And part of it is the fact that this book isn’t about the humour. A lot of it’s down to the fact he’s just really, really good at this. Perhaps because he’s just so laid-back and post-modern and wittily ironically flippant about it all that it’s hard to get annoyed. Strangely, I didn’t find any of this a problem. In that respect, it reminds me of the kind of collage-of-scenes effect in the Red Dwarf novels themselves, where familiar things from the series are rearranged and given new significance in the books. In particular, there are five or six things lifted straight from Red Dwarf (some comic, some played straight). Actual jokes are recycled, not in the form of words, but in the sense of concepts and scenes. It’s laid-back post-modern wittily ironically flippant British sci-fi humour. The underlying tone is something in the vicinity of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, and Grant Naylor.
A lot of things about this book are very familiar, particularly the jokes. I’m serious about re-using material, though. And then spends the second half of the evening telling a long long joke and wandering off before the punchline. I never saw him perform, because he was long, long before my time, but I get the feeling he would have been one of those guys who tells the same old jokes in the same old ways, but is somehow funny despite all that. And the worst of it is, for this nightmare you don’t even have to be asleep… Considered a modern classic, and consistently featured in lists of Books To Read Before Your Head Explodes, ONLY FORWARD is a novel you'll never forget.Michael Marshall Smith used to be a comedian. And that’s not easy in a city where reality is twisting and broken, a world in which friends can become enemies in a heartbeat - and where your most secret fear can become a soul-shredding reality. Read more and cowering in a corner, because a Something always comes from your darkest past and won’t be beaten until you face it. And when a Something happens it’s no good chanting ‘go away go away go away’. Stark is the private investigator who goes to work when Something Happens to you. Michael Marshall Smith’s surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. Michael Marshall Smith's surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield.
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