Rating: 
Summary: Read This Book
Review: The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse is pretty much a crazy book--track it down and read it. From the reviews on these pages, it is harder to find this book than it was for Jack and Eddie, the young boy and stuffed bear heroes of the book to solve the mysterious murders in Toy City. Humpty Dumpty has been boiled to death--and other nursery rhyme protagonists soon follow. Toy City is a bizarre place where toys are real, as are people and nursery rhymes and other oddities. Jack is new to the town, and, like the reader, is perpetually amazed at the weirdness of Toy City. This book is very, very funny--a bit (well, more than a bit) off center--but just a delight to read. It's a blend of science fiction, fantasy, humor and mystery--somewhat like the Thursday Next series in its odd blending of multiple genres. Fun, weird fun, but still fun.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Flawless
Review: The plot of this book is amazing. I've never seen one even remotely like it. It's full of unexpected twists and interesting characters and it keeps you guessing until the end. The only thing that disappointed me about this book is who the killer turned out to be. The clues didn't point to this person and when I found out I wasn't like "What?! Him?! No way!". I was like "Oh...well that kinda sucks." But other than that it was a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy/mystery.
Rating: 
Summary: Unlike anything I've ever read
Review: The title grabbed me, so I picked up the book on a whim, and was very pleasantly surprised. Its totally unlike anything I've ever read. It was a very entertaining premise and very well executed. It was one of the funniest and most fun books I've read in a long time. I'm anxious to read more books by this author.
Rating: 
Summary: Roger Rabbit did it better 15 years ago
Review: There's a part at the start of "Hollow Chocolate Bunnies.." where are hero is trapped in a pit, about to be dinner for some demented farmer outside Toy City. I thought, now this is something. This is how you start a book. It was deviously dark and clever. The bad news is...the book basiclly peaks there.
The rest of the story, about a boy, Jack, and his fairy noir adventures in the big city, in this case Toy City where a serial killer is on the lose, reads like a weak copy of Rodger Rabbit. In "Hollow Bunnies..." we substitute famous cartoon characters for famous nursery rhyme characters, Humpty Dumty is boiled in his hot tub, Little Boy Blue has a shepard's crook shoved up his..well you get the idea. Our boy Jack, becomes an impromtu, dectective along with his partner Eddie the Teddy Bear, and tries to solve the case.
Robert Rankin is a popular British author and perhaps if I were British or more familiar with his style I would have enjoyed the book more. Still, the best thing going for this book is it's gimmick...a gimmick that was more original and simply just more 15 years ago.
Rating:
Summary: As funny as, mostly.
Review: This is the first of Rankin's books I've read and I only picked up this one because of the title. (Looking at his list of previous works, he obviously goes in for flaky titles.) My response to the first couple of chapters was, "He's trying too hard." I'm a longtime fan of Terry Pratchett, and that level of inspired and highly literate looniness is very difficult to attain, and maintain, without going overboard. But I stuck with it and I gradually found myself caught up in this tale of Jack the fortune-seeker in Toy City, his partnership with Eddie (who until recently was the teddy bear of Bill Winkie, private eye), and their efforts to catch the serial killer who's knocking off the Old-Rich human nursery characters in the city. The kindly, white-haired old Toymaker in his house up at the top of Knob Hill might be a god, or at least an assistant to one of the gods. And there's Jill, a scrumptious hooker with a heart of not-quite-gold, and Tinto, the clockwork bartender who is actually something considerably more. Like Pratchett, Rankin also takes the opportunity to get in some digs at the world we humans inhabit -- especially late in the book, when the truth about the present U.S. mis-administration comes out. Rankin is especially good at description and dialogue and I expect I'll try to hunt up some of his earlier books.
Rating:
Summary: Funny and Brilliant
Review: Two words - funny and brilliant and like Teddy bear - full of lifes sour sweet sawdust.
Rating:
Summary: More Mystery than Fantasy
Review: Well, of course any book set in Toy City has got to have its fair share of the fantastic, but once you accept (as our hero Jack is forced to) the existence of walking, talking toys, the novel settles into the (intentionally) formulaic mystery-detection beats.The situations are interesting and different (Miss Muffet's talk show comes to mind--in toy city all those nursery rhyme characters have perforce become rich and famous), the characters well-characterized, the humour unforced, and the relationship between Jack and the bear who somewhat adopts him is quite touching. The best part of the book is its charming dialogue--the toys share the same literality that Carroll's creatures have in the Wonderland/Looking Glass books; although no one quite comes out with "then you should say what you mean," it's clear the characters expect it. There are several very cute passages. An excellent book (my first read of this author's oeuvre) and I'm looking forward to reading more from him (he's written a lot!) Note: a 3 star ranking from me is actually pretty good; I reserve 4 stars for tremendously good works, and 5 only for the rare few that are or ought to be classic; unfortunately most books published are 2 or less.
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