Meet Darwin, the Educated Ape. He wants to travel back to 1824 Vienna and
listen to Beethoven conduct his famous Ninth Symphony at its inaugural debut.
Meet Cameron Bell, Darwin's friend and partner in adventure. He wants to save
the world from the evil clutches of the Pearly Emperor, aka Arthur Knapton, aka
a couple of other aliases.
Our two protagonists agree that dealing with the Pearly Emperor takes top priority, and
after that there will be time enough for an evening of classical music. Thwarting Evil's plans shouldn't be too hard, since our heroes
have a retrofitted Martian time-ship and can chrono-hop to any convenient
time-space spot to nab the villain.
But
Arthur Knapton proves to be a slippery and crafty adversary, and has no qualms about messing
with the past to change the timeline of History. Then too, there are realms and dimensions that
Darwin and Cameron can only dream about.
Including some wherein dwell the Chickens of Atlantis.
What’s To Like...
There’s lots of time-traveling and a passel of historical
characters to meet and greet. Our heroes
travel backwards through Time, forwards, and sideways. If you are tired of chrono-hopping stories
where changing the timeline seems a no-no, then you’ll love The Chickens of Atlantis – all sorts of things get
messed up along the way.
The Robert Rankin wit and craziness is still here, along with his usual
literary memes like Fangio’s bar, the lady in the straw hat, and “gi-raffes”. There are a bunch of footnotes that Terry
Pratchett would be proud of, and some kewl first-letter drawings (there's probably a word for these) at the start of each
chapter. The text jumps between 1st-person and 3rd-person POV's, with Darwin being the narrator/author throughout.
If
you’re a History buff, you’ll enjoy this story.
Winston Churchill is here, and Aleister Crowley too. I particularly liked the way H.G. Wells was
woven into the storyline. Then there are
the Martians and the Chickens, along with some other charming fictional characters. But this isn’t one of those books
that overwhelms the reader with somebody new every five pages.
The storyline seemed more coherent than usual for a Robert Rankin tale,
and that can be viewed as either a plus or a minus. For the most part, the setting can be
described as “late Victorian steampunk’, which is way kewl. The story ends nicely, and there is even –dare
I say it – a “warm” epilogue given by Darwin. Yet amongst all the zaniness, the reader will food for thought about
things like Evolution, Creation Stories, and Alternate Timelines.
Excerpts...
“Are you not one
of the faithful?” enquired my companion.
“I favour no particular
credo,” said the barman, presenting Mr. Bell with his mug of ale. “Rather I adhere to a syncretic world-view –
that there is a little bit of truth to everything. The rationalist within me holds to the
opinion that he who claims to know everything labours under delusion, and that
he who wishes to know everything would probably be better employed drinking ale
and finding himself a girlfriend. You
will notice there, Mr. Bell, how I tempered wisdom with wit – to pleasing
effect, I believe.”
Mr. Bell looked
towards myself and we both rolled our eyes. ( pg. 52)
Some perhaps will
say that it is “a missed opportunity”, that “the laughs were few and far
between” and that it “simply petered out at the end”. To those who would say such things, I offer
my apologies. I am sorry that my work
did not please you, as I had hoped that it would.
But also I offer
this warning, that should I ever meet face to face with any of the
mean-spirited blighters who would say such cruel things and still retain the
strength in my right arm -
Beware the
flinging of faeces! (pg.
339)
Kewlest New Word…
Tergiversation (n.) : 1.
Evasion of straightforward action or clear-cut statement. 2. Desertion of a cause, position, party, or
faith.
Others : Toff (n.); Raddled (adj.)
There
are some quibbles. The titular Chickens of
Atlantis, while present, don’t really play a major part in the story. The breaking of the “fourth wall” happens a
bit too frequently for me; ditto for the number of self-references by
Rankin. The author also seems to
anticipate some readers feeling the wit is neither abundant nor zany enough (see the second
excerpt above), but frankly, I thought the tone and content worked rather well
here.
This
apparently is the fourth (and concluding)
book in Rankin's series about Darwin the Educated Ape.
I wasn’t aware of this when I got the book at the library, but TCoA works
just fine as a standalone novel.
Overall, I enjoyed The Chickens of
Atlantis, despite it not being quite the “typical” offering from
Rankin. Personally, I prefer authors who can “change things up” a bit and aren't afraid to let their style “evolve” from one book to the next; so this book was a treat. And if you’re a Rankin traditionalist, this
is still close enough to the tried-and–true.
8 Stars. Add
½ star if you read the other three books in the
series in order. Subtract ½ star if you were really looking forward to getting
down with some Atlantean poultry.
No comments:
Post a Comment