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Roger Rabbit
The Road to Toontown
The Best Short Stories of award winning Roger Rabbit creator Gary K. Wolf. These stories were all published in well known, prestigious science fiction and fantasy magazines and anthologies. As you read through them you’ll see the Roger Rabbit characters come alive and take shape. Until finally they emerge as the whacko, bizarre, lovable and endearing goofballs who inhabit a unique place in fantasy literature. Wolf’s stories experiment with unusual formats, fantastically curious places, and finally with creatures that exist in a world where cartoon characters are real, an original concept of Wolf’s that turned out to be a bona fide doozy of the first magnitude. As a special treat, the book includes a brand new, never-before-published Jessica Rabbit story. It's a thrilling journey, this one to Toontown, full of fun-filled twists and turns. Start your engine and navigate the creative high roads, low roads, back roads, twisty roads, dirt roads, and dark alleys that eventually lead to Toontown. You’ll enjoy the ride.
231 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 27, 2012
21 people are currently reading
276 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 3, 2024
I'm doing a deep dive into Wolf's Roger Rabbit books in prep for a project involving the film adaptation, and since this collection contains several stories in that setting, some of which predate the initial novel, I'm including it.
3 stars to "Love Story"
(read on 11/25/2023)
Snappy writing and interesting worldbuilding with just enough satirical bite, but doesn't have much of an actual story until the twist at the end. I'd love to see this as the initial setup for something bigger and richer.
3 stars to "Pop"
(read on 12/2/2023)
Things don't go according to plan when humanity's future against a devastating alien invasion hinges on the mediocre son of a celebrated war hero.
Interesting story with oodles of world building, but I wish it had either leaned more grim or more satirical, as it's too evenly in the middle to have much impact.
4 stars to "In Memory of Lindy Lovely"
(read on 12/8/2023)
A dark riff on stories where people can pay to have memories implanted or wiped, with interesting concepts of how the tech is used for black markets, snuff films, and undercover policing. It's a very ugly story, but appropriately explored with an exciting police raid in the middle while someone is still processing their violent new implant, and a great twist at the end.
5 stars to "Dissolve"
(read on 12/12/2023)
A marvelous, sad, swirling montage of two kids in a post-apocalyptic landscape coming across a broadcast studio, watching snippets of old programs while starring in their own. I'd love to see someone stage this as a short film.
5 stars to "Therapy"
(read on 12/16/2023)
Hilarious and impressively prescient farce about a couple seeking therapy from an automated computer.
4 stars to "Slammer"
(read on 12/16/2023)
A funny riff on urban penal colonies with a cute ending.
3 stars to "Bridge Builder"
(read on 12/21/2023)
An interesting exercise, using a blue-collar monologue about an infrastructure employee to gradually lead into a scifi reveal, but it runs a little long and quickly gets repetitive.
4 stars to "Doctor Rivet and Supercon Sal"
(read on 1/4/2023)
A blast of a heist farce as two conmen are forced to partner up to take down the corporate baron who tried to have them killed. Glad it got a novella length to let the wacky characters and world-building breathe, with some fantastic twists and setpieces. I'd love to see this adapted as a film.
(Set the book aside for a bit here after rewatching the marvelous film adaptation with friends. Also read an unproduced prequel screenplay called Who Discovered Roger Rabbit, about Roger growing up with with human adoptive parents on a farm, before heading to the big city to find his birth mother. It becomes a wild story about black and white and silent toons forced into poverty due to the emergence of sound and color film, who are being preyed upon by a black market organ harvesting operation that uses toon body parts to modify human gangsters and celebrities. We also meet Jessica, body conscious and hiding her appearance in the guise of a meek secretary because she's ashamed of having killed her illustrator with shock when she first emerged on the page. It's a wild but smart and fun script, the Jessica / Roger romance is sweet. The new human character is an agent struggling with toon clients nobody wants anymore, with tons of great social commentary. I don't have anywhere else to jot down thoughts about it, so pardon interrupting my own review to do so here. 4 stars.)
3 stars to A River Runs Through Toontown
(read on 10/28/2024)
Less a story, more a brief parody and tribute to Philip Jose Farmer as it crams as many existing literary characters as it can into just a couple pages. Brief, but cute.
4 stars to Hare's Lookin' at You, Babs!
