They Came and Ate Us - Robert Rankin

   1991; 336 pages.  Full Title: They Came and Ate Us – Armageddon II: The B Movie.  Book 2 in the “Armageddon Trilogy” series.  New Author? : Goodness, no.  Genres : Humorous Absurdism; Time Travel; Weird Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Quick, how do you stop an NHE (that’s “Nuclear Holocaust Event” for you Earthlings) after it’s already happened?

 

    Well, as any Phnaarg can tell you, you send someone back through time, or forward in time for that matter, and have him kill whoever was responsible for the NHE.

 

    But what if the assassination attempt fails?

 

    Then you resend your guy and have him try again.  Or send some other person.  Or both.

 

    But that’s messing around with the original timeline!  I thought we weren’t allowed to do that.

 

    The taboo against spawning timeline anomalies is literary laziness preached by sci-fi authors who are afraid it will spread confusion.  Ignore those sissies.

 

    Gee, I don’t know.  It still sounds kind of risky.

 

   Well, ask yourself this: if someone did screw around with the original timeline, how would you know?

 

What’s To Like...

    They Came and Ate Us is vintage Robert Rankin absurdism.  The storyline is engaging and despite being confusing to start out with, it clarifies into several main storylines by the halfway point.  The primary plot threads are:

 

    Who zapped Rex Mundi a half century into the past, and why?

    Can Rex and Jack Doveston succeed in preventing the 1999 NHE, and how?

    Why is Elvis obsessed with killing Wayne Wormwood, and how come he repeatedly fails?

 

    There are talking dogs and sentient bean sprouts.  There are shakers and hackers and demons.  There are a slew of time paradoxes and fourth-wall asides.  The author himself sneaks in, cleverly disguised as one of the characters.

 

    I was pleased to see that there are also some of Robert Rankin’s trademark running gags and obscure (at least to us Yanks) British trivia.  Fangio’s bar makes a brief appearance; so does the inscrutable fighting art called Dimac.  Jim Pooley and John Omally have cameo roles near the end of the book, which makes me wonder if they’ll play a larger role in the sequel.  Trivia-wise, I had to look up both Frankie Howerd and Ray Harryhausen.

 

    They Came and Ate Us is the sequel to Armageddon – The Musical, and if both books reside on your TBR shelf, I highly recommend reading them in order.  I did, but alas I read Book 1 way back in 2013 and thus remembered almost nothing about it.  Thankfully, Robert Rankin provides a brief recap of that tale early on here (pgs. 7-8), for which I am very much grateful.

 

    The ending is over-the-top and replete with plot twist after plot twist.  Earth is saved from the 1999 NHE.  Or is it?  I guess I’ll have to read book 3, The Suburban Book of the Dead, to make sure.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Yobbo (n.) : a cruel and brutal fellow. (English slang)

Others: Librams (n., plural); Putting Pay (v.), Prial (n.); Bunged the readies and seen all right (British slang, for which I never did suss out the meaning).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 81 ratings and 16 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.89/5 based on 1,411 ratings and 16 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    In the year 2050 planet Earth finally got the chance to enjoy Armageddon.  It had originally been scheduled to occur in 999 and after that fell through, in 1999.  However, due to certain legal loopholes in the original contracts and God moving in the mysterious way he is known and loved for, the thing didn’t get under way until 2050.

    But when it did it was a real showstopper.  Cracking special effects, flaming chariots, angelic hosts, fire and brimstone, the whole kith and caboodle and the kitchen sink.  All in glorious Buddhacolour and broadcast live as it happened.  (pg. 7, and the opening paragraphs.)

 

    “Perhaps it can’t be done.”

    Elvis made a bitter face.  “What do you mean?”

    Rex turned to meet his eyes.  “Perhaps it is impossible to change history.  The Phnaargs tried it with you but it didn’t work.”

    “But I fooled the Phnaargs.  I am here and now.”

    “Perhaps you would have been here and now anyway, which is why you are.  If you follow me.”

    “I surely do.”  Elvis surely didn’t.  (pg. 126)

 

Sam voiced certain words to the effect that the junior officer’s cranium was in fact a male reproductive organ and flung the handset aside.  (pg. 12)

    There’s a moderate amount of profanity in They Came and Ate Us.  I counted 11 instances in the first 10% of the book, 5 of which were scatological in nature.  Later on, there were at least four references to male genitalia and its various functions.

 

    In addition to deciphering the British idioms, the punctuation takes some getting used to.  Across the pond, dialogue is in single quotation marks, not double.  There was an abundance of missing commas in direct quotes here.  Example: ‘And back to you in the studio Ramon.’  Us Yanks were taught to absolutely positively put a comma after the word “studio”.  This type of omission happens so frequently (yet not always), that I was left wondering if there are different rules for it in Britain.

 

    Finally, keep in mind that absurdism rules the roost here.  The crazier and more convoluted the storyline is, the better its entertainment value.  If complex and confusing plot threads bug you, you might want to eschew Robert Rankin's books.

 

    But I confess, I’m a Robert Rankin fanatic.  I’d be disappointed if he wrote a book where I wasn't kept on my toes trying to follow what's going on.  They Came and Ate Us may be a challenging read, but for me it was also a delightfully satisfying one.

 

    7½ Stars.  They Came and Ate Us was published in 1991.  Did Robert Rankin somehow foresee the rise of a prominent 21^st-century American politician?  Check out pages 152-53 and judge whether the person they’re talking about bears an eerie resemblance to one of our present-day newsmakers.