Books: The Brentford Triangle By Robert Rankin (1982)

 

“Omally groaned. "It is the end of mankind as we know it. I should never have got up so early today" and all over Brentford electrical appliances were beginning to fail...' Could it be that Pooley and Omally, whilst engaged on a round of allotment golf, mistook laser-operated gravitational landing beams for the malignant work of Brentford Council? Does the Captain Laser Alien Attack machine in the bar of the Swan possess more sinister force than its magnetic appeal for youths with green hair? Is Brentford the first base in an alien onslaught on planet Earth?”

The second book in the series –and seemly not connected to the first book, which gives me the impression each book is a sort-of-reset or stand-alone (we’ll see) escapade – The Brentford Triangle continues the misadventures of Pooley and OMally, the town of Brentford and eccentric characters that inhabit this universe. These two are not real heroes in any sense of the word, but it seems adventure is drawn to them instead of stumbling upon it. Much like the first book, the plot is a bit incredulous –an alien invasion is about to happen when the natives of Ceres, which was once the fifth planet in our solar system before it exploded and became a dwarf planet inside our asteroid belt, return thousands of years later to reclaim it. But that becomes less important than goings on at the vegetable allotment and goings on with a video game console at the Flying Swan. 

The book is wry, with dry British humor, and is faster paced than the first book. Both Pooley and OMally (and the eccentric Time Lord-ish Professor Slocombe) are likeable. Still, while I understand this book was released forty years ago, it features some unnecessary moments of casual racism and homophobia. And while it’s possible for people to be this way, in such a humorous fantasy that is not that complex to begin with, it seems out of place then and more even now. And none of these things actually effected the plot, so there seemed to be no need for them to be there in the first place.

So Robert Rankin lost a bit luster here for me. I hope as I read other books by him, this aspect does not resurface, but we’ll see. Otherwise, it’s an enjoyable read, with some cleverness added to the less-than-original idea.   

Books: Bad Monkey By Carl Hiaasen (2013)

“Andrew Yancy-late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff's office-has a human arm in his freezer. There's a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it's not called the roach patrol for nothing). Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Kansas; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy's new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey.”

I found Bad Monkey to be wildly entertaining. Hiaasen’s prose is rich, his humor raw, mean, and a hoot. His weirdly wonderful characters are outlandish and his take on the State of Florida, where events seem improbable, but appear mostly true. Hiaasen’t trademark environmentalist aspect is here as well, with two men trying to destroy a lot of natural landscapes –one in Florida and one in the Bahamas- with overpriced mansions for the super rich. There’s also a bit of a raunchy side here which often reminded me of Christopher Moore, but it’s Hiaasen’s skewering of Florida and its people that makes this book a righteous romp. We’ve seen for years on the internet stories coming out of the Sunshine state and said, “only in Florida.” Apparently, most of what he writes does happen.