Customer Reviews

Witches of Chiswick

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

 

 

You know some books are like a roller-coaster ride (or at least they're described that way on the blurb.) This book is like a roller-coaster ride that has sections of track missing (intentionally) so that you unexpectedly plummet to new portions of track. It's dizzying in the best sense of the world.

It begins in a future (note: not THE future) with museum-worker Will discovering an odd discrepancy in a Victorian painting. I dare go no further in describing the plot, but it's hilarious, exciting, inventive, unexpected, and fresher than a new coat of apple-green paint. I loved it.

Warning: I was very distressed early on over a plotpoint (you'll know what I mean), but don't let it stop you--in this book, plotpoints are made to be broken ... it is about time travel, after all.

This is a sparkling, marvellous book. It's only my second Rankin (I read Hollow Chocolate Bunnies first) so I come to him with a neophyte's enthusiasm that will hopefully remain undimmed with time.

Note: a 3 star ranking from me is actually pretty good; I reserve 4 stars for tremendously good works, and 5 only for the rare few that are or ought to be classic; unfortunately most books published are 2 or less.

If anyone reads my reviews, they will realize that I only bother with either outstanding works or, conversely, those that are ridiculously over-praised about which the reader must be warned. Every once in a while, however, I write to correct a grievous wrong. Robert Rankin is the British author of over 20 novels few of which have even made it to this country; none of which have been given the credit they deserve. This is a crime against nature that makes global warming appear no more than a pin-prick. Most, if not all, of Rankin's work could fall under the rubric of "Science-Fiction". But that genre isn't nearly large enough to hold the mind of Robert Rankin. It is impossible, in so limited a space, to even begin to describe the plot of "Witches of Chiswick". Suffice to say it is about time-travel. But that's not the point. As Roger Ebert has noted about films (and by extension any work of art) it's not "what they are about, but how they are about it." And, oh, how this is "about it". There has rarely been as funny, as inventive, as complex, as clever, as... well, you get the idea... as this. In fact, with the exception of the (later-in-time) works of Jasper Fforde, I can only think of a slew of books bearing the name "Rankin" that even come close. Will you like it? Simple test; here are some other Rankin titles: "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse", "Nostradamus Ate My Hamster", "The Raiders of the Lost Carpark", "Armageddon the Musical". If these titles alone do NOT make you an instant fan who wants IMMEDIATELY to read the books, then, no, you will not like them. You will also be marked a wrong-thinker who should be drummed out of the literary establishment, but, hey! it's up to you.

At one point in The Witches of Chiswick our protagonist (one of numerous William Starlings in the novel) says "If this were a book or a movie, the critics would tear it to pieces, saying the hero was two dimensional and the entire sorry business unconvincing and totally plot-led."

The author makes a number of references like this (characters refer to things that `happened in earlier chapters' or point out continuity problems in the story). The author is essentially winking at the reader, as if to say "We both know this is all pretty silly."

The plot here is absurd, convoluted, and seems not to have been entirely thought out. The pleasure in the novel comes, not from a plot that really doesn't make much sense, but rather from the writing itself. Rankin has a writing style that demands to be read out loud (if not actually spoken, at least read out loud in one's own head.)

The entire novel has an amusing tone but I can't say that anyone ever caught me laughing out loud while I read it. It did have me smiling most of the way though. This is a novel that features a boy who was raised by snails (they call him Snail Boy of course), talking vegetables that you insert in your ear, and a cabal of pinch-faced witches who fancy quilting and world domination. The novel portrays John Merrick (the Elephant Man) as an oversexed alien human hybrid spy, Queen Victoria (God Bless Her) as a party girl who parades around in diaphanous outfits wearing nothing else but high heeled clogs, Oscar Wilde as a `ladies man', and HG Wells as an invisible (literally), obnoxious and frustrated scientist.

The Witches of Chiswick is amusing enough* but lacks the big laughs needed to inspire a `four star' rating. Its incoherent plot falls apart near the end, leaving loose ends dangling everywhere. Very little of what happens makes any sense. The Witches of Chiswick may not be as funny or as inspired as Adam's The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but if you like your science fiction mixed with humour (1 part clever, 3 parts silly) the Witches of Chiswick is an oddly entertaining novel.

* The asterisks at the bottom of the page provide some of the funniest bits in the novel.

