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The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel
With Monty Python's Flying Circus, Eric Idle proved he was one of the funniest people in the world. And with The Road to Mars he reaffirms this with a raucously sidesplitting vengence.
Muscroft and Ashby are a comedy team on "The Road to Mars," an interplanetary vaudeville circuit of the future. Accompanied by Carlton, a robot incapable of understanding irony but driven to learn the essence of humor, Alex and Lewis bumble their way into an intergalactic terrorist plot. Supported by a delicious cast, including a micropaleontologist narrator (he studies the evolutionary impact of the last ten minutes) and the ultra-diva Brenda Woolley, The Road to Mars is a fabulous trip through Eric Idle's inimitable world, a "universe expanding at the speed of laughter."
Muscroft and Ashby are a comedy team on "The Road to Mars," an interplanetary vaudeville circuit of the future. Accompanied by Carlton, a robot incapable of understanding irony but driven to learn the essence of humor, Alex and Lewis bumble their way into an intergalactic terrorist plot. Supported by a delicious cast, including a micropaleontologist narrator (he studies the evolutionary impact of the last ten minutes) and the ultra-diva Brenda Woolley, The Road to Mars is a fabulous trip through Eric Idle's inimitable world, a "universe expanding at the speed of laughter."
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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3288 people want to read
About the author
Eric Idle
32 books301 followersEric Idle is an English comedian, actor, author and composer of comedic songs. He wrote and performed as a member of the internationally renowned British comedy group Monty Python.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews
February 27, 2019
Eric Idle is best known for being a member of Monty Pythons Flying Circus.
The Road to Mars is weird, chaotic, hilarious. It’s surely a divisive book for Monty Python fans or for science-fiction experts... I enjoyed it anyway.
The Road to Mars is weird, chaotic, hilarious. It’s surely a divisive book for Monty Python fans or for science-fiction experts... I enjoyed it anyway.
Read
July 2, 2007Love Monty Python? Searching for a new outlet of hilarity and amusement? Conveniently forgetting that Eric Idle’s urine drinking skit was so bad even John Cleese canned it? The Road to Mars heartily reminds you that even the greatest of comedians can write absolute trash.
This book has got to be one of the worst books ever printed. Touted as a comedy, the book slowly but surely develops into a snowball of murder, death and mayhem.
Fun right? No, not in the least. Everything that could go wrong does go wrong, in a bad way. You don't laugh, you sit there with your jaw on the floor wondering how the hell it could be promoted as a comedy. I've watched real life murder cases that had more laughs than this book.
Eric Idle is one of my favorite comedians of all time. But this book is definitely a 0 star wonder. At half-way through, and second inexplicable death, I tossed this book aside with the regret that oxygen giving trees were ground up to produce this trash.
This book has got to be one of the worst books ever printed. Touted as a comedy, the book slowly but surely develops into a snowball of murder, death and mayhem.
Fun right? No, not in the least. Everything that could go wrong does go wrong, in a bad way. You don't laugh, you sit there with your jaw on the floor wondering how the hell it could be promoted as a comedy. I've watched real life murder cases that had more laughs than this book.
Eric Idle is one of my favorite comedians of all time. But this book is definitely a 0 star wonder. At half-way through, and second inexplicable death, I tossed this book aside with the regret that oxygen giving trees were ground up to produce this trash.
October 21, 2017
If you're hoping to find a Douglas Adams like book from an ex-Python member, this isn't it.
You probably want to grab the Terry Jones novel, Starship Titanic; it's still not quite as good as Douglas Adams but it's way closer than this. As much as I like Eric Idle as an actor and comedian, I'm afraid this just wasn't a very good book. It needs some major editing and maybe a rewrite to turn it into something worthwhile.
