- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (1 Nov 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385602561
- ISBN-13: 978-0385602563
- Product Dimensions: 22.1 x 15.7 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 953,771 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Another deranged performance from Robert Rankin: The Fandom of the Operator mixes surreal silliness, ghastly old jokes and a vein of apocalyptic bleakness, as in his previous novel Web Site Story.
Young hero or anti-hero Gary Cheese grows up in a warped 1950s Brentford with two main interests: death, and the Lazlo Woodbine private-eye novels (see Waiting for Godalming) by PP Penrose. When this revered author dies, it's only logical that Gary and his bestest friend Dave should plan to crash the wake and reanimate him with voodoo. Black comedy follows, with highly uncomic results.
Years later, Gary at 22 has a dead-end telecomms job of stupefying tedium. He waits for a light to come on, and turns it off. That's all. This work is implausibly connected to the FLATLINE project--phone contact with the afterlife. The dead can reveal bizarre and terrible secrets, but meanwhile there's a lot Gary hasn't been telling us about his own history. Just how many people has he killed? Or was it actually him?
The mixture includes a barman who senses customers' True Names ("If it isn't the Honourable Valdec Firesword, Archduke of Alpha Centuri"),unlikely celebrity parties, car chases, copious and disgusting zombie sex, alien mind control, yet another secret base under Mornington Crescent tubestation, an ever-growing body count, and so many onion-layers of conspiracy and secret masters as to produce an effect of cosmic, transcendent pointlessness. Eat your heart out, Philip K Dick.
Robert Rankin is uniquely off-the-wall, unparalleled in his eccentricity: there's no other comic fantasy author like him. Thank heavens for that. --David Langford
Review
'The Fandom of The Operator - a divine whodunit with more twists than a sixties dance floor' Maxim.' 'One of the rare guys who can always make me laugh.' Terry Pratchett. 'To call Rankin irreverent doesn't begin to describe just how good he is at playing with the rules' Mirror. 'Rankin does for England what Spike Milligan does for Ireland. There can be no higher praise." Mail on Sunday. 'Everybody should at least read one Rankin in their life' Daily Express. 'He becomes funnier the more you read him' Independent.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is certainly a new direction for Rankin. The characters and comedy are much blacker than usual. The plot is as clever as ever, though more surreal than his normal (surreal) efforts.
On the down-side, the characters suffer from their normal lack of substance and depth. Also, the characters have few, if any, redeeming features, though to be fair they get what they deserve by the of the book.
Overall, a very enjoyable read, if you are prepared to accept something slightly different from the master of far-fetched fiction...
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Robert Rankin's 23rd (gulp!) novel contains all of his usual insane inventiveness, here in the form of re-animated zombies, chat-lines that let you speak to the dead, alien mind-possession and the secret behind how people get those really cushy jobs. Unlike some of Rankin's more unhinged offerings however the weirdness is limited to the content rather than the form, with the author settling down to tell the whole story in 1st person narrative in a very linear fashion, which gives this much more of a cohesive novelistic feel than some of his more fractured works. The humour may be a touch blacker than usual as Rankin also offers up some deliciously dark twists along the way, but there are still plenty of great laughs to be had, though Rankin avoids his usual reliance on running gags for once. While long-time fans will spot numerous Rankin references - particularly concerning fictional detective Lazlo Woodbine - this novel works very well as a self-contained story, and while the sensible thing for any new reader to do would be to start at the beginning with `'The Antipope' and read the lot in order, anyone who just wants a quick sample of a later Rankin novel without feeling hopelessly lost would find this a great stand-alone read. Good humour, mad ideas, plenty of twists and a satisfying ending = a class novel.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the first book of Rankin of I have read. At first reading it, seeing it was in first person, I wasnt sure if I would enjoy it much, but much to my surprise, by the end of the day I was half way through. It is a great read. You aren't exactly sure what to expect next, and once your quite near the end, the "murders" start to unravel, and ties up the loose ends from earlier.
The dark humour in it gives it a good twist, and the contents of the plot is ranging from silly, to dark to humourous.
All in all, I would say there is something in there for everyone. A detective book, thriller/murder, sci-fi/fantasy or comedy.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great!
This was the book that got me back into reading Rankin. Until I was 15 or so, I read every Rankin book I could get my hands on. Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2010 by Eoghain O'Keeffe
bulbtastic!
This is my favourite Rankin book.
The idea of a guy getting a job where he presses a button whenever a bulb lights up and not knowing why had me in stitches! Read more
The idea of a guy getting a job where he presses a button whenever a bulb lights up and not knowing why had me in stitches! Read more
Published on 14 Feb 2007 by GeekZilla
His best book since The Poor Mouth
Rankin is back on top form. This is the least self-referential, most dry, most sinister, most coherent and above all funniest novel since the departure from the beloved trilogies. Read more
Published on 8 Nov 2001 by "gav1970"
I can't believe I am giving it two stars!
The latest Rankin offering is dismal. What happened to the man who had previously shown a witty insightful veiwpoint on life? Read more
Published on 3 Nov 2001
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