HOORAH, HAROO AND SAINTS BE PRAISED... BARRY'S BACK.
Yes, it's true. the galaxy's best loved time-travelling holy guardian sprout, Barry, has returned for his last ever adventure.
And if that alone isn't worth making a big fuss about, then how about this?
The year is 1927 and the British Empire is about to celebrate Queen
Victoria's ninetieth year upon the throne. And where better to do this
than aboard the most expensive and exclusive cruise ship ever built? The mile-long SS Leviathan, a space liner/pleasure craft, orbiting Earth,
where, in the spirit of the Jazz Age, anything goes. For in space the
laws of Earth do not apply and rich folk can really indulge themselves.
Meet Lord Jonathan Crawford, gentleman adventurer.
Lady Agnes Rutherford, secret agent.
The "Three Owls", Aleister Crowley, Master of the Arts Magickal"
Al Jolson, politically incorrect "minstrel" and Voodoo High Priest.
And Al Capone, a right dodgy geezer.
And let us not forget the Master and Commander of The Leviathan, Count Ilya Rostov, the 20th Century's very first super-villain.
Add into the mix a vegetable lamb, a reluctant schoolboy plucked
from the nineteen-fifties to save the world and more space pirates than
you could shake a sticky thing at. Stir in God, a modicum of
excruciating poetry and a big spoonful of Armageddon and you may well
have got started into THE ABOMINABLE SHOWMAN.
This stand alone, old school, space adventure, written in Robert
Rankin's unique style, shows that this best selling and much imitated
author is still at the very top of his game and that his mind remains
one of a kind.
Robert Fleming Rankin (born 1949) is a prolific British humorous novelist. Robert Rankin's books are a mix of science fiction, fantasy, the occult, urban legends, running gags, metafiction, steampunk and outrageous characters, he is the Father of Far Fetched Fiction and has been described as the drinking man's H. G. Wells.