It's the story of a sort of Abbott & Costello pair of comedians playing an interplanetary vaudeville circuit in the solar system. They get tangled up in a terrorist plot. Their android assistant is writing a dissertation on comedy and is secretly studying them. The narrator of the book is someone even further in the future who has dug up the android's long lost dissertation and is somehow recounting their adventures as he reads it (even though their adventures clearly weren't written down in the dissertation on comedy, so it's unclear how the narrator knows any of this - that bit is never explained).
The science fiction aspect is pretty bad. It's written as if it were hard science fiction but the author has no grasp of science, so much of the talk of gravity, vacuums, distances, time, chaos, make little or no sense. But if you imagine that you're reading a forgotten script to an Abbott & Costello movie, written in the 1940s about the future as pictured back then, it almost works. It's not worth seeking out but if the book is in front of you and you don't have anything else to read, you might as well give it a shot.
You probably want to grab the Terry Jones novel, Starship Titanic; it's still not quite as good as Douglas Adams but it's way closer than this. As much as I like Eric Idle as an actor and comedian, I'm afraid this just wasn't a very good book. It needs some major editing and maybe a rewrite to turn it into something worthwhile.
It's the story of a sort of Abbott & Costello pair of comedians playing an interplanetary vaudeville circuit in the solar system. They get tangled up in a terrorist plot. Their android assistant is writing a dissertation on comedy and is secretly studying them. The narrator of the book is someone even further in the future who has dug up the android's long lost dissertation and is somehow recounting their adventures as he reads it (even though their adventures clearly weren't written down in the dissertation on comedy, so it's unclear how the narrator knows any of this - that bit is never explained).
The science fiction aspect is pretty bad. It's written as if it were hard science fiction but the author has no grasp of science, so much of the talk of gravity, vacuums, distances, time, chaos, make little or no sense. But if you imagine that you're reading a forgotten script to an Abbott & Costello movie, written in the 1940s about the future as pictured back then, it almost works. It's not worth seeking out but if the book is in front of you and you don't have anything else to read, you might as well give it a shot.
May 13, 2012
A study in and of comedy disguised as a very entertaining and funny space romp. This book is about two comedians, their intrepid robot and a bunch of wacky and fun characters they encounter. I'm surprised Eric Idle doesn't write more books, since he really has a knack for it. I enjoyed this book thoroughly, Carlton being my favorite character...an inspriringly original robot that chose to defy DNAcism (just one of the clever terms the book offers). Fast paced funny light read and quite possibly a valuable how to for comedy business. Recommended.
June 10, 2011
As one might expect, Idle's discussion of comedy is significantly better than the sci-fi noir humor novel in which he packages it. Good stuff for anyone who thinks deeply about comedy, though it is also worth noting how quickly fake sci-fi (that is, the genre used as a pastiche rather than a vessel for serious thought and world crafting) can seem dated
December 30, 2022
Nešto drugačije od ovoga nisam niti očekivao od Eric Idlea. Red humora, red filozofije (humorne), red cinizma...pravi Eric Idle
August 27, 2018
review of
Eric Idle's The Road to Mars
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 27, 2018
I stopped watching TV when I was 16. That wd've been 1969 or 1970. I've never regretted it. At the time, options were limited & having a favorite TV show meant sitting in front of the Boob Tube at the only time of the day that that show was on. Its schedule regulated yr life. Options have expanded since then. One can probably check out most shows via one's computer or cable or brain surgery at whatever date & time one damn well pleases. I don't care. I STILL don't watch TV.
Monty Python's Flying Circus hit the Boob Tube in my neck of the Global Media in 1975 or thereabouts. They were right up my nude-alley-gator-wrestling-&-bowling-alley whenever I glimpsed a few minutes here & there but I STILL didn't watch them on TV. I did, however, go to see their movies & loved them. The paternity suit was never sent to the dry cleaners. In fact, I loved them so much that my penis became a pencil-necked geek. I also got DVDs of their TV shows from a thrift store. Heck, I even checked out various offshoot TV shows on VHS. I have some of the records too. I got to the point where I started sending out bounty hunters to collect various body parts to put in my climate-controlled relics case. Sorry, guys, I cdn't control myself. It's yr fault for being so funny. It got to the point where I figured there was no more product for me to consume in-the-cheapest-ways-possible until I discovered this bk.