All the other reviews are right - this book is quite a fun roller coaster ride, taking the reader back and forth through time and different pasts and futures as Will and Tim get tangled up in an evil plot.

My only problem with this book is the ending. It really seemed to me that after such a wonderfully-written book, Rankin gave up about 10 pages before the end, and left way too many questions in my mind (most of which I won't spoil for you now) and wrote what I felt was a cop-out ending (which, by the way, only lasted for half a page).

I got attracted to Rankin's writing after exhausting (and re-reading) my Terry Pratchett collection; Rankin's "Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse" was my introduction and if these two books so far are any indication, I will enjoy the others I have ordered. Hopefully, though, from the front cover all the way to the back cover.

What if history had been eradicated, time-travelling Victorian cyborgs threatened your life, and you found out witches ruled the world? That's the dilemma that Will Starling has to deal with. "The Witches of Chiswick" abounds with humor and excellent ideas, but they're loosely tied together in a sloppy plot.

Will Starling lives in a future era where art is virtually nonexistant, and the obese populace lives in a stagnant, self-satisfied way. Will is an oddity -- he works at an art museum, is slim, and has an interest in the Victorian era. But the discovery of a digital watch in an 18th-century painting turns Will into a fugitive -- soon a bunch of Victorian cyborgs are killing anyone named Will Starling.

Will gets the help of his friend Tim, who tell him that someone is trying to hide the truth about the Victorian era -- it was actually full of technology and magic. It's also ruled over by a coven of witches from Chiswick Townswomen's Guild, who are now trying to kill Will. What ensues is a mad, reality-twisting chase involving Jack the Ripper, a talking sprout, Queen Victoria and the Elephant Man (who is actually a "human-alien hybrid spy").

Robert Rankin has a lot of wickedly weird ideas. He also has humor in abundance -- I mean, the church of IKEA? As evidenced in his light but amusing "Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse," Rankin could be the next Terry Pratchett. He has joke after joke, some of them subtle but others ragingly obvious, and hysterically funny. Just the ideas he comes up with are wickedly funny in themselves.

Unfortunately, about a third into his book, everything unravels. Rankin is at his best when he has a simple, straightforward plot with plenty of odd side-streets, but here he tries something major, complex and sometimes philosophical... and the result is that it spins out of control, tearing itself full of plot holes. And despite Rankin's announcement that there is no deus ex machina, that's more or less what he does.

Will and Tim are pretty much the only characters given any depth -- Will the odd boy out, who doesn't fit into his world, but would fit nicely into ours. And Tim is even odder -- a websurfing pagan with a liking for weird discoveries, such as Captain Nemo's Nautilus on the bottom of the North Sea. Most of the supporting characters, like Will's parents and legendary mage Hugo Rune, aren't really given much development.

There's so much promise in the bizarre SF/fantasy "Witches of Chiswick." It's sad that Rankin wasn't quite up to the complex plot he tried to weave underneath all the humor and wild fantasy.

In our 37 years of acquaintance, my brother has never recommended a book to me to read. The other day he called me from the cab of the truck he drives at work. He had to tell me about the book he was listening to on CD as he drove. That book was (of course) Robert Rankins Witches of Chiswick. On that recommendation, I went out the next day, purchased the book, interrupted the book I was reading at the time and began to read. Aside from periods of work (necessary to get money to buy books) and eating (necessary to keep energy up to read books) and sleeping (necessary... ahh who am I kidding? I didn't sleep) I read and finished the book. When it was done I was sorry there wasn't more. Funny, irreverent, at times irrelevent, and all together a rollicking, ride through the future, the past (more than one of each) and who knows where, this book is a must buy/borrow/steal/read. Oh, and there is more... Knees Up Mother Earth is the second book in the series. I'm passing on my brother's recommendation to you, the lusty reader of this review (if you're not so lusty, that's o.k. I'll recommend it to you too. However, if you can... get lusty, it'll help in the future. I'm not sure what it'll help with, just take my word for it, lusty is helpful).

In regards to the distressing plot point near the beginning... I was able to get past it and I wasn't disappointed. I have been known, in the past, to quit reading a book due to such things but, this book was all too compelling to give up on. Perhaps it was the continued references to a certain Governators movies, perhaps not (probably not but, it's as good a reason as any) but, I had to continue, you will too. If not, do it anyway.

Compelling? Ahh, why not? Compelling it shall stay.

