retromancer – robert rankin

i work in a bookstore. it’s not the most well-paid job in the world, but it sometimes has its perks.

one of these perks is that we have reps from various publishers come by trying to flog their latest schlock (and let’s admit it – a lot of it really IS schlock), and sometimes they like to leave behind what they call “uncorrected proofs” or “reading copies.”

either way it amounts to a free book.

i hear you cheering and can tell you’re feeling a bit snarky about it, but let me tell you – most of it i wouldn’t read if you paid me by the word. it’s rubbish. the reps have, then, come to see me as something of a challenge. they bring me stuff and i say, “pfft – i won’t read that.”

every now and then, though, about once in a blue moon – one of the reps hits gold. last time it was the rep from random who gave me gone away world by nick harkaway – my book of the year for 2008. this year, it’s hachette who came to the party with a shovel in one hand and a nugget of gold in the other which looks just like a book but iw asn’t sure until i opened it up to have a flick through.

now, i can say i’ve heard of robert rankin. although i’m in australia, we’re not totally out of touch with the world – it’s just we don’t get much of it. about a year ago, i started looking up some new writers for me as i was fast running out of the weirdness australia could offer. i’m a big fan of weird, you see. anything different is good – so long as it has something of a sense of humour, poetic dialogue, surreal elements or sometimes (if i’m very lucky) all of these combined. i had a choice in january to order robert rankin or christopher moore. at the time i chose christopher moore. i think because rankin’s toyminator cover looked too jasper fforde to me, and i have to say i’m not a jasper fan. admittedly i’ve only read a few of his thursday next books, but they just didn’t do it for me in the same way terry pratchett doesn’t do it for me – and i really did try! i meant to order a rankin in after reading moore’s book, but i ended up catching hold of a jon courtenay grimwood book, and unfortunately never got back to rankin as i was completely blown away by grimwood’s books at the time and forgot about ordering in the rankin.

anyway, a few weeks ago, our hachette rep dropped in and asked if i’d like to try retromancer. she’d been thinking of me because, well, because i’m weird and hard to please. flattery aside, i tentatively said, “umm, ok.”

why tentative? because i KNOW comedy. comedy, to me, is douglas adams. the end. what i mean is, the whole book should be funny, not just the last sentence of every chapter, or the odd one-liner here. i mean, EVERY single sentence.

it’s why fforde and pratchett, to me, just aren’t funny. they’re funny here and there, sure, but for me a comedy books should just flow and be funny all the time. the hitch hiker’s guide to the galaxy is the funniest book in existence, and everything i read is, alas, measured against it. i mean, you can open adams’ book anywhere you damn well please and you will start giggling. every sentence resonates with this englishness which is so cheerfully funny that it pretty much slays me when i re-re-re-re-re-re-re-reread this classic. and i do. all the time. so, when someone says, “this is such a funny book!” i know i am 99% safe to express the opinion, “pfft. i doubt it’s even half as funny as douglas adams.”

and i’m always right.

so she handed me this book, and i looked at it. nice cover and all, but that’s hardly the be all and end all, really. unimpressed, i put it upstairs to read later, and went on with what i was doing. the next day i opened it up and had a bit of a flick through during my lunchbreak. and that’s when i started to read my very first robert rankin book, and i really want to tell you about it so much right now that i hurried home and made a sandwich for dinner so i didn’t have to waste ranting time by actually doing anything so wasteful as eating.

retromancer competes very strongly with snail by eric dando, for title of second funniest book in existence. there. i said it. okay? happy? in fact, i’m trying to come to terms with my inability to choose which is funnier by justifying it like this:

if the hitch hiker’s guide the galaxy is the funniest book in existence it is, then, the only book which can receive a prize. it stands at the top of the podium and looks all smug and self-satisfied. subsequently there must be a second place however, being second, it’s often represented by the number 2, and we all know that the number 2 represents 2 individual items, right? so, therefore, there must be two number 2s! right? am i right or am i right?

genius.

problem solvered.

the only thing wrong with my logic is this is the first robert rankin i’ve ever read and i’m terrified of what might happen to my stable world if they’re funnier than this one.

retromancer is part of an ongoing series of novels by my new bestest favouritest author of today ever, and stars one of his recurring heroes, jim pooley who is dubbed rizla by hugo rune – a man who “offers the world his genius, and asks only, in return, that the world cover his expenses.”

hugo and rizla are the perfect team. the comedy duo had me in stitches from the opening word (that word is “he” by the way), and the pace of this novel just didn’t let up. it’s told in parts – each representing a tarot card. this is quite fitting as anyone who mucks about with the odd bit of tarot is familiar of the concept of them representing a journey with the order in which they’re drawn being the method by which the journey is foretold. did that make sense? probably not, but tarot cards were never my thing ever since i figured them out to be a wheel. round things frighten me. they’re too much like the number eight, and that leads to infinity, chaos and then jumbles into my other occult beliefs so hard i get a headache. these days i use dice. much easier and mine only have six sides – none of this dungeons and dragons nonsense. d24. who do you think you ARE? six sides not good enough for you, eh?

the plot’s fairly normal – hugo and rizla are to save the world from the evil count black. in doing so they must travel back to 1944 and there they must fight all manner of evil including werewolves, jewel thieves, ghostly clowns and many others too insane to mention here on an obviously sensible website. more importantly, they must do this between breakfasts, lunches, and dinners and the occaisional bout of fortifying ones thirsty self with all manner of delightful alcoholic beverages drawn straight from your font list. what i loved truly about this cheerful couple of heroes was, simply, their class. everything they did, they did with class.

rankin also loves to reference. his references in this one kept me going, and i was particularly proud to have recognised the sloop john b joke – not because i’m a beach boys fan, but because i was a fan of alan dean foster’s spellsinger series so was able to spray coke out through my nostrils (mister rankin, you owe me for that), while stuttering – this is the worst trip i’ve ever been on! happy to have gotten this little gag, and happy to have picked up a few others along the way, i was able to feel included into the novel in a very nice way. the lord of the rings gags just killed me. absolutely killed me. i needed to be resuscitated and i’m sending mister rankin the bill for that, too.

rankin has odd little asides, too, almost like he acknowledges your presence and gives you a bit of a nudge in the ribs to say hi. jim aka rizla speaks often of the “running gags” and reference is made of a book he’ll write called retromancer.

he was a delight to read from beginning to end, with a natural unforced humour that is impossible to emulate. it had that something special i search so desperately for in humorous novels – namely that it’s funny. if this is what robert rankin is like, then it is absolutely no wonder he has a fan following (and his own raygun, i see, on facebook).

the thing i was thinking about most while i read this was that for some ungodly reason they’ve asked some guy called eoin colfer to write what is an obvious blasphemy when they really should have approached robert rankin who, had he any inclination to do so, would have very probably created something exceedingly special. he has that truly english humour and in such a way that i laughed so hard i cracked both funny bones in five places and wet my pants twice. my lawyer says i have a very strong case and we might be able to sue.

my hachette rep claims hachette will be releasing rankin’s backlist into australia. this is good news. it saves me having to order these things from overseas. i’m so looking forward to it that i’ve been bouncing on my heels waiting for my rep to come back so i can find out if by chance they have any other rankin books floating around in the meantime. i’m desperate, here! i must have them all NOW! PRECIOUSSSSSSSS™!

if you read no other book this year, you need to read this – retromancer by robert rankin. i’d love to call it my book of the year for 2009, but it’s not out yet. it will be released in australia in january or february, and i know i’m ordering in a bunch for my store. i know i’ll be selling this one by the crate. already i can’t stop telling everyone about it. it’s the most exciting thing to be heading to australia since … well. nothing really exciting has headed here before!

i also noticed this crazy and eccentric man has his own fanclub. you really should check it out. the tshirts alone look to be things i will die without. i need one. i must have one, even if i have to pretend to be living in the UK to get. after reading just this one book, i can honestly see why his fans are so rabidly obsessed with him. these aren’t books which are written as good books. they do seem genuinely written just for his fans. you have the feeling as you read that he’s including you in on the joke. it’s a hard thing to describe, but i honestly felt this book was written just for me.

and i won’t let you tell me otherwise!

Tags: books, humour, library, my library, review, robert rankin, scifi