Eric Idle wrote a science-fiction bk?! I just had to read it. Even if it IS post-modem. But let's forget about Eric Idle. He doesn't deserve diddly-squat. It's all privilege, he probably came from a rich family that had all competition crippled in horrible car accidents. I know his type. He has a "Thanks To" that concludes w/ "all the comedians, too humorous to mention." No doubt he has them in stitches. It was a guilty conscience that led to the invention of micropaleontology — not HIS guilty conscience, of course, one of his victim's:
"I lecture on insignificance. I'm a micropaleontologist. You may be unaware of the study labeled micropaleontology (occasionally microanthropology), which was the first really brand-new science of the Double Ages (the second millennium). It is my job to study the evolutionary implications of the last ten minutes." - p 4
Idle even goes so far as to admit that his wealthy family stole micropaleontology so that Eric cd have an edge: if only they cd keep people's memories on only the last 10 minutes every crime cd be covered up before there was time to notice.
"You try it with any comedians you can think of, and I tell you it works. Carlton, this smart little tintellectual, is on to something real here. Just look for the distinguishing characteristics: the White Face is the controlling neurotic and the Red Nose is the rude, rough Pan. The White Face compels your respect; the Red Nose begs for it. The Red Nose smiles and nods and winks, and wants your love; the White Face rejects it. He never smiles; he is always deadly serious. Never more so than when doing comedy.
""Men," says Carlton, "Have two major organs, the brain and the penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time."" - p 7
See? You already forgot. "Blue" is yr post-hypnotic suggestion cue. Repeat ad nauseum & pretend to be a sound poet.
""Do you have a criminal record?"
"Good heavens, I had no idea one was still required."
"BRITISH JOKE ABOUT ENTERING AUSTRALIA" - p 19
Blue. You have relinguished all rights to privacy.
"Men were by no means the only victims of this hijack by the harpies and perhaps they had it coming anyway. There was a lot of bullshit bleating about it at the time, as men found themselves, perhaps for the first time, vulnerable to particularly public forms of female revenge. Women, it seemed, could hardly wait to get laid to lay pen to paper, saving semen-stained souvenirs to offer as evidence for the courtroom or the studio, it didn't matter which, since both were on television now. Sharon reveals all. Naked pictures of the girl who fucked the country. Read the book of the blow job." - p 67
Sharon reveals all!: She put a pencil-naked geek to paper & laid waste to Brian, Trevor, & Kevin! But what does any of this have to do w/ the STORY, the LINE of the bk (you ask)? Believe me, I have no idea. I finished reading this bk on August 12, 2018; it's now August 27, 2018 — a whole 15 days later — & ever since that word "BLUE" appeared in this review (against my will I might add), I have no idea what the conspiracy of this review is — let alone the plot of the novel. Is my post-hypnotic suggestion to use that new app that writes reviews for me w/o even reading the bks? What's it called? Professor?
"Words were the key. Words. Of course! The censored electronic gibberish was in an old-fashioned word-based key. It was a government computer. They were using the new Dumb Technology. To try and outsmart very smart computers some agencies were resorting to stupidity. Simple, almost childish passwords were substituted for lengthy equations. How do you baffle a computer which can speed through several multibillion-number combinations? Simple, you use a word like "cat." You're going under its intelligence threshold. It cannot factor you to be so dumb. It was like comedy he thought." - p 86
Dumb Technology includes Dumb Missiles, of course. All that matters anymore is that you have to kill somebody. Death goes on. Death comes to the supermarket. Death comes to the interior decorator.
