The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions by Robert Rankin (2010)
The year is 1895 and Britain has emerged resurgent and resplendent in the wake of the
Martian invasion recounted by H. G Wells in his most excellent history of The War of
the Worlds. An expeditionary force of the Kings own Electric Fusiliers has subjugated
Mars and the red planet is now the newest jewel of the Empire. Peaceful contact has been
established with Jupiter and Venus, trade and relations established and for those at
the very apex of society, life has never been better. But all that glitters is not gold,
for the opulence and splendour of Empire is (as has ever been the case) carried aloft
on the shoulders of a great mass of struggling lower classes.
Near the bottom of this heap, but ever yearning to climb higher is young George Fox,
a runaway who has fallen in with the self styled Professor Cagliostro Coffin. When first
we meet, they are earning a precarious living exhibiting the stinking and rapidly
disintegrating cadaver of a Martian invader. Unlike many of the "attractions" touted
by their fellow fairground showmen the Martian is genuine, but as George is about to
discover, little else connected with his employer is as it seems, and he is soon to be
propelled into a terrifying adventure in search of the mysterious Japanese Devil Fish Girl.
This is my first encounter with author Robert Rankin, and I must confess that on the
evidence of this novel, it seems I have been sorely deprived. Rankin writes in a
charmingly irreverent nod and wink style, such that you shouldn't go into this book
expecting him to adhere to the style of H. G Wells or in any way provide a rational
sequel. Rankin wants you to embrace the silliness, and to this end throws in sundry
characters and events with little care for their historical accuracy, (history records
the date of The War of the Worlds differently for one) quite happily supplying footnotes
blowing raspberries at anyone who might dare to complain that people who are
dead (and hence should know better), are alive and well. Hence Charles Babbage, inventor
of the tragically unrealised Difference Engine here gets to build his fabulous computer
and a certain Herr Hitler is to be found much out of his time, sullenly serving drinks
on the airship Empress of Mars.
Much of the humour in the book is built on the implausibility of these random collisions
in space and time, but (and don't please construe this as criticism) it's not a laugh out
loud experience, rather it's a comfortable warm blanket kind of humour, not particularly
subtle, occasionally childishly scatological (I make no apologies that a dung throwing
monkey is one of my favourite characters), yet written with such cheerful careless abandon
that seldom are you without a wry half smile on your face. It's fair to argue (and here comes
a criticism) that Rankin flings, like his simian character Darwin, a lot of dung at the wall
hoping it will stick, and occasionally the sheer quantity elicits a groan rather than a
chuckle, but that's like complaining the restaurant has piled on too many chocolate sprinkles
on your desert, you may feel a tad queasy by the end, but the journey getting there was worth
the occasional discomfort.
And what a journey it is for our hero George. Shipwrecked when the Empress of Mars does a
Titanic, faced on one hand with cannibals and on the other with bureaucratic Martians, he finds
love along the way and much against his will is prophesised to be the saviour of mankind, a long
shot indeed when London becomes the focus of a three pronged assault by Martians, Jovians and
Venusians. Done so well, I don't think H. G Wells would be at all perturbed by this reverential
rifling of his imagination, so it seems reasonable then to conclude this review in the style of
Mr Rankin. A phantasmagorical cornucopia of Wellsian whimsy, dizzying intergalactical intrigue
and daring doings that seldom fails to divert, delight and amuse.
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See also
Books
1970
The Panic Broadcast by Howard Koch. An account of the 1938 broadcast by the scriptwriter.
