Duik in een duister-humoristische, de werkelijkheid buigende saga die zich afspeelt in een Londense buitenwijk. Deze serie volgt de chaotische levens van personages die struikelen door occulte gevechten, ontmoetingen met mythologische beesten en botsingen met historische figuren uit andere tijden. Het is een wilde rit door het alledaagse en het magische, waarbij de lokale pub een portaal wordt naar kosmisch avontuur. Bereid je voor op een unieke mix van het fantastische en het alledaagse.
This story uncovers suburbia's darkest secrets - mostly in The Flying Swan, a cosmic Rovers Return where Neville the barman and Archroy, owner of five magic beans, do battle with beasts of the occult and in particular the rather unpleasant Pope Alexander VI, the last of the Borgias.
I should never have got up so early today and all over Brentford electrical appliances were beginning to fail...'Could it be that Pooley and Omally, whilst engaged on a round of allotment golf, mistook laser-operated gravitational landing beams for the malignant work of Brentford Council?
'Ahead, where once had been only bombsite land, the Lateinos and Romiith building rose above Brentford. Within its cruel and jagged shadow, magnolias wilted in their window boxes and synthetic Gold Top became doorstep cheese...'Something sinister is happening east of Ealing.
No, this time, to save the world as we know it, the lads must contemplate - nay, undertake - the most horrible, the most terrifying, the heretofore untried - REGULAR EMPLOYMENT!!!
There is nothing more powerful than a bad idea whose time has come. And there can be few ideas less bad or more potentially apocalyptic than that hatched by genetic scientist Dr Stephen Malone.
He becomes funnier the more you read him.' Independent It has always been John Omally's secret ambition to become a rock star. In his youth he mastered air guitar and wardrobe-mirror posing, but he lacked that certain something. Talent. But at last an opportunity has arisen for John to get into 'The Industry'. A band called Gandhi's Hairdryer are looking for a manager, so all John has to do is persuade them that he is the new Brian Epstein. It should be a piece of cake. But - and there's always a but - there is something rather odd about this band. Something other-worldly. It might be the lead singer, whose voice has the power to heal. Might she be an angel, perhaps? Or could she be the Devil in disguise? Because, after all, the Devil does have all the best tunes. And this is Brentford. In this, his final offering of the twentieth century, Robert Rankin returns to the town of his birth, the friends of his youth and one of the loves of his life- Rock Music. 'Everybody should read at least one Robert Rankin in their life.' Daily Express
There's big trouble in little Brentford. Property developers are planning to destroy the borough's beloved football ground and build executive homes on the site. Shock! Outrage! Horror! Something must be done to halt this iconoclasm. The lads of The Flying Swan, Brentford's most celebrated drinking house, take up the challenge. Norman the corner shopkeeper has some ideas. He's recently discovered a Victorian computer which holds the plans to the secret super-technology of a bygone age. And Archroy, Brentford's lone yachtsman and explorer, has just returned from his seventh voyage, bringing with him the fabled Golden Fleece. There's Jim Pooley and John Omally, unemployed batchelors of this parish. And that Victorian time traveller who's crash-landed on the allotments. Surely with all these stalwarts working for the cause, Brentford's football ground can be saved? Would it were so, but this is Brentford and ancient forces of evil are forever stirring in the borough. Old Testament terrors, Lovecraftian loathsomes and beasties from the bottomless pit. And if the team make it through to the final, it's going to be a match that no one will forget. What with the fate of mankind hanging upon the result. And everything. In this, the first ever Book of Brentford, which is also the second book in The Witches of Chiswick trilogy, the Father of Far Fetched Fiction spins an epic yarn which will no doubt become a modern classic.
Were you aware that there are, hidden in the streets of Brighton, twelve ancient constellations, like the Hangleton Hound and the Bevendean Bat? Well, there are, and on each one hangs a tale, a tale so strange that only The Lad Himself, that inveterate spinner of tales and talker of the toot, Hugo Rune, can get to the bottom of them. And he'd better do it quickly, because if he doesn't solve the dozen mysteries before the year is out, that'll be the end of the world as we know it.
There is big and evil magic upon the face of the Earth, and history has consequently been changed. The Germans have won World War II; America is a nuclear wasteland; and worst of all the breakfast menu at The Wife's Legs Café in Brentford is serving bratwurst rather than the proper British sausage. When the world is all wrong and it needs setting right, the only hope left is Hugo Rune, a man who offers the world his genius and asks only that his expenses be covered. Hugo, also known as the hokus bloke, the Lad Himself, and the Retromancer, sets out to rewrite history the way it should be, with the aid of his faithful acolyte and companion Rizla. Together they return to war-torn London to solve the 12 cosmic conundrums based upon Hugo's personal tarot deck, each mystery leading them closer to a final terrifying confrontation. They must match their wits against beautiful spies, advanced alien technology, killer robots, and death rays; do battle with an ancient god; and come face to face once more with Hugo Rune's arch-enemy, the sinister Count Otto Black.