"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
"LAST WORDS OF OSCAR WILDE" - p 93
"I should be so witty" - Carlton (not Really)
"He thinks he almost finds some evidence with one of the guys on a very weird show called Monty Python's Flying Circus. I've seen the tapes, and boy, does it suck. It's strange rather than funny. Five Limeys and a Yank. No girls; they did drag. Typical Brits. They're never happier than when dressing up as women. What is it with them?
"It's a stupid show, as I say, and Carlton found it totally puzzling. Heads come off or pop open in demented animations, sheep drop on people's heads for no reason whatsoever, Vikings sing love songs to pressed meat, weird men dressed as old ladies squeak in silly voices, there are dead parrots, and Spanish Inquisitions, it's all very silly nonsense. They seem dangerously cuckoo to me. Carlton couldn't make head or tail of it, but it seemed from the tape that the audience laughed, and as far as he could tell it was genuine, not canned, laughter." - p 147
There's some confusion at this point. It's Really who's found the evidence but, given the 10 minute memory rule, Really had already forgotten what it was evidence of. Carlton laughed at him but his laughter cd only be canned so it didn't matter. Only the Dumb Technology can even remember anything anymore.
"It was the Washing Machine. Puffing and blowing towards them.
""So, suddenly I'm chopped liver? Hours I spend keeping an eye out for you and now I'm not needed on the voyage."
""You can't come in here," said Alex. "It's only for humans."
""What am I supposed to stay behind and feed the bugs?"
""Bugs?" said Alex. "How many are there?"
""If you hurry, there'll be less," said Carlton." - p 171
There's even a little math humor. It's not quite in the same league as Paradigm Shift Knuckle Sandwich & other examples of P.N.T. (Perverse Number Theory) (wch all 21st century people were required to read until the word "Blue" appeared) but it's in the same ballpark:
"I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of comedy, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
"FAREWELL TO FERMAT, CARLTON'S LAST THEOREM"
The proof is in the pudding.
"Levity. Laughing matter. The cosmic joke. Brilliant, isn't it?
"Levity. Expanding the Universe. So simple. We're all moving at the speed of laughter.
"Time. Timing. The secret of comedy is.
"We are the only point in the present in the entire visible Universe. In every direction we are looking backwards in time. Want to see the past? It's above your head." - p 205
When I bought this bk for very cheap I didn't notice at 1st that most of the pages were torn out & that what little was left was mostly blacked out. I was so engrossed in Idle's excellent writing that I didn't notice that the pages went from 4 to 7 to 19 to 67 to 86 to 93 to 146 to 147 to 171 to 198 to 205. Sure, I found the plot hard to follow but I just thought Idle was being absurd. He's so good at that. So, if my review seems a bit discombobulated to you that's why. To recapitulate:
"I lecture on insignificance. I'm a micropaleontologist. You may be unaware of the study labeled micropaleontology (occasionally microanthropology), which was the first really brand-new science of the Double Ages (the second millennium). It is my job to study the evolutionary implications of the last ten minutes."
"You try it with any comedians you can think of, and I tell you it works. Carlton, this smart little tintellectual, is on to something real here. Just look for the distinguishing characteristics: the White Face is the controlling neurotic and the Red Nose is the rude, rough Pan. The White Face compels your respect; the Red Nose begs for it. The Red Nose smiles and nods and winks, and wants your love; the White Face rejects it. He never smiles; he is always deadly serious. Never more so than when doing comedy.
""Men," says Carlton, "Have two major organs, the brain and the penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.""
""Do you have a criminal record?"
"Good heavens, I had no idea one was still required."
"BRITISH JOKE ABOUT ENTERING AUSTRALIA"
"Men were by no means the only victims of this hijack by the harpies and perhaps they had it coming anyway. There was a lot of bullshit bleating about it at the time, as men found themselves, perhaps for the first time, vulnerable to particularly public forms of female revenge. Women, it seemed, could hardly wait to get laid to lay pen to paper, saving semen-stained souvenirs to offer as evidence for the courtroom or the studio, it didn't matter which, since both were on television now. Sharon reveals all. Naked pictures of the girl who fucked the country. Read the book of the blow job."