(read on 10/28/2024)
An article and interview transcript of Barbara Walters meeting Roger Rabbit at his home. Witty and wacky, with fun world-building bridging the animated toons of the movie with the word balloon comic strip toons of the original novel.
3 stars to Stay Tooned, Folks
(read on 10/28/2024)
Fascinating but almost overwhelmingly surreal story as we learn the mechanics of live actor shows are just as complicated in this world as toons, and the chaos that can happen when the two collide, with humans falling victim to cartoon logic violence, and humans trying to modify themselves with botox-style cartoon injections. It's a waterfall of wackiness that could have used a little more breathing room.
4 stars to The Unhardy Boys in Outer Space
(read on 10/31/2024)
I'd love to license this one for a screenplay. It's a buddy comedy about a meek priest and a failed scifi writer, both at the bottom run of the social ladder on a space station where they're constantly pranked and demeaned by the laborers. Great threads and character building, a hilarious turn at the end. I really dug it.
4 stars to Who We Need Here is Mister Tom Edison
(read on 10/31/2024)
Another fun tale that could be expanded into its own movie, as a time traveler sets up shop in a wild west town as a snake oil salesman of future trinkets.
3 stars to Inspector Timber and the Three Pigs
(read on 10/31/2024)
An interesting alternate take on the Toontown stories, as anthropomorphic fairy tale animals are revealed as living in a far future where humans are extinct and the newly sentienced animals worship and emulate their lost society. This centers on an interesting variant of the Three Little Pigs, but it would be cool to see additional stories building on the premise as the story we get here was overshadowed by the worldbuilding.
3 stars to Which Witch is Which
(read on 11/1/2024)
I'm guessing this was a promotional article, written as an expose of Jessica Rabbit following around the cast of Charmed for a day, ending on a party of pop culture witches. It's zany and wild, if more focused on reference than telling a story, and paints Jessica as a nastier and more vapid character than I'm used to.
2 stars to Kiss Me Goodbye
(read on 11/1/2024)
Less a story, more a vignette exercise in hard boiled pastiche writing. It's not bad, but very brief and cliched, and the Roger Rabbit books are already filled with better riffs on this style of prose, so I'm surprised this snippet was included.
3 stars to The Warhol of the Worlds
(read on 11/1/2024)
A radio play spoof of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds, as large objects launched from Mars trigger panic over media marketing and barrages of trademarks. Again, drowns a bit in rapid fire references, but it's still zany fun. I wonder if anyone has actually staged a recording of it.
Overall, this was a really fun book, where even the lesser stories are still interesting and inventive, and the best ones mark Wolf as a writer definitely worth exploring.
3 stars to "Love Story"
(read on 11/25/2023)
Snappy writing and interesting worldbuilding with just enough satirical bite, but doesn't have much of an actual story until the twist at the end. I'd love to see this as the initial setup for something bigger and richer.
3 stars to "Pop"
(read on 12/2/2023)
Things don't go according to plan when humanity's future against a devastating alien invasion hinges on the mediocre son of a celebrated war hero.
Interesting story with oodles of world building, but I wish it had either leaned more grim or more satirical, as it's too evenly in the middle to have much impact.
4 stars to "In Memory of Lindy Lovely"
(read on 12/8/2023)
A dark riff on stories where people can pay to have memories implanted or wiped, with interesting concepts of how the tech is used for black markets, snuff films, and undercover policing. It's a very ugly story, but appropriately explored with an exciting police raid in the middle while someone is still processing their violent new implant, and a great twist at the end.
5 stars to "Dissolve"
(read on 12/12/2023)
A marvelous, sad, swirling montage of two kids in a post-apocalyptic landscape coming across a broadcast studio, watching snippets of old programs while starring in their own. I'd love to see someone stage this as a short film.
5 stars to "Therapy"
(read on 12/16/2023)
Hilarious and impressively prescient farce about a couple seeking therapy from an automated computer.
4 stars to "Slammer"
(read on 12/16/2023)
A funny riff on urban penal colonies with a cute ending.
3 stars to "Bridge Builder"
(read on 12/21/2023)
An interesting exercise, using a blue-collar monologue about an infrastructure employee to gradually lead into a scifi reveal, but it runs a little long and quickly gets repetitive.
