- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (1 July 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385409443
- ISBN-13: 978-0385409445
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.2 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,092,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Ever since his comic-sinister debut The Antipope--published for the first time in 1981, or 2 BD(Before Discworld)--Robert Rankin has repeatedly returned to that most haunted region of mythic England: Brentford. Snuff Fiction is the biography of local entrepreneur Doveston (1949-2008) as seen by lifelong friend and enemy Edwin, beginning with richly comic evocations of 1950s schoolboy folklore. Like lurking water-vipers in the park: "If you took a piddle in the boating lake, they would swim up the stream of pee and enter your knob." Doveston's insanely ambitious schemes begin with house-wrecking dope parties and the doomed 1967 Brentstock rock festival, with Edwin the scapegoat for every disaster. Those resisting the inexorable Doveston rise to wealth and power have accidents involving dynamite. Presently he's making nefarious deals with our secret Government, culminating in a millennium party at Castle Doveston where celebrities like Michael Jackson meet sticky ends. Rankin produces a fascinating flow of misinformation about puberty, gypsies (native language Esperanto), yo-yos (is there a manoeuvre called "splitting the beaver"?), Brentford's many ethnic quarters (e.g. Mexican, Navajo, Kalahari Bushmen), rhyming slang (Richard= Richard Dadd= mad) and snuff-sniffing. The awful secret of the Millennium Bug is revealed. Uninhibitedly anarchic farce, full of bizarre verbal inventiveness and dreadful old jokes. Read it and sneeze. --David Langford
Book Description
A flamboyantly futuristic farce about the glamorous world of snuff-snorting.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Robert Rankins' 19th novel follows the fortunes of Doveston - snuff kingpin and all round bad egg, and the misfortunes that befall his biographer. Once again Rankin has crafted a tale where his sheer unbridled lunacy is harnessed to a rip-roaring fantasy plot, and enough jokes and tall tales (or load of old toot) to provide plenty of belly laughs along the way.
The device of the biographer relating the life story of Doveston enables Rankin to add a great deal of variety to the book, so we start with a 1950's schooldays satire, head on to a 1960's hippy festival called Brentstock (yes - Rankin has used the rock festival idea before, but it's still hilarious here, with the hero attempting to power the entire concert through his kitchen mains plug after forgetting to hire any power generators), miss out the 1970's altogether (well, the biographer hero did spend the decade in jail), before we get 1980's yuppie corporate culture and the 1990's gives way to the faked (yet still ultimately deadly) Millennium Bug. Of course, this being a Rankin novel the climax involves a deadly man-eating menace that is at least part sprout.
As well as providing Rankin with a wealth of material, it also provides him with an opportunity to revisit dozens of old characters - with Norman Hartnell getting a good solid chunk of the action, and cameos from the likes of Pooley & Omally, Professor Merlin (from The Greatest Show Off Earth), Lazlo Woodbine, Danbury Collins, Elvis and others even more obscure (remember the mythical girl who always rode on others shoulders at rock concerts from Sprout Mask Replica?), and even having fun with the history of Brentford itself, with the hilarious inclusion of many (now mysteriously vanished) ethnic quarters.
