Customer Reviews

The Greatest Show Off Earth

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Robert Rankin has without doubt the most bizarre sense of humour that I've run across. This isn't a bad thing, but it is a character trait I enjoy in a writer. I enjoy almost all I read by him, and this book is just as good as his others. People in danger on worlds far away, the cult of the daemon chicken Sate-Hen, an abomination of nature and of err... nature too, if you take my meaning and I'm sure that you do, and an abduction by astro starfish! What more could you wish for, cept a pint n a nice seat to sit on while you read. Make mine a large!

I stumbled upon this second hand book in a little store in Egypt (of all places) and read the whole thing through in less then two days. Not that it's this short, it's this good ! It completely obliterated all interest I had in pharao's and pyramids, i just couldn't put it down.

If you like Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchet, you're gonna love this.

It's the first book of Robert Rankin i read and here I am, coming back for more.. ;-)

I will never tire of this book. In the three years since I first discovered it, I have read it well over ten times. Excellent value for money. A lot of Rankin's fans treat this as his worst bok, I say it is his best. It is superbly off-the-wall, with likeable, funny characters, and moments that continue to make me laugh out loud every time. Should be retitled The Greatest Book on Earth.

When you read a Rankin you have a good idea what your in for: wacky characters, daft running gags,a completely over-the-top plot and hours of humourous entertainment. 'The Greatest Show Off Earth' delivers this and more. If you are struggling to find good humour since the demise of Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers and Dirk Gently series then look no further than Rankin.

Considering that this is a comic novel, I found it completely lacking in humour. Sure, it was full of crazy ideas and events, but being crazy doesn't automatically equate to being funny. Throughout the entire novel, I couldn't manage a smile once. Even a very small smile.

I think the following factors contributed to its lack of comedy:

A.) Pop culture references or inside jokes I've never heard of. Who is Helen Mirren? What is Millwall (beyond the obvious soccer hooliganism) and why do they hate Manchester United? And what on *earth* is a dangling lovely supposed to be? And what does "lovely left to hang" mean? A lovely what? A lovely woman? A lovely metaphor? A lovely rope (since it hangs)? And what was it "left" from? Left over from the accident that occurred just before? And "boom shanka?" Huh? It just didn't make any sense to me. The book is chock full of obscure references like these. I'm only 24 - maybe these things come from outside my generation. I'm also Australian, so perhaps these expressions are only used in England. But still, they were major obstacles to being able to find humour in this book.

B.) Running gags. I didn't find the jokes funny the first time I read them, and they definitely weren't funny the twentieth time I read them. They *were* annoying by that stage. Surely the point could have been made just once or twice, without the repetition.

C.) The topic matter. For example, I don't see what's supposed to be funny about Simon wearing a new hat (or not). It's a hat. He doesn't wear it. Everybody else is apparently oblivious to this. Why is that funny? There was nothing clever or witty about this joke at all, and hats aren't exactly inherently funny in themselves, either. Pretty much every joke in the book was as un-funny as this.

I was disappointed in this book. It's the first Rankin book I've read, and I have to say it doesn't make me want to read another. In the interest of a fair chance, though, I probably will eventually. I just wish it had been more clever instead of relying on random craziness to provide humour where wit wasn't available. It didn't work.