The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions [Paperback]

It is 1895. Ten years have passed since the Martian assault on Earth. The British Empire, 'back-engineering' recovered Martian technology, has conquered Mars with germ warfare and now treats with the denizens of Venus and Jupiter on an equal footing. A great spaceport has been built in London, a vast airship known as the Empress of Mars is touring the world and showing the British flag, and Venusian missionaries are now visiting Earth. With such wonders unfolding, showman Professor Coffin is finding interest in his pickled Martian specimen evaporating. When his zany (sorry, assistant) George Fox is informed that it his destiny to find the mythical Japanese Devil Fish Girl, Coffin sells his worldly possessions to fund an exciting and dangerous round-the-world trip to find his, sorry, their fame and fortune.

The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions: A Novel by Robert Rankin is a humorous semi-sequel to The War of the Worlds and is, very blatantly, an attempt at a 'steampunk epic' (much is made of Rankin's status as the very first Fellow of the Victorian Steampunk Society). Rankin delights in tearing up the timeline, which doesn't mesh very well with either War of the Worlds (which takes place very late in the 19th Century, with references made to a book published in 1893, but here is retconned to 1885) or established history: Charles Babbage and Charles Darwin are both still around, despite having died decades earlier, whilst Adolf Hitler cameos as a young man despite only being six years old in real life at the time. Of course, one doesn't read Rankin for historical accuracy or serious attention to detail. His books are comical romps, sometimes with hints of more interesting things going on.

The Japanese Devil Fish Girl is certainly a fun romp, and a slightly stronger novel than his previous book that I'd read, The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse (though it isn't quite as funny). The structure is better, with George Fox's misadventures (to some degree episodic) on the Empress of Mars giving a spine to the story as misfortune befalls him, whilst with the redoubtable Professor Coffin Rankin gives us a more complex character than normal, although Fox is cut from the same cloth as just about every one of his other heroes, from Cornelius Murphy through Toy City's Jack. The pace is furious and it's unlikely you'll be bored, but there's also a lack of depth. In particularly, the shift from adventures in remote corners of the world back to London at the end of the novel is somewhat jarring.

On the humour front, Rankin trots out quite a few of the same running gags for inspection, and you'll either laugh or give a long-suffering sigh at them depending on your degree of familiarity with the author (luckily a minigun 'like the one Blaine had in Predator' fails to appear). There's a few funny other gags elsewhere and a couple of sharp jabs at British imperialism which seems to threaten (but never achieves) satire, but towards the end of the book Rankin falls back on a comical monkey and his exploits to get laughs, which hints a little at desperation (as does the blatantly sequel-baiting finale). Oddly for a Rankin novel, this is one where the actual story is better than the humour.

The Japanese Devil Fish Girli (***) is pretty much Another Robert Rankin novel, although shorn of connections to his other books it's a little bit more accessible to newcomers. But there is definitely the feeling that here he had a chance to break free of his comfort zone and write a more interesting story using steampunk trappings, but didn't do it. Instead he does his normal thing and does it well. The book is available now in the UK and on import in the USA.

Robert Rankin is a master of the absurd. His books don't feel so much a novel as a bedtime story told to you personally. With his small asides, and self-referencing, you feel included in a Rankin novel in a way no other author manages. It feels completely like Robert Rankin is one of those nice souls who genuinely writes his novels entirely for his fans.

It's a wonderful feeling, then, to rip open the cover and start exploring.

With Japense Devil Fish Girl, Mister Rankin has continued bounding down his steampunk-driven alternate reality and this time fused it with the whole travelling carnival feel. Our hero is a weedy young lad (possessed of a certain reluctant-go-forthism that is generally present in Rankin's heroes) who becomes a little obsessed with tracking down the mythic Japanese devil fish girl. Naturally, the spooky and definitely very Victorian dastardly bad guys are close at hand to help make the novel exciting. And with a character named Professor Coffin, how can you really go wrong?

Well, you can't.

I read this over the Christmas break and considering the pressures over the time, this was a welcome relief. Mister Rankin's style is deft, light, and genuine. Where some writers obviously have to rub and polish every joke, Mister Rankin pulls them out of his proverbial butt with flair and a natural ease only excess fibre could imitate. Hardly an apt metaphor, but there you go.

This time, Mister Rankin has continued down the same path he normally does, with a hero in the thick of it, getting out of the thick of it in a suitably silly manner and getting on with his life (presumably until the next fine adventure). There's plenty of excitement, too. What with the Martians being added in with a wonderfully cheeky tip of the hat to Mister Wells. It has, quite simply, everything you expect from something you would describe as being a Steampunk Comedy. The trouble with this format of his is it seems very predictable. It seems disappointing. But then you read it. And you realise he's more about entertainment. He's more about filling your mouth full of grins and your ribs full of that hurty feeling you get when you laugh too much. And that's a talent I think is completely misunderstood.

I can never get enough of Mister Rankin's books. There's more lunacy in them than the Goon Show. And just as many silly jokes.

the japanese devil fish girl by robert rankin his 32nd novel a comic fantasy set in an alternative victorian england after the martian invasion despite a promising start - a young churchill send the chronically sick to infect the planet Mars, and then moves on to the by now typical opening in a travelling freak show despite a voyage on a great passenger airship and meeting with martians, venusians and jupiterians the story increasing goes nowhere in a not that funny cartoon manner with the main charactors being so cardboard they fell over and off the page
the female love interest is byrons daughter ada lovelace born 1815--lets say she does not or in common with the rest of the books charactors act her age
ideas are picked up- the elephant man as a jack the ripper suspect. adolf hitler as a surly wine waiter but then not used

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