Chris reviewed Witches of Chiswick (Gollancz) by Robert Rankin
None
4 stars
Its author having slumbered in the wilderness of some fairly substandard potboilers for a few years (Sprout Mask Replica, anyone? Thought not), Witches is a very impressive parallel-world time-travel novel involving steampunk, divergent futures, conspiracy theory, and Rankin's recurring figure of Hugo Rune, who in some books is a mere windbag and braggart, but here - despite a habit of not paying bills and disappearing every few years, apparently to avoid his creditors - is a very impressive magician, a kind of idealised Crowley, symbiotic with the alternative High Victorian London shown here, and might prove to be even more than that. The kaleidoscope of possible Brentfords, gauged by - for example, as one measures a circle beginning anywhere - how many ales are on pump in the "Flying Swan", is something Rankin has hinted at in other novels but never achieved as well as he does here.
Its author having slumbered in the wilderness of some fairly substandard potboilers for a few years (Sprout Mask Replica, anyone? Thought not), Witches is a very impressive parallel-world time-travel novel involving steampunk, divergent futures, conspiracy theory, and Rankin's recurring figure of Hugo Rune, who in some books is a mere windbag and braggart, but here - despite a habit of not paying bills and disappearing every few years, apparently to avoid his creditors - is a very impressive magician, a kind of idealised Crowley, symbiotic with the alternative High Victorian London shown here, and might prove to be even more than that. The kaleidoscope of possible Brentfords, gauged by - for example, as one measures a circle beginning anywhere - how many ales are on pump in the "Flying Swan", is something Rankin has hinted at in other novels but never achieved as well as he does here.