"Words were the key. Words. Of course! The censored electronic gibberish was in an old-fashioned word-based key. It was a government computer. They were using the new Dumb Technology. To try and outsmart very smart computers some agencies were resorting to stupidity. Simple, almost childish passwords were substituted for lengthy equations. How do you baffle a computer which can speed through several multibillion-number combinations? Simple, you use a word like "cat." You're going under its intelligence threshold. It cannot factor you to be so dumb. It was like comedy he thought."
"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
"LAST WORDS OF OSCAR WILDE"
"He thinks he almost finds some evidence with one of the guys on a very weird show called Monty Python's Flying Circus. I've seen the tapes, and boy, does it suck. It's strange rather than funny. Five Limeys and a Yank. No girls; they did drag. Typical Brits. They're never happier than when dressing up as women. What is it with them?
"It's a stupid show, as I say, and Carlton found it totally puzzling. Heads come off or pop open in demented animations, sheep drop on people's heads for no reason whatsoever, Vikings sing love songs to pressed meat, weird men dressed as old ladies squeak in silly voices, there are dead parrots, and Spanish Inquisitions, it's all very silly nonsense. They seem dangerously cuckoo to me. Carlton couldn't make head or tail of it, but it seemed from the tape that the audience laughed, and as far as he could tell it was genuine, not canned, laughter."
"It was the Washing Machine. Puffing and blowing towards them.
""So, suddenly I'm chopped liver? Hours I spend keeping an eye out for you and now I'm not needed on the voyage."
""You can't come in here," said Alex. "It's only for humans."
""What am I supposed to stay behind and feed the bugs?"
""Bugs?" said Alex. "How many are there?"
""If you hurry, there'll be less," said Carlton."
"I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of comedy, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
"FAREWELL TO FERMAT, CARLTON'S LAST THEOREM"
"Levity. Laughing matter. The cosmic joke. Brilliant, isn't it?
"Levity. Expanding the Universe. So simple. We're all moving at the speed of laughter.
"Time. Timing. The secret of comedy is.
"We are the only point in the present in the entire visible Universe. In every direction we are looking backwards in time. Want to see the past? It's above your head."
That's it. No need to read the bk. Hope I haven't spoiled the pudding for you.
Eric Idle's The Road to Mars
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 27, 2018
I stopped watching TV when I was 16. That wd've been 1969 or 1970. I've never regretted it. At the time, options were limited & having a favorite TV show meant sitting in front of the Boob Tube at the only time of the day that that show was on. Its schedule regulated yr life. Options have expanded since then. One can probably check out most shows via one's computer or cable or brain surgery at whatever date & time one damn well pleases. I don't care. I STILL don't watch TV.
Monty Python's Flying Circus hit the Boob Tube in my neck of the Global Media in 1975 or thereabouts. They were right up my nude-alley-gator-wrestling-&-bowling-alley whenever I glimpsed a few minutes here & there but I STILL didn't watch them on TV. I did, however, go to see their movies & loved them. The paternity suit was never sent to the dry cleaners. In fact, I loved them so much that my penis became a pencil-necked geek. I also got DVDs of their TV shows from a thrift store. Heck, I even checked out various offshoot TV shows on VHS. I have some of the records too. I got to the point where I started sending out bounty hunters to collect various body parts to put in my climate-controlled relics case. Sorry, guys, I cdn't control myself. It's yr fault for being so funny. It got to the point where I figured there was no more product for me to consume in-the-cheapest-ways-possible until I discovered this bk.
