Soap surfed the Web until lunchtime. It was all action stuff.
Well, at least it was sometimes. Well perhaps it wasn't all action at all. It was just sitting at a TV screen and typing at a keyboard, and although there are ways of putting a spin on that kind of thing and making it sound interesting -
IT ISN'T!
IT'S CRAP!!!
GET A LIFE!!!!!!
By lunchtime Soap had had his fill of the Web. He had learned from it all he could learn from it. This hadn't been all that he'd wanted to learn, but he had learned the Web's evil secret.
And the evil secret of The Web is this, my friends.
That all you can ever learn
From The Web is what the
People who put the stuff onto
it want you to learn.
'Right', said Soap. 'Well, that's quite enough of that.
From the novel Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls (pb page 187).
In the month of October 2001 Aotearoa / New Zealand was celebrating World Book Day 2001, with this was four visiting overseas authors and one of which was the creator of Far - Fetched Fiction Robert Rankin.
He is the author of more than 20 books including The Armageddon Quartet, and the Brentford Trilogy.
He does not believe in the likes of a word processor or computer, and hand writes all his books into exercise books and the study where he writes contains, human skulls, an eight-legged lamb, a stuffed cobra wrapped around a mongoose, a library of occult books, and pictures of the Cottingley fairies and a portrait of Aleister Crowley are affixed to the walls.
This all brings me to Robert Rankin at the Whitcoulls Corner Store in Auckland where instead of the typical sitting down and signing books (which did come later). Mr. Rankin was commanding a small audience to the hows and whys of why he writes. The famous People he has maned in some way. How big an influence his father was in him becoming a writer, and the sculptures he creates for his book covers.
When we arrived Robert was already in full flight, with his arms flying around, and his feet performing what seemed like a difficult two-step, while explaining what he writes, and how he wanted his own section on the book shelve for a genre he wanted to create which he called far-fetched-fiction.
He then went on to say why he became a writer which was because of his father who told the best tall-stories ever.
In which he gave a rather delightful tale of when he was around seven, his local school had a day for when parents could come in and say what they did for a living and Robert's dad also named Robert said he would be into that and he was a tradesman. The day arrives Robert Sr gets up and tells the class that he is a whaler and spent the entire talk on what a whaler does and the correct way of throwing a harpoon, after that Robert Jr did go on to say he was not bullied for quite some time after that.
He also mentions although his father told tall-tales some of the more colourful stories were in fact true. One of which was having a couple of personalised poems by Aleister Crowley, much to Roberts delight until he found out his mother a Christian had burnt them and this was the same woman who when receiving the first novel he had published promptly throw it into the fire.
Robert also went on and told a tale or two of the famous people he has injured he talked of a time when at art college many moons ago he tripped and throw his hot coffee onto none other than Freddie Mercury (whom the tutors would say to him you won't amount to anything if you don't hand in your assignments), on a rainy day he jumped out of a taxi to quickly get out of the rain and he ended up knocking over Boy George, and another time had the honour of Susie (and the Banshees) asking if the seat next to him was taken which it wasn't and she sat down, but Robert quickly cleared out when he remembered his calamari meal was on that so called vacant seat.
He talked about some of his books and went on to say he worked out today's problems in the world all relate back to Elvis when he joined the army and the backlash of that, after the book (Armageddon the Musical) was published he received death-threats not from the religious groups he was sending up in the book but from Elvis fans.
And how director Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins, Small Soldiers) wanted to do a movie based on Armageddon the Musical, but could not get permission from Elvis Fan Club to use the King of Rock n Roll in that light!
During the course of his talk he mention the covers for his books are his own sculptures, and related a story in which he was creating a Bondage Teapot (for the novel Stuff Fiction), needing various spikes and things he went to a bondage shop where the shopkeeper was very helping until he found out what the spikes and things were going to be used for and Robert was then kicked out for not taking bondage seriously.
Once his talk was over he happily sat and sign books and answered various question put to him, he did say his books don't sell in the US. Mainly because they don't understand the humour, and out through this time he was extremely approachable, so much so I just had to grab a book and get it sign.
After the whole thing I did walk away with the notion I should get my hands on as many books Robert Rankin has written because if they are as good as his talk they must be pretty amazing.
Bibliography
Armageddon #1: The Musical pb (1991)
Brentford Trilogy #1: The Antipope pb (1992)
Armageddon #2: The B Movie pb (1992)
Brentford Trilogy #2: Brentford Triangle pb (1992)
Armageddon #3: The Remake pb (1993)
Brentford Trilogy #3: East of Ealing pb (1993)
Books of Ultimate Truths pb (1994)
Brentford Trilogy #4: Sprouts of Wrath pb (1994)
Raiders of the Lost Carpark pb (1995)
Garden of Unearthly Delights pb (1996)
Dog Called Demolition pb (1997)
Nostradamus Ate My Hamster pb (1997)
Sprout Mask Replica pb (1998)
Brentford Trilogy #5: Brentford Chainstore Massacre pb (1998)
Dance of the Voodoo Handbag pb (1999)
Apocalypso pb (1999)
Stuff Fiction pb (2000)
Sex & Drugs & Sausage Rolls pb (2000)
Waiting For Godalming pb (2001)
Fandom of the Operator - November 2001 (hb, $59.95RRP)
Website Story - December 2001 (pb $21.95)