The Witches of Chiswick - Robert Rankin > Reviews

Advantages: Easy reading
Disadvantages: But so's 'Where's Spot?' and I won't recommend that to you either

...lied to and that all the fantasy fiction of the Victorian era was in fact true. That 19th Century England was in fact full of airships and automata, where Oscar Wilde was a notorious ladies' man and Queen Victoria was the Empire Bike. Airships and automata are familiar enough to any reader of alternative histories. They crop up in anything where Rome didn't fall or the Nazis weren't defeated. To combine this kind of earnest but far-fetched academic ... Read review

Advantages: imaginative, sometimes belly-laugh funny
Disadvantages: confused, uneven, doesn't live up to Rankin's better effort

...not that I don’t understand The Witches of Chiswick- I just don’t “get” it. There are certain books, and I think this particularly applies to sci-fi and fantasy, that require you to be in a certain zone in your head. You have to inhabit them. That was easy with the previous Rankin offering (a first for me) The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. There was a world- Toy City- that was easy to inhabit. And yet here in Witches, he’s painting a ... Read review

Advantages: It's another Rankin classic
Disadvantages: You need to read all his previous books first

...I can't really comment on the ending. Rankin is probably my favourite author these days after becoming bored with Pratchet. This latest offering is great with the usual running gags and familiar characters cropping up again. You can't really appreciate these unless you're familiar with them. The plot centres around a technologically advanced Victorian England. Hugo Rune helps H.G. Wells with his time machine then uses it to summon his great-great-great-great-decendent ... Read review