There is considerable hype around Robert Rankin celebrating his position as a leading author (nay, surely ‘purveyor’?) of steampunk novels of a certain type, specifically, humorous. He populates his late Victorian world with a mix of anachronistic science, real personalities and literary characters. This novel concerns the clash of religions across the solar system (civilisations having been discovered on Venus, Mars and Jupiter).

Rankin is hugely inventive with more ideas per page than most authors fit into a book.

Why does he think he is funny? The book is light and there are lots of good jokes. There are a lot more stinkers - the dung-flinging monkey is used as light relief way too often.

I do feel that Rankin could be great if he took a serious view and applied his marvellous idea factory of a mind to a conventional novel - serious intent, more complex narrative flow, discussion of ideas. Perhaps that is what Iain M. Banks is for.

This is a truly entertaining book and I enjoyed it enormously. It is certainly a step forward from the last of his novels that I read - The Witches of Chiswick. I feel Rankin ultimately lets too many good things go in pursuit of the forced and tacky non-joke. ( )

The Empress of Mars drifted slowly over the great metropolis, a sleek silver air-form, one-third of a mile in length. The first of its kind, an aerial pleasure ship.
Sadly, upon this night of nights, the capital was wreathed in fog. Another industrial pea-souper. the dome of St. Paul's peeked above the murk, as did the tessallated tower of the Babbage Institute for the Advancement of Science. And towards the south, a golden glow, as of some rich and royal treasure could be discerned atop the hills at Sydenham. From the destination of this wondrous aircraft. the Crystal Palace.

Ten years after the Martian Invasion described by H. G . Wells, Great Britain has colonised Mars and .trades throughout the solar system in spaceships back-engineered by Babbage and Tesla from the crashed vessels of the Martian Invaders, while Venusians and Jovians are regularly seen on the streets of London.
Professor Coffin and his assistant George make their living by displaying the preserved body of a dead Martian in side shows, but the Martian is getting smeliler and more unpleasant every day, and the Professor is in dire need of a replacement attraction. So they joint the maiden round the world voyage of The Empress of Mars and head for Japan in search of the ultimate sideshow attraction, the Japanese Devil Fish Girl.
This is a humorous alternate history, a romping story of travel, adventure, deception, betrayal, religious cults, lost civilisations and mysterious books, set in a late-Victorian steampunk world. I romped through it at speed, but I didn't get round to writing this review until about three weeks later, and I couldn't remember the ending at all, so I guess I would have to describe it as a fun read but ultimately unmemorable. ( )