In a world that already has Terry Pratchett, I understand that it’s hard to reach the Terry Pratchett bar since it’s set so high up on the Terry Pratchett scale. So I feel for Robert Rankin on that front. But I also kind of think he picked up a pen and thought, “how hard can this be? Oh, I should put boobs in it too! Hehehehe, boobs. I’m a genius.”
This book…happened. The plot had no idea where it was going, but it was going to get there, where ever there happened to be, by running around in circles until it barfed six times at least. So I was all for giving it three stars (running around aimlessly at least takes a lot of energy, so here’s an E for effort!) until the last fifty pages, where even a shit show would stand up and say to this book, “you, sir, disgrace the name of shit shows everywhere.” After suffering through pages upon pages of this book identity crisis – did it want to be a detective satire? or a twee fantasy? or delve in genitals first in edgy humor territory? – I was left with an ending that couldn’t decide if it had some bigger message to impart or it just wanted this embarrassing experience to stop for everyone.
In case you were curious, the book is about Jack, a human child, that ends up in Toy City, where toys and nursery rhymes live. Murders happen. There’s a teddy bear named Eddie that partners up with Jack to solve said murders. There’s way, way, way too much talk about doll boobs. Along the way there’s half baked ideas thrown out about free will and childhood innocence that, had the book been written by someone else, may have become fully realized ideas or at least, ideas with a firmer crust on top.
