Incompetence [Paperback]

Rob Grant (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: NY (1980)
• ASIN: B000N6MHK2
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovers of Hitchhikers Guide or Red Dwarf - take note, November 28, 2005

By 

Mr. Ian Robinson "robots" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Incompetence (GollanczF.) (Paperback)

What a hoot! Right from the first page-nay the first paragraph-I was hooked. As soon as I finished reading it, I read it again-to my wife's bewilderment! I read my favourite lines, paragraphs or sections VERY SLOWLY; reread them; savoured them; only finally relinquishing them up when I craved for the next morsel. I don't know what my suffocated laughter or broad smirks on the train trips to and from work would have seemed like to others. The surgical descriptions of the insanely ridiculous situations our hero (the only sane person in the book) come to mind over and over again: the trip to the hotel and the check-in, the hotel welcoming party, the airline check-in and boarding, alighting from a moving car, boarding of a moving train, the officially dead undead farmer, the roller coaster ride to oblivion. I was trying to visualise, if this were a film, which actors would best fill the roles - the hero: no question, Steve Martin; the policeman with anger management problems: John Cleese; the jail bird - Boldrick from Black Adder.

The closing words suggested a sequel...PLEEEEEASE...

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "A novel of the far too near future",, November 18, 2006

By 

Marshall Lord (Whitehaven, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Incompetence (GollanczF.) (Paperback)

"Incompetence" is a satirical black comedy set in an extreme near-future world. Rob Grant has taken some trends he perceives in modern society, extrapolated them ad absurdum, and had fun seeing how ludicrous he can make the consequences.

The preface to "Incompetence" reads as follows:

"Article 13199 of the Pan European constitution: `No person shall be prejudiced from employment in any capacity at any level by reason of age, race, creed, or incompitence'" (Yes, the spelling mistake is deliberate - I wonder if Rob Grant had the same problem I did in preventing the software he was writing in from automatically correcting it !)

"Incompetence" is described as "A novel of the far too near future" and is set in a united Europe in which "Non Specific Stupidity" is a registered disability which cannot be used to hold back promotion prospects, waiters have Tourette's syndrome, airline pilots have vertigo, etc. The story is told through the eyes of an undercover agent who is not what he appears to be, on the tail of a mass-murderer who is all too competent.

"Incompetence" works well as humorous entertainment: it could be seen as supporting a political view (e.g. hostility to the European Union and to big government), but anyone who reads it for political reasons may be disappointed. And anyone from the US is thinking of buying it for a good laugh at the expense of the Europeans should be aware that the book turns round at the end and delivers a few bites in the other direction.

Overall I found this book to be very amusing and highly recommend it.

If you enjoy "Incompetence" because you enjoy funny writing, and not because you agree or disagree with any particular political view which may be satirised within it, then another book which you may also enjoy is "Jennifer Government" by Max Barry. However, the irony is that while these two books came out at the same time and use much the same type of humour, the trends which they extrapolate ad absurdum and the targets they take aim at are diametrically opposite.

It says something about how complex the trends in our society are that Rob Grant in "Incompetence" and Max Barry in his book could use the same technique to satirise opposite trends and both books contain enough truth to be funny. Perhaps it also demonstrates that satire is so universal in its applicability as to be highly effective as a means of entertainment but much less so as a means of putting over a political argument.

4.0 out of 5 stars An Adventure Set in a World Where Anti-Discrimination Has Gone Way Too Far!, March 9, 2010

By 

James N Simpson (Gold Coast, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Incompetence (Gollancz Sf S.) (Hardcover)

Incompetence is one of those books that just gets better and better as it goes along. The second half of the book is great physical humour and the first a lot of dealing with incompetent bureaucratic humour. Some of the scenes at the start do drag on a little bit such as the interactions with Captain Zuccho, the Italian policeman with anger management issues. Also I pictured the character as a bit older at the start then in the second half when he was a lot better at performing physical stuff like jumping onto a moving train and winning hand to hand combat lethal fights. He doesn't seem to have this badass ability at the start such as the shotgun garbage scene. I think this inconsistency in the character's abilities and traits (well basically the difference in competence levels of Detective Harry Salt) was deliberate and part of the incompetence theme joke of the novel and it worked well.

Basic plot of Incompetence - Detective Harry Salt is an undercover agent. He is summoned from London to Italy by Klingferm, his controller for a face to face meeting with the other two agents Klingferm is responsible for. Salt has never met the other two agents and only met Klingferm in person once or twice, so this in the flesh meeting, must mean something major is going down. Set in the near future where the United States of Europe has passed a law expanding the normal discrimination act to also include no person shall be discriminated against no matter how stupid they are or incompetently they do their job. This means nothing runs smoothly from government departments including the police, to hotels, train stations, car rental agencies and everything in between. Various incompetent staff encounters luckily delay Salt's arrival time for the scheduled meeting and he misses out on being in an elevator that has shot out of the top of a building and come crashing down outside many floors below. Salt investigates much to the anger of Italian authorities and knows someone deliberately tampered with the lift's control buttons and it wasn't just an incompetent lift mechanic, which would have meant no possible prosecution. As Salt tracks the killer he must overcome various incompetents who either deliberately, or just through plain stupidity impede his every move.