Cornelius Murphy 02: Raiders of the Lost Car Park (Robert Rankin)

Rating: 4
Year: 1994
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Comedy
Read Again? Yes

The Stuff of Legends continues right where the first book left off!

Cornelius and his half-pint friend Tuppe have a plan: they will modify an ocarina to add the special notes that will open the Forbidden Zones scattered around town. Then they'll open them one by one and liberate the loot hidden therein!

To this end, Cornelius shoplifts an ocarina and a young woman from a music shop. The trio hijacks an ice cream truck, which gains them a place to store loot and a PA system to boost the ocarina's signal.


In the meantime, one Inspectre Hovis is hoping to solve the Crime of the Century. This would involve the theft of a sizable quantity of diamonds years before which suddenly turned up scattered all over the road. His prime suspect is a cab driver who claims that he was minding his own business when a train--a TRAIN!--came barreling out of a solid wall and scattered those very diamonds all over the street. This really did happen, at the end of the first book.

In the meantime again, Team Cornelius open one of the Zones and find a wonderous car designed by The Man Himself, Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune, master of the unpaid bill, guru of gurus, reinventor of the ocarina, hater of Bud Abbott.

They soon find themselves in Rune's very presence. He has a plan to enter the Forbidden Zones and destroy them utterly, to reveal the beings who lurk within and secretly control the lives of humanity!

At the same time, there is to be an enormous rock festival headlined by Gandhi's Hairdryer, Prince Charles meets an interesting young woman, the Queen is an alien, and the very forces of the underworld whom Rune wishes to reveal are working to keep him from succeeding!

I'd have liked this book more if I hadn't taken so long--several months--to read it. I kept putting it aside and forgetting it. No fault of Rankin's, just me doing other things and ending up too tired to read.

Cornelius Murphy 01: The Book of Ultimate Truths (Robert Rankin)

Rating: 5
Year: 1993
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Comedy
Read Again? Yes!

Young Cornelius Murphy is the Stuff of Epics. Destined for Greatness. No one is more aware of this than he.

Actually, he seems to be the only one aware of this fact: the world doesn't care.

There's a Mr. Yarrow (the youth Employment Officer) at his school who is desperate to see the young Murphy gainfully employed before his final school year is done. He's tried and failed seven times to get the wretched boy into a job.

Mechanic? "Too delicate."
Merchant Seaman?
Minicab Driver? "Too well-spoken."
Monumental Mason? "Too tall."
Motorcycle Messenger?
Marriage Counselor? "Too sophisticated."
Male Model? "Too rugged."

He tries again. Mime Artiste.

Nope. "Too well-endowed."

Cornelius does finally get a job, but not via Mr. Yarrow. One Arthur Kobold hires him to travel into the wilds of Scotland to find and purchase the effects of the heroic and mystical Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune, master of the unpaid bill, guru of gurus, reinventor of the ocarina, hater of Bud Abbott.

Among these effects is a manuscript for Rune's greatest work, The Book of Ultimate Truths. Kobold wants to reprint the magnificent opus.

Cornelius travels into the vast reaches of untamed Scotland, finding himself pursued by a Campbell, who is also after the manuscript.

The simple "go to the auction, win the bid for some old junk no one wants, and bring it back" isn't as simple and uneventful as Cornelius expected it to be. He faces an enormous riot, a shootout in a monastery, and a bunch of naked Wiccans ("It's a genuine religion, you know.").

As he travels, Cornelius reads a copy of The Book, learning of the perils of C11 H17 NO3 (mescaline) in soaps, tea, and cola (Rune ran a profitable soap, tea, and cola concession off this fearmongering); the secret lives of Biro ballpoint pens (and why they vanish when you need one); and the truth of why there's always two screws left over when you reassemble a toaster or radio, and how this delayed the scheduled beginning of World War Two by three years (Rune learned this secret in India, acting as Gandhi's spiritual advisor).

Rankin's writing is rich, engaging and wickedly funny. There's no drag, aside from a mincing Gandhi in disguise as Rune's wife. Hell of a ride.

Buckaroo Banzai (Rauch, Earl Mac)

Rating: 4/5
Year: 1984
Genre: Sci-Fi/Adventure
Read again? In another 10 years

Adventurer, neurosurgeon, rock star, physicist, engineer, and all-around genius Buckaroo Banzai races his Jet Car through a mile-wide mountain and into the 8th Dimension!

But first, Buckaroo had to attend to a bit of tricky neurosurgery.

Meanwhile, Emilio Lazardo, aka John Whorfin, a Red Lectroid from Planet Ten!--plans his escape from a mental institution and schemes to steal Buckaroo's Oscillation Overthruster, the amazing device that allowed Buckaroo to cross the Dimensional barrier--and which will let Whorfin return home to Planet 10!

John Whorfin has a sort-of team of people--all Red Lectroids in disguise: John Bigboote and John O'Connor are running Yoyodyne, an aerospace company front that's suposed to be building their way back to Planet 10. But Bigboote and O'Connor seem to enjoy the human life too much.

Buckaroo Banzai has a team of people--a small army, actually, but his inner circle and rock band are known as the Hong Kong Cavaliers. It's up to all of them to save the world.

But first, they'll celebrate breaking the Dimensional barrier by playing a gig.

Save the world? Yes. Those Red Lectroids are bad guys banished from Planet 10. The good guys, who call themselves Adders, have threatened to blow up the Earth if Buckaroo can't stop the Lectroids.

The book is narrated by Reno, one of the Honk Kong Cavaliers and Buckaroo's official chronicler. Reno's got an entertaining heroic/cowboyish style that could be distracting or annoying if it weren't so tongue-in-cheek. There's a real-world feel to the narrative, thanks to Reno's footnotes and references to a backlog of Buckaroo Banzai adventures. Maybe a little long-winded. The book does drag in places, just enough that I zapped a point.