I won't bore you with a synposis of the book. This is the 3rd Rankin book I have listened to. Robert Rankin does a wonderful job of performing his book; his reading is as delightful as the other books. However, the story isn't as delightful as the performance. The story meanders and goes on and on until I really didn't care how it ended, just please end. If I could have gotten to the library to replace it, I would have stopped listening, but it was better than nothing on my long drives. I'm glad I didn't pay for this book. I don't really know how Rankin feels about the concept of time travel. He's used it before in his books, but in this one, he seems to be poking fun at the concept since there's so many overlaps and switches. Who's when and why? There are many laughs in the first half book, but they don't make up for this overlong story.

If the persistent rumor that Alice in Wonderland was written by Lewis Carroll high on LSD is plausible, then it's very likely that Rankin wrote Witches while on crack cocaine.

Let me start off by saying that this review for the audio version of the book, the unabridged version read by the author. And Rankin did an excellent job as reader. He varied his voice admirably and really gave life and personality to his characters. In fact, I'd be tempted to say that he did a better job as reader than writer in this case.

Witches is a book that absolutely refuses to take anything seriously, especially itself. Whenever the storyline starts to turn serious, the author seems to feel a compulsive need to interject something so outlandish, so flippant that a reader can almost imagine him winking at him with a Cheshire grin. So if your tastes align more with serious sci-fi/fantasy then you'd best give this book a wide berth.

If you're the kind of reader who enjoys a splash of humor in his/her fiction and are willing to give it a go, prepare to be dunked. Rankin seems to revel in absurdity. Every time I thought to myself, "He's outdone himself, it can't get any more absurd than this," he would prove me wrong. However after the story progressed it started to get annoying at times. I found myself wishing he would get a little more serious; it was almost like the silliness had taken over the story.

It's an intriguing premise. A future where a cabal of witches has taken control, unbeknownst to the public, and rewrote the past. Where the hero, Will Starling, is attacked by a Terminator (yes, that's right) sent there from the past. So, at its core, this is a time traveler story. But it's a story that's littered with references to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie Time Cop, and Mary Poppins to name a few. If that's not enough, how about a talking, magical, time-travelling, sprout? Or a boy raised by snails?

It was really the premise that kept me going, that and curiosity at how the author was going to finish. How was he going to resolve this? Was he ever going to wrap things up? The problem was that the author seemed to get so wrapped up in making his story whimsical and lighthearted that he failed in other areas...like cohesion. There are inconsistencies, meanderings, and holes galore in this story. For example, initially there's a big deal is made about Will being thin in a world of heavy people, yet other than the beginning of the story it seems to have absolutely zero purpose. And the author failed to portray Will's future as this dystopian society other than 3/4 of the way into the book where one of the characters told Will, "We lived in a dystopian society." I wish a little more effort had been put in to making the story cohesive and spent a little less time in random interludes and spinning off into ludicrous ramblings. Ironically enough, the author even went so far as to have has his characters point some of them out. If not for the frustrating silliness I would have given it a solid 4 Star rating but it doesn't really deserve just a 3 Star either.

Because of this as well as the author's unchecked absurdity, I'm likely to avoid this author's works in the future...unless I hear he's off the crack pipe.

I won't re-hash what others have already said. This book is about time travel but Rankin gets caught up in the time travel paradox and I guess he's trying to be clever but it turns into a headache for the reader. Reading this novel is like driving on a highway until you come to a maze of multiple highway connections and start trying to drive on more than one route. That's what Rankin tries to do then sort of stops, or maybe I gave up trying to understand what was happening. As the end of the book approaches, you get the sense that either Rankin went on vacation and someone else took over or he just lost interest in the book and ended it. I felt the latter that by the end of the book, I just didn't care. If I could time travel, I would go back in time and not buy this book.

Mr. Rankin has created a wonderful world here hats off to him. Sometimes the jokes are subtle and other times they are incredibly funny quite frankly words can't do justice to how funny parts of this book are.

You will love all the characters Will, other Will and Barry the time traveling sprout. There are also characters that are more familiar to us H.G Wells, Jack the Ripper and Queen Victoria just to name a few.

Great book, great story but the last 10 pages totally destroy whatever the author had been working towards. This is not enough to destroy a wonderful book but the ending is indeed a letdown. Either Rankin is setting things up for a sequel or he is just guilty of sloppy plot resolution. That is why it gets a fourth star and not the whole 5.