Book Report: The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

If you can’t judge a book by its cover (and you can), it was a pretty good bet when my Best Reader bought me a copy of The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. And if it isn’t as good as it might be, it’s still pretty good. It’s Pratchett-esque, or perhaps Tom Holt-esque, or something. It would have to be called zany, and there’s a certain pleasure in just finding out that somebody has come up with this stuff. The humor comes from the juxtaposition of an earthy not to say brutal style with a subject matter more suited to the light touch; I find stuff like that funny, but not everybody does. So if a fairly technical discussion of how to get a Teddy Bear drunk doesn’t sound at all entertaining, give this book a miss.

My main complaint is that the titular tasty treat is never really explained properly. I mean, yes, they make their appearances, and it’s kind of a plot point and all, but the question of why a serial killer leaves a hollow chocolate bunny by the dead bodies of Humpty Dumpty, Little Tommy Tucker, Little Boy Blue and Mother Goose (more properly Madam Goose) is never answered.

My other complaint is that Mr. Rankin appears to dislike his characters and setting, which makes the book less fun to get into. I mean, yes, Terry Pratchett’s characters are morons, crooks or worse, but he seems to have an affection for them that it’s easy to share. In general, I think I like to have a sense that the author likes the characters, even if what he or she likes about them is hating them. A really good villain, usually, is the author’s favorite character in the book. In this book, I think the author didn’t like or dislike the villain any more than the main character, and that’s a problem for me.

I did enjoy the book, though, and furthermore it was pretty much exactly the kind of book I wanted at the time I opened it, which was good luck. There are, it seems, something like a hundred other novels by Mr. Rankin, and I will probably pick another one up at some point.

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.