Do It Anyway

The Antipope is probably unlike any other book you will have read. Robert Rankin himself was awesomely described as The drinking mans HG Wells by some august publication or other (it might have been Time Out, I can’t be bothered to get up and dig out a book to check).

It’s an apt description to some degree but also does the man no favours. I remember reading he was mortified to know having a strap line from Pratchett was the best way to increase sales but I digress.

Mr Rankin portrays himself as a teller of tall tales and this is the first of them. A common locale for his stories is the London borough of Brentford (it hosts the Olympic games, and is apparently the site for the Garden of Eden amongst other things), in an indeterminate time period that has some modern technology but uses pre decimal coinage.

Ostensibly the book follows the exploits of two gentlemen of the parish, John Omally and James Pooley. They are the sort of gents who put more effort into not having a job than they would put into actually having a job. I have a mental picture of a sort of Lovejoy/Tinker set up without the antiques.  And with more drinking.

Rankin wrote a lot of his early books in the pub in spiral bound notebooks. He’d know he’d written enough for a novel when he’d filled a certain number of notebooks. This shows through in his writing, he has no love for computers, mobile phones or video games.

Whilst he might not love the modern, his clear affection for traditional drinking culture and the workings of the saloon bar. I’ve sat in a number of pubs in my time and Rankin captures the atmosphere so perfectly, even Inspector Morse wouldn’t be able to detect a problem.

The juxtaposition of the ordinary and the extra ordinary is dealt with in a very charming manner. Brentford has its own Gandalf figure in Professor Slocombe who introduces the arcane nicely.

This is probably one of my favourite reads and one of Rankin’s most accessible. Some of his later books don’t so much breech the 4th wall, as knock it down an rebuild it as a barbecue. The first three Brentford books, the Aramgeddon books and the Cornelius Murphy trilogy are all completely accessible to newbies and I would really recommend you give him a go.

The Walking Dead then, bit of a change here, this ones a comic. I’m not going to call it a graphic novel or anything pretentious like that, it’s 1,000 odd pages of pure and unadulterated zombie awesomeness.

It follows a group of survivors of some sort of apocalypse- we’re left vague to what this is as the main character Rick is in a coma for it and wakes up in an empty hospital- as they struggle to survive the zombie aftermath.

As the story progresses it becomes less and less about the zombies, after all there are only a limited number of ways people can be ripped to pieces by the undead, and more and more about the relationships between the survivors and how utterly horrible people can be to each other.

It gets increasingly bleak as it progresses, dealing with death, madness and a desensitisation to violence amongst other recurring themes.

The art work veers between the great and the clunky but the story is what matters and it is great. It’s a £45 RRP but currently only £25 at Amazon. Buy it whilst it’s still in print.

I kept this one in a brown paper bag when I was on the train. It’s a book group read and I must say it’s the first time I’ve read a book that has a glowing endorsement from Elle magazine splashed all over the cover. Oh the shame.

This pretends to be two stories about Hong Kong, during and after the war. One thread follows Claire in the early 1950’s as she comes to terms with her marriage of convenience in the new surroundings her husband Martin has been posted to. The second story takes place ten years earlier and follows Will during the lead up to and the actual Japanese occupation during the second world war.

It’s one of those novels that uses the jumping around between two periods/stories to make it more interesting but in this instance it doesn’t really work. It stays in one period for a very long chunk of the book and then drops you back to the 1950’s just at the wrong time.

When we discussed it at our February book group, a lot of us had trouble with the character Claire and her motivations. This kind of book is really about the rich and vibrant locale it is set in but it lives and dies by how believable it’s characters are and in this instance, the main female lead is unfortunately paper thin.

The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong was brutal and this is communicated pretty effectively by the author- the dissonance between the high society parties and the socialites getting their fingers broken one by one is stark. But overall it tries too hard- Will is supposed to be an enigma to Claire, he’s not particularly enigmatic, just rude. Claires supposed to be be this blossoming prude who flowers in the hot climate of Hong Kong, but she isn’t written with any sort of conviction unfortunately.

Having said that, my wife has picked it up and is currently hooked on it, so perhaps Elle has the right of it and I’m entirely wrong 🙂

Ender’s Game was written by an author who has a bit of notoriety for his views on homosexuality as much as he is known for his writing. I’ve no particular interest in the personal life of authors or musicians, Scott Card is a Mormon and some of their views don’t agree with my views (on life generally as well as Christianity) but that doesn’t really stop me enjoying a good read.

And Ender’s Game is a very good read. It details the experience of a group of hyper intelligent children, including the eponymous Ender Wiggins, who are recruited by the military to be trained as leaders for use in the inter stellar war with an insectoid race know as the “buggers”.  It’s intelligently written, deals with the violence and ruthlessness needed to be a keen military mind but above all it deals with the action in a pretty exciting and vivid manner.

It was originally written as a short story in the late 70’s, turned into a novel in the mid 80’s and revised for political sense in about 1991 (I think). Great books work regardless of when they’re written, popular webcomic xkcd has name checked it a couple of times, and thanks to the upates, its not really aged.

I loved it and I know I was in a minority for liking the sequels too. For as action orientated as Ender’s Game is, the sequel Speaker of the Dead isn’t. It is thoughtful, talky and contemplative, almost philosophical and still a bloody good read. Orson Scott Card has written an awful lot of science fiction so it’s difficult to know where to start, so to that end, this is probably the place to start.