Books: East of Ealing By Robert Rankin (1984)

“'Ahead, where once had been only bombsite land, the Lateinos & Romiith building rose above Brentford. Within its cruel and jagged shadow, magnolias wilted in their window boxes and synthetic Gold Top became doorstep cheese...' Something sinister is happening east of Ealing. The prophecies of The Book of Revelation are being fulfilled. Lateinos & Romiith, a vast financial network, is changing all the rules with a plan to bar-code every living punter and dispense with old-fashioned money. A diabolical scheme, which would not only end civilisation as we know it, but seriously interfere with drinking habits at the Flying Swan. Can Armageddon, Apocalypse and other inconveniences of the modern age be stopped by the humble likes of Pooley and Omally, even with the help of Professor Slocombe and the time-warped Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street?”

 In this third book set in the British village of Brentford, Pooley and Omally are forced to deal with a high-tech Satanic takeover of Earth by way of bar-coding the entire population – a bit prophetic in 1984.  As noted before, this series basically resets in each book. They’re standalone tales about the end of the world, yet feature the same characters going through the same motions. It’s funny, but not technically brilliant. It features a lot of surrealist humor and some laugh out loud moments. Still, not all of it works, mostly because author Robert Rankin has a lot going on. It lacks some depth, some female characters, and a bit of a disappointing ending. It doesn’t lack imagination, but the silliness does get tedious after a while.