As such, while the main storyline and characters are new, and this book can be enjoyed as a standalone novel, this is one occasion when you really would get more out of this novels many throwaway references and cameos if you had actually read a good dozen or more of Rankin's previous books first.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Robert Rankin, the Father of Far-Fetched Fiction and ripping great comic fantasy writer, offers us "Snuff Fiction" which follows the spiral to fame of the Doveston, one of those timeless recurring Rankin characters. But in "Snuff Fiction" there is a much required twist; it is not a mere hagiography bringing the Doveston's achievements and prestige into everyone's forebrain...but because it is told from the perspective of the Doveston's long time companion-cum-foe Edwin, it is more of an inward look at how the Doveston perpetrated so numerous events and utilized Edwin as the innocent scapegoat. "Snuff Fiction" is a truly great Rankin novel, and albeit is a meagre snack for teh cerebellum, and does not put on a pretense it has an intensely complex plot, it works rather well. Towards the climax of the novel we receive much of the same sardonic Rankin surprises that have become numbingly predictable, unfortunately, and some of the satire of the book can lead to being extremely tasteless and a little unfunny, but the humour is strong and irrepressible throughout, and most of Rankin's jokes induce outbursts of chuckles rather than otherwise. "Snuff Fiction" also follows the destruction of the computing technology required for a smoothly operated planet, which sends Earth into habitual darkness, but even as the chimeras are stalking innocent actors and the flayed corpse of Michael Jackson with his amorous chimp named Bubbles, we see Edwin and Norman Hartnell (no you pillocks, the *other* one) striding through the remains strong and proud...with a cross-dressing green-lipsticked hitman gnawing at their ankles... "Snuff Fiction" is a rip-roaring, highly inventive farce at the Oliveresque years of tense school boarding which then develops into anarchic Brentfordian fantasy and science fiction, with suitable old jokes popping up every now and then. We see cameos both held by Danbury Collins and Lazlo Woodbine, and the inaugural invention of the yo-yo. Great fun, mildly surreal, following the likes of "Nostradamus Ate My Hamster" and "Apocalypso" into the memories of mice and men...
...Er...
...Snuff said.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Fantastic stuff! "Snuff Fiction" is one of Rankin's best, a pseudo-memoir written in 2008 about the life of the Doveston, purveyor of the world's best tobacco (and explosives).
While all Rankin's books are funny, this one's storytelling lifts it above the rest. All too often Rankin drops plot threads and writes (intentionally) dense prose. "Snuff Fiction" has his trademark hyper-kinetic writing style while, for once, admirably wrapping everything up at the end. It's a great balance of clever storytelling, some effectively disturbing passages, and overall a lot of laughs.
"Snuff Fiction" is well worth purchasing, even with the extra costs for shipping to the States. Here's hoping Rankin finds a U.S. publisher some day!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Consistantly great
Snuff fiction takes you into yet another journey along Robert Rankin's road to far fetched and bizarre mirth. Read more
Published on 14 Mar 2010 by Mr. G. Shuttleworth
Enjoyable and funny book
A very interesting and humorous story set over 4 decades of English life. Recommended reading for any one who wishes to read something funny and frivilous, and definately... Read more
Published on 31 Aug 2000 by mr_robert_clay@hotmail.com
Best one yet
Although i have only read about five of Mr Rankins books I have to say that this is the best one to date. Read more
Published on 27 Jun 2000
ONE OF SIR ROBERT'S BEST
I THOUGHT THAT AFTER THE SLAPSTICK OF APOCALYPSO WE WOULD BE IN FOR MORE DREADFUL PUN'S AND RUNNING GAGS (DON'T GET ME WRONG, APOCALYPSO WAS A GOOD READ). Read more
Published on 21 Jun 2000 by peter@morgan6.fsnet.co.uk
Not one of his best.....
Hmmm. If this is your first Rankin book, give him another chance! Go and read the Brentford Trilogy first!
This was a fun, and like all Rankin stuff, easy read. Read more
Published on 26 Mar 2000
Here we go again
Every year, something, be it contractual obligation, irresistable creative urge or just the need to pay the mortgage, drives Robert Rankin to get out his writing tools, and rattles... Read more
Published on 18 Jan 2000 by doctor@spong.demon.co.uk
Much better...
Ahhhh... this is much better. Mr Rankin once again entertains as only he can.... Much of an improvement over apocalypso.... an amusing yet creepily spooky read.... Read more
Published on 17 Aug 1999
Better than Pratchett
Yet another work of comic genius. Robert Rankin is one of the few authors who consistently entertains me. I don't think i've ever failed to enjoy one of his books. Read more
Published on 10 Aug 1999
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
