Nostrodamus Ate My Hamster

I’ve been musing about another book to write about but I’m unable to chose just the one from this author. So I’m going to write about him instead! I always remember reading a comment in, I think, The Time Literary Supplement which suggested that everyone should at least read one of his books in their life time. My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen I give you from the Order of the Golden Sprout Mr Robert Rankin.

(the orignal image and other great images can be found here)

Whilst living in the East End of London a chap by the name of Tony, who attended the same martial arts class, recommended a trilogy of books in a sci-fi/fantasy/humour genre worth reading. These were The Antipope, The Brentford Triangle, East of Ealing and the Sprouts of Wrath. Yes, there are now more books in what is known as The Brentford Trilogy but these were the first ones I read. The stories are based around the London Borough of Brentford (over to the west) and the home of Robert Rankin. The main participants in the various odd goings on are two anti-heroes, John Omally and Jim Pooley, who seem to spend most of their time in the bar of the Flying Swan. It’s tough to describe in a short(ish) blog post the bizarre situations that the two seem to find themselves in.

These books set the scene for the ones that follow. They are a heady mix of insane characters from Hugo Rune, a Guru’s Guru through to Neville, the full time part time barman of the Flying Swan via Elvis and Barry, a time-travelling sprout who lives in Elvis’ head. The tales themselves using urban tales, conspiracies and bizarre locations to drive the reader onwards wondering who on Earth he’s going to pull an ending together! There are many, many running gags that extend across the tales as though they are a tradition or an old charter or something and an obsession with the small green vegetable, the Brussels Sprout. He also uses the art and style of steampunk in some of his novels. Steampunk being that “alternate” reality where steam is still king. The machines are reminiscent of something that would have been built during the Victorian era (and you would probably find in the writings of H G Wells or Jules Verne).

I certainly think the first books are the place to start but amongst the others I particularly like are the Armageddon series (Armageddon: The Musical, They Came and Ate Us (Armageddon II: The B Movie), and The Suburban Book of the Dead (Armageddon III: The Remake), Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls and A Dog Called Demolition.

The great man himself is celebrated by his fanclub – The Order of the Golden Sprout. His biographies on the book covers as humorous (and ludicrous) as the stories themselves. He describes the style of writing as “Far Fetched Fiction” in the hope of getting his own section in the book shops. I live in hope that Robert’s work shall eventually be spoken of in the same circles as his contemporary author (and resident man of wackiness) Terry Pratchett. However, I suspect that his works are never going to grab the general public quite like the novels of the Discworld.

Reaper Man

I was a bit late coming to Terry Pratchett, to my loss, and the first of his books I picked up was Reaper Man. This was first published in 1991 but it was probably a couple of years after that before I read it.


Living in London there was always a commute to do to get home. Either by the Underground or by bus, if you wanted to see some daylight on the way home. I’d occasionally even take the bus if I was reading a particularly good book and wanted some “me” time to get some extra pages under my belt.

I remember as soon as I started reading Reaper man I was hooked. The easy style or Pratchett’s writing whilst still giving you a very visual image of the characters and the locations, giving Death a voice that was always in CAPITALS and the generally silly names all grabbed me. The one thing that really, really got me hooked was that it made me laugh. And not just that laugh that you do in your head but just remains a smile on your face. Oh no, these were proper laughs. The sort that, when you do them on public transport, people look at you in that peculiar way. But I didn’t care.

I finished that book on the way down to Plymouth to meet up with Sarah and stay over at her folks. At the time we were ‘just friends’. But that’s another story. I spent the three or so hours of the train journey giggling and laughing to myself.

But what is the story about? Well it’s about Death. A being who is charged with collecting the souls of the deceased from the world below, the Discworld. Unfortunately, for Death, he begins to develop a personality and his ‘bosses’, the Auditors of Reality (who I’m sure we all have in our lives), decide that this is not a good thing. So Death gets sent down to the Discworld and becomes a farm hand, by the name of Eric Door, for an aging lady.

However the replacement Deaths, one for each species, don’t work out as the Auditors expected. To make matters even worse the human Death is taking a long time to create. This leaves the Discworld with a growing number of souls with no idea what to do. That is just the start of the problems!

I won’t spoil the book if you’ve not picked it up, and as it was published 19 years ago shame on you and go grab a copy now, so the synopsis shall go no further than this. Terry Prachett is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an author that you should not shout about.

And if anyone does ask, yes, I do vaguely resemble the Librarian.