Rating: 
Summary: read it - GREAT!
Review: "it's as sweet as" - Eddie.having now read the book i have to say that it is an interesting trippy read. the language takes a bit of getting used to, simply because it is very straight forward, very much like nursery stories. As Jack and Eddie try to solve the murders of various nursery rhyme characters it is anything but. Also it's a quirky self aware detective story as well. At one point our heros decide to do nothing but wait for a twist - since those always happen. all in all a quirky, interesting, strange, funny, and entertaining read.
Rating: 
Summary: Suitable for young nerds with no social life.
Review: After comparisons to Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, I was expecting great things. I was vastly disappointed. The humor was crude and probably only funny to pre-adolescent males. The plot is full of holes and the writing is wooden. I can't imagine how this book ever got published.
Rating:
Summary: Nursery is no place for kids
Review: Behind the mask of this hilarious book is a revelation known only to a few people in the past. Just as Toontown has its dark secrets and evil Toons, Toy City - where nursery rhyme characters reside - has its share of Looniness that would lead the Brothers to wish they'd written all the nursery rhymes, and not just the Grimmest ones. This book points fingers like no other brave soul has dared. (For example, despite a blatant attempt to make it look like an accident, it has always been well known among insiders that Humpty Dumpty was indeed murdered.) The Apocolype may be coming, as the title suggests, but I have advice for all my loyal Bunny-Eating friends: do all the wabbits a big favor and bite off their heads first so they don't see the rest of it coming!
Rating: 
Summary: 'As good as!'
Review: I absolutely loved this book. The only thing I hated was finishing it because I know the next book I read will have a hard time measuring up. It has a lot of great humor, especially if you are a fan of Jasper Fforde and Douglas Adams. It has a very unique storyline with the demise of nursery rhyme characters, although valid the ending did get a little weird, but it was still an awesome read. I would definitely reccomend Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse to anyone wanting a fun humourous read and murder mystery all wrapped into one. A+!
Rating:
Summary: A Great Laugh and a Great Mystery
Review: I bought this book for no other reason than because I saw it in the store and loved the title. It's pretty much the best title ever, I think. And much to my surprise, I absolutely loved this book! It's very reminiscent of the works of Monty Python and Douglas Adams: irreverent, scatter-shot, howlingly funny and sometimes in very questionable taste--and I mean that in a good way. I also loved the way the author sometimes goes on long, barely related, and very funny tangents right in the middle of the suspenseful parts, thereby both prolonging and defusing the tension at the same time. In addition to be being laugh out loud funny (I really embarrassed myself on the subway one morning) it's also a satisfying whodunnit for mystery fans, with good plotting, fully fleshed-out characters (although maybe flesh isn't such a good choice of words here), and a lot of honest to goodness suspense. Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended. In fact, I'm trying to get my book club to do this one next month so everyone can enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
Review: I hated it! I found it hard to read. It lacked rhythm and finesse. I thought it would be really funny. I was put off by both the style and some of the subject matter. I probably will not read this author again.
Rating:
Summary: Well-written but unlikeable
Review: I wanted to like this book. It is in a style and genre that I generally enjoy a great deal. But... there isn't one single character in it I liked. Eddie Bear is probably the nearest it comes, and he's sweet but one-dimensional. Actually ALL of the characters are, including Jack, the main character. Most of the characters in the book are toys and nursery rhyme personas, so it could be said that they ARE one-dimensional, but that doesn't make me like them any better. Language is used beautifully in this book and the style is unique and challengingly interesting. Unfortunately it cannot overcome the unlikeable and flat characters and rather gratuitous grossness that crops up from time to time.
Rating: 
Summary: Strange beyond strange
Review: I've read some strange books over the years. My wife got me this one as a Christmas present. It's not particularly long, and it moves right along at a brisk pace, with something-or-other happening in virtually every chapter. The author is sly and very aware of the reader, and he makes characters that are aware also. So why give it only 3 stars?
Well, first there's the issue of creativity. This is, essentially, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but with a Toy Story set of characters. Toy City is populated mostly by toys, and the few real people there are often Preadolescent Poetic Personalities (or PPPs; they hate the designation "Nursery Rhyme Characters," thinking it demeaning) who live on the royalties from their Nursery Rhymes. When someone starts killing off the PPPs of the town, starting with Humpty Dumpty, things get very strange.
Enter Jack, a nobody from a factory outside the city who runs away from home, hoping to get to the City and seek his fortune. Jack soon meets a talking Teddy Bear who was the silent partner of Bill Winkie, the private eye of Toy City. Bill had started working on the case of Humpty Dumpty's murder when he himself vanished, and so now Eddie Bear needs a new partner. Jack seems to fit the bill, and they set off on an adventure.
The whole of this book is pervaded with an eccentric weirdness that's at times engaging and at times wearing. There's also the issue of the writing style. I like British authors, and have read many who have what (to an American anyway) comes off as a strange way of expressing themselves, but this is a bit too much. The first time the author used the phrase "well known to those who know it well" I thought it was cute. The fifth time, it was a bit tiresome, and that was only about a third of the way through the book. He used it all told seemingly every chapter. There are also plot twists and annoyances that are just beyone belief: at one point, the author has the two main characters just sit and wait for the marvelous contrivance that will get them out of the current situation, and then conveniently provides it. The ending isn't as unexpected as you'd think, either.
All in all, I enjoyed this book, just not a great deal. I would recommend it to anyone who thinks they'd be interested in the above plot.
Oh, and another thing. Much has been made in some of the other reviews of the supposed anti-Bush episode at the end of the book. It's there, not particularly funny or inventive, but given the rest of the plot not that surprising. What's amusing is the one reviewer who asserted that this had somehow made the book harder to find in America. Michael Moore, Al Franken, Molly Ivins, Bill Mahr, Bill Press, and everyone else in liberal America seem to be able to get "The Bush-hater's Guide to Picking Your Nose" published, but a harmless comic novel like this must be stopped! Just goes to show you, conspiracy theories come in all flavors.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, hilarious, thought provoking
Review: On the surface, this is a hilarious romp through toyland. Dig a little deeper and the social commentary emerges, in the form of biting satire on consumerism, social heirarchies, and society at large.
The magic is in the dialogue, with each character providing some of the immediate story. The background leaks out slowly in these conversations, with each new revelation a sudden delight.
In short, I loved it. It makes the reader work a little harder than when reading a Douglas Adams or Tom Holt, but it's more rewarding too. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but could have been better.
Review: Robert Rankin, The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse (Gollancz, 2002)
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse is sick. It's perverse. It's completely twisted. It's also quite funny. And well worth picking up.
Jack is a young man fleeing a life of mindless factory work, on his way to the big city, where (he's been told) he can make his fortune. After some trip-ups on the way, he gets there and finds out that the city, in fact, is populated with toys, with the majority of the humans being nursery rhyme characters who are retired, or semi-retired (Miss Muffet, for example, has a daytime talk show, and Tommy Tucker is still doing his thing). The problem is, someone's killing off those old nursery rhyme characters, and Jack, by befriending the bear of missing private eye Bill Winkie, gets caught up in trying to find the serial killer before any more nursery rhyme characters meet ironic ends.
The main problem the book has is that it's genre writing. What genre is subject to debate, certainly, but all the hallmarks of genre writing are here. One dimensional characters, plot herrings that should have been used satrically but weren't, chapter-ending cliffhangers, characters coming back from the brink (or over it) of death, etc. It's The Perils of Pauline with toys. For all that, it is funny, and if you've got a twisted sense of humor, you'll likely get a kick out of it. ***
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