RANKIN, Robert (Fleming)

(1949-)

   UK writer who began writing his highly idiosyncratic sf novels with the Brentford sequence: The Antipope (1981), The Brentford Triangle (1983) and East of Ealing (1984), assembled as The Brentford Trilogy (omni1988), plus The Sprouts of Wrath (1988). In the first volume, two layabouts and their friends challenge Forces from the Beyond ranging from an undead sorcerer to an alien invasion fleet. In later volumes the series satirizes CLICHES taken in equal measure from horror, sf and fantasy, setting them off against the thoroughly down-to-earth London suburb of Brentford. In the end humanity is (apparently) destroyed. RR's Armageddonseries - Armageddon: The Musical (1990), They Came and Ate Us: Armageddon II: The B-Movie (1991) and The Suburban Book of the Dead: Armageddon III:The Remake (1992) - features a time-travelling Elvis Presley and is based on the premise that the whole of human history has been stage-managed for transmission as an extraterrestrial soap opera. Further (and similar) works include the Ultimate Truths tales, comprising The Book of Ultimate Truths (1993) and Raiders of the Lost Car Park (1994); and The GreatestShow Off Earth (1994).

   NT

   See also: COSMOLOGY; HUMOUR.