4 stars to "Doctor Rivet and Supercon Sal"
(read on 1/4/2023)
A blast of a heist farce as two conmen are forced to partner up to take down the corporate baron who tried to have them killed. Glad it got a novella length to let the wacky characters and world-building breathe, with some fantastic twists and setpieces. I'd love to see this adapted as a film.
(Set the book aside for a bit here after rewatching the marvelous film adaptation with friends. Also read an unproduced prequel screenplay called Who Discovered Roger Rabbit, about Roger growing up with with human adoptive parents on a farm, before heading to the big city to find his birth mother. It becomes a wild story about black and white and silent toons forced into poverty due to the emergence of sound and color film, who are being preyed upon by a black market organ harvesting operation that uses toon body parts to modify human gangsters and celebrities. We also meet Jessica, body conscious and hiding her appearance in the guise of a meek secretary because she's ashamed of having killed her illustrator with shock when she first emerged on the page. It's a wild but smart and fun script, the Jessica / Roger romance is sweet. The new human character is an agent struggling with toon clients nobody wants anymore, with tons of great social commentary. I don't have anywhere else to jot down thoughts about it, so pardon interrupting my own review to do so here. 4 stars.)
3 stars to A River Runs Through Toontown
(read on 10/28/2024)
Less a story, more a brief parody and tribute to Philip Jose Farmer as it crams as many existing literary characters as it can into just a couple pages. Brief, but cute.
4 stars to Hare's Lookin' at You, Babs!
(read on 10/28/2024)
An article and interview transcript of Barbara Walters meeting Roger Rabbit at his home. Witty and wacky, with fun world-building bridging the animated toons of the movie with the word balloon comic strip toons of the original novel.
3 stars to Stay Tooned, Folks
(read on 10/28/2024)
Fascinating but almost overwhelmingly surreal story as we learn the mechanics of live actor shows are just as complicated in this world as toons, and the chaos that can happen when the two collide, with humans falling victim to cartoon logic violence, and humans trying to modify themselves with botox-style cartoon injections. It's a waterfall of wackiness that could have used a little more breathing room.
4 stars to The Unhardy Boys in Outer Space
(read on 10/31/2024)
I'd love to license this one for a screenplay. It's a buddy comedy about a meek priest and a failed scifi writer, both at the bottom run of the social ladder on a space station where they're constantly pranked and demeaned by the laborers. Great threads and character building, a hilarious turn at the end. I really dug it.
4 stars to Who We Need Here is Mister Tom Edison
(read on 10/31/2024)
Another fun tale that could be expanded into its own movie, as a time traveler sets up shop in a wild west town as a snake oil salesman of future trinkets.
3 stars to Inspector Timber and the Three Pigs
(read on 10/31/2024)
An interesting alternate take on the Toontown stories, as anthropomorphic fairy tale animals are revealed as living in a far future where humans are extinct and the newly sentienced animals worship and emulate their lost society. This centers on an interesting variant of the Three Little Pigs, but it would be cool to see additional stories building on the premise as the story we get here was overshadowed by the worldbuilding.
3 stars to Which Witch is Which
(read on 11/1/2024)
I'm guessing this was a promotional article, written as an expose of Jessica Rabbit following around the cast of Charmed for a day, ending on a party of pop culture witches. It's zany and wild, if more focused on reference than telling a story, and paints Jessica as a nastier and more vapid character than I'm used to.
2 stars to Kiss Me Goodbye
(read on 11/1/2024)
Less a story, more a vignette exercise in hard boiled pastiche writing. It's not bad, but very brief and cliched, and the Roger Rabbit books are already filled with better riffs on this style of prose, so I'm surprised this snippet was included.
3 stars to The Warhol of the Worlds
(read on 11/1/2024)
A radio play spoof of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds, as large objects launched from Mars trigger panic over media marketing and barrages of trademarks. Again, drowns a bit in rapid fire references, but it's still zany fun. I wonder if anyone has actually staged a recording of it.
Overall, this was a really fun book, where even the lesser stories are still interesting and inventive, and the best ones mark Wolf as a writer definitely worth exploring.
July 28, 2022
Actually really pretty good. Short sci-fi stories. The non-Roger Rabbit ones were the best ones. He's a talented writer. Roger Rabbit is actually his weakest idea. I wonder if he had any other success as a novelist or short story writer.
September 3, 2023
Not all Toon Town related, but you can still tell it’s Wolf. A nice companion piece to see how a writer grows. I just wish it listed when and where these were first published.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews