEST is more successful in portraying a "three-dimensional" RLS than was the more conventional biography of him I read years ago (Ian Bell's "Dreams of Exile").

With regard to Stevenson's success as a writer, Rankin, I think, neatly captures his most distinctive quality:"Stevenson's gift is to strike up a personal relationship with the reader, sharing every experience, even down to the glow of his night-time cigarette reflected in the silver ring on his hand.He is a palpable self in the darkness; an immediate living presence throughout the book."

I rarely comment negatively on others' reviews, but in this instance I feel compelled to state that the one previous review of DEAD MAN'S CHEST is grossly misleading.Yes, Rankin writes a few harsh things about the U.S. and Americans vintage 1984, but those sour comments are made in passing; the book is NOT an anti-American diatribe. Rather, most decidedly, DEAD MAN'S CHEST is about Robert Louis Stevenson. For RLS enthusiasts it is, easily, a five-star book.For others it might not merit a full five stars, but I will award it the full five, in part to offset the ridiculously Scroogelike single star given by the other reviewer.

Lost in America
"Dead Man's Chest: or, Why I Hate America" by Nicholas Rankin, is actually a misnomer of sorts; Mr. Rankin never actually tells us why he hates America, only that he does. The bulk of the manuscript deals mostly with the author's struggle to reconcile his desire to write with his inablilty to see anything good in any country other than his own.

The book begins innocuously enough, with some more or less good writing focusing largely on Robert Louis Stevenson's life and works. When Mr. Rankin arrives in America, however, the thread of his narrative and his credibility as both a biographer and travel writer falls apart. Given over to the tired and predictable cliche' attitudes that most untravelled socialist Britons have about the U.S., his writing devolves into a harried and convoluted screed against the nation to which his country owes its very existence (twice over).

Mr. Rankin's predilication for anti-Americanism is typical of the stay-at-home European whose knowledge of America is, ironically enough, derived from a (mis)information base built largely and obviously on watching admittedly insipid American TV. Mr. Rankin's "observations" are no less insipid. His assertions that Americans are filty, uneducated, violent, and uncultured are only made more ridiculous (though somewhat understandable) by the fact that his exposure to American culture is limited almost exclusively to people met in dives and on Greyhound buses. His statement that "recreational drugs are part of the American way of life (p. 225)," were it not so pitifully childlike in both its ignorance and prejudice, has the potential to be humorously insulting. However, one need look no farther than Mr. Rankin's obviously outdated, uncultured and hackneyed "You Americans" mentality to arrive at the inescapable conclusion that one must take his opinions, the book in which they are written and Mr. Rankin himself for what they are worth: nothing at all.

Skim "Dead Man's Chest" for its RLS content and skip the rhetoric, and you might have a slim chance of enjoying this thinly disguised socio-politic diatribe. Better still, use it as a prop for that wobbly bureau in the attic.
... Read more

Product Description
At last! Eddie Bear-hero of Robert Rankin's award-winning fairytale-noir masterpiece, The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse-returns in this longed-for sequel.Somewhere over the rainbow and beyond the Yellow Brick Road stands Toy City, formerly known as Toy Town. And things are not going well for the city's inhabitants. There have been outbreaks of STC-Spontaneous Toy Combustion-and strange signs and portents in the Heavens. Preachers of Toy City's many religions are predicting that the End Times are nigh and that a Toy City Apocalypse will soon come to pass. But can it be true? Or is there a simple explanation-alien invasion, for instance? With the body count rising and the forces of law and order baffled, it's time for a hero to step forward and save the day. Well, two heroes actually. Eddie Bear, Toy City Private Eye, and his loyal sidekick, Jack. And they are about to face their biggest challenge yet: to save not only toykind, but mankind as well. Which should keep them out of the pub for awhile. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

More than Child's Play
For those who loved "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse", the sequel "The Toyminator" is a total delight.My only regret is in having waiting so long to read this book after reading the original.

This particular book sees Eddie the Bear and Jack the Meathead reforming their detective duo after a series of STC's (Spontaneous Toy Combustions).With many of the same eclectic characters from the previous book in the background, previous quirks are expanded.The predictaments that our duo encounter are both absurd and hilarious.Mixing in elements of the world as we know it with Toy City, Hollywood celebrities are even engulfed in this vast plot.

While Rankin is often noted for his humor, his social commentary on consumerism, the corperate world, and government is often blistering.Though Rankin's British humor is far less appreciated in the states than Terry Pratchett, Rankin's stories never seem to run thin.Rather than being looped in the same world and same jokes, Rankin continues to be fresh and relevant.One need not stand on his head to feel the buzz. ... Read more