The Antipope by Robert Rankin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I was poking around Goodreads, looking at the books I’ve read. A sidebar told me “People who’ve read Douglas Adams have also read Robert Rankin!” Well, gosh. I used to read Douglas Adams all the time. I better check this out. Kindle Unlimited offers a metric butt-ton of Robert Rankin, so I grabbed me a download of The Antipope.
It’s silly. That’s a short review, and if you know me, praiseworthy. Here’s another glib description: A British version of David Wong’s John Dies at the End (in spirit, anyway). One more: Maybe what H.P Lovecraft would have written if, rather than born in Rhode Island and terrified of the female anatomy, he was instead born in a small Middlesex hamlet and terrified of sobriety.
Rankin’s obviously having fun with this very English novel. I say very English because there’s the pub culture, the shades of xenophobia, the anti-catholicism. There’s trysts and malevolent bicycles and put-upon language, how Shakespeare would have more modern men speak if he was tired of all that damned poetry.
There’s not much of a plot, and several scenes written for the pure absurdity of it. Lots of fun. This is not a book for sitting down and examining. This is a novel for consuming indulgently, like an entire bag of chips or a tub of ice-cream. And, best of all, if you like the read, it’s the first of a nine-novel trilogy. Silly indeed. Just like Douglas Adams.