Fun and funny. Love the references to standard detective novels/stories and really giggled over the not so thinly veiled James Bond references. Must hunt down the sequel now. I honestly don't remember where I even got this book. ( )

The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse takes place in Toy City, which is inhabited by wealthy nursery rhyme characters, sentient playthings, and a brand new serial killer. The task of finding the latter individual falls to P.I. Bill Winkie; when Winkie disappears, his furry sidekick, Eddie Bear, takes over the investigation and enlists the aid of Jack, a gun-toting 13-year-old seeking his fortune in Toy City. Their subsequent adventures include (to quote the back copy): "a lot of heavy drinking, bad behaviour, fast car chases, gratuitous sex and violence, bizarre toy fetishism and all-around grossness."

And it delivers. In spades. ( )

Quirky? Check.
Anthropomorphic toys? You betcha! And drunk to boot.
Murder most foul? Most definitely.
Chocolate? Rabbit shaped.

I really didn't know what to expect with this book, and as soon as I read the first chapter with the cannibalistic farmer with animals named after deadly diseases, I was hooked.

There are many young boys heading to the big city to find their fortune in literature. Very few of them discover that the city is inhabited entirely by toys, however, and stumble across a serial killer's plot to take out Toy City's old rich, the nursery rhyme characters.

Loved it.

Though the book never answered a question I had which was: "Was Humpty Dumpty really an egg?" ( )

Robert Rankin has been described as “Douglas Adams on crack”. That’s not a bad description. Neither is “H.P. Lovecraft with a sense of humor”. Or “Michael Moorcock when he’s in a funny mode and the Eternal Champion is off roaming in Tanelorn somewhere”. Or “Jasper Fforde with a less disciplined editor”.


At any rate, Rankin writes funny scifi/fantasy set in England (usually; New York City and Hollywood have also turned up). There’s always a bar where everybody hangs out, usually a soccer team (that’s football for our rest-of-the-world friends), often time travel, and a regular cast of characters (Count Otto Black, Hugo Rune, Barry the Alien Sprout, Lazlo Woodbine, and some others I can’t remember off the top of my head). The plots tend to be similar: one or more evil geniuses have concocted a scheme to End The World as We Know It, often with the help of Powers that Are Better Left Unmentioned Lest they Come When Called. The only possible way the conspiracy can go wrong is through some highly unlikely event, and the only possible person(s) that can pull off the unlikely event are one or more hopeless losers who have never accomplished anything worthwhile in their lives. Needless to say, said hopeless losers always come through, often in a gutwrenchingly funny fashion.


I haven’t read the entire oeuvre, but here’s some capsule reviews:

*The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse: Jack becomes detective Eddie Bear’s sidekick, and they crack the case of the aforementioned bunnies. Eddie is a stuffed bear, who can only get drunk if he stands on his head (else the sawdust soaks it all up).

*The Toyminator: Eddie and Jack return to explain chickens.

*Necrophenia: Explains what actually happened to Elvis, and The Tyler Method.

*Sex, Drugs, and Sausage Rolls: The story of the rock band Ghandi’s Hairdryer, and the end of the world.

*Knees Up, Mother Earth: The World As We Know It will come to an Awful End unless the Brentford soccer team (perennial losers) wins the Cup.


Well, I could go on. There’s 30 or so Rankin books. As hinted, Rankin sometimes needs an editor who will be a little firmer with him – the plots can sometimes get a little muddled (although it’s often hard to tell; maybe they’re supposed to be muddled). Although the books are nominally in series, you can start anywhere (the only exception being you should probably read The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse before The Toyminator. And a word of warning: the Amazon recommendation engine suggested Rankin based on other books I’d read. ( )

Cute, bizarre and occasionally funny story about a young man (Jack) who travels to the ‘city’ to make his fortune. When he arrives he discovers to his astonishment it is actually Toy City, where the toys live (emphasis on ‘live’). He teams up with Eddie Bear, a talking teddy bear whose owner (and partner in a private detective agency) has disappeared. But Eddie Bear is determined to solve the case of the murder of Humpty Dumpty. Soon other murders occur, and Eddie starts to think there is a serial killer in Toy City. I enjoyed the story, but I think Jasper Fforde’s Nursery Crime series (with a similar premise) is funnier. 3.5 stars ( )