Eric Idle wrote a science-fiction bk?! I just had to read it. Even if it IS post-modem. But let's forget about Eric Idle. He doesn't deserve diddly-squat. It's all privilege, he probably came from a rich family that had all competition crippled in horrible car accidents. I know his type. He has a "Thanks To" that concludes w/ "all the comedians, too humorous to mention." No doubt he has them in stitches. It was a guilty conscience that led to the invention of micropaleontology — not HIS guilty conscience, of course, one of his victim's:
"I lecture on insignificance. I'm a micropaleontologist. You may be unaware of the study labeled micropaleontology (occasionally microanthropology), which was the first really brand-new science of the Double Ages (the second millennium). It is my job to study the evolutionary implications of the last ten minutes." - p 4
Idle even goes so far as to admit that his wealthy family stole micropaleontology so that Eric cd have an edge: if only they cd keep people's memories on only the last 10 minutes every crime cd be covered up before there was time to notice.
"You try it with any comedians you can think of, and I tell you it works. Carlton, this smart little tintellectual, is on to something real here. Just look for the distinguishing characteristics: the White Face is the controlling neurotic and the Red Nose is the rude, rough Pan. The White Face compels your respect; the Red Nose begs for it. The Red Nose smiles and nods and winks, and wants your love; the White Face rejects it. He never smiles; he is always deadly serious. Never more so than when doing comedy.
""Men," says Carlton, "Have two major organs, the brain and the penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time."" - p 7
See? You already forgot. "Blue" is yr post-hypnotic suggestion cue. Repeat ad nauseum & pretend to be a sound poet.
""Do you have a criminal record?"
"Good heavens, I had no idea one was still required."
"BRITISH JOKE ABOUT ENTERING AUSTRALIA" - p 19
Blue. You have relinguished all rights to privacy.
"Men were by no means the only victims of this hijack by the harpies and perhaps they had it coming anyway. There was a lot of bullshit bleating about it at the time, as men found themselves, perhaps for the first time, vulnerable to particularly public forms of female revenge. Women, it seemed, could hardly wait to get laid to lay pen to paper, saving semen-stained souvenirs to offer as evidence for the courtroom or the studio, it didn't matter which, since both were on television now. Sharon reveals all. Naked pictures of the girl who fucked the country. Read the book of the blow job." - p 67
Sharon reveals all!: She put a pencil-naked geek to paper & laid waste to Brian, Trevor, & Kevin! But what does any of this have to do w/ the STORY, the LINE of the bk (you ask)? Believe me, I have no idea. I finished reading this bk on August 12, 2018; it's now August 27, 2018 — a whole 15 days later — & ever since that word "BLUE" appeared in this review (against my will I might add), I have no idea what the conspiracy of this review is — let alone the plot of the novel. Is my post-hypnotic suggestion to use that new app that writes reviews for me w/o even reading the bks? What's it called? Professor?
"Words were the key. Words. Of course! The censored electronic gibberish was in an old-fashioned word-based key. It was a government computer. They were using the new Dumb Technology. To try and outsmart very smart computers some agencies were resorting to stupidity. Simple, almost childish passwords were substituted for lengthy equations. How do you baffle a computer which can speed through several multibillion-number combinations? Simple, you use a word like "cat." You're going under its intelligence threshold. It cannot factor you to be so dumb. It was like comedy he thought." - p 86
Dumb Technology includes Dumb Missiles, of course. All that matters anymore is that you have to kill somebody. Death goes on. Death comes to the supermarket. Death comes to the interior decorator.
"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
"LAST WORDS OF OSCAR WILDE" - p 93
"I should be so witty" - Carlton (not Really)
"He thinks he almost finds some evidence with one of the guys on a very weird show called Monty Python's Flying Circus. I've seen the tapes, and boy, does it suck. It's strange rather than funny. Five Limeys and a Yank. No girls; they did drag. Typical Brits. They're never happier than when dressing up as women. What is it with them?
"It's a stupid show, as I say, and Carlton found it totally puzzling. Heads come off or pop open in demented animations, sheep drop on people's heads for no reason whatsoever, Vikings sing love songs to pressed meat, weird men dressed as old ladies squeak in silly voices, there are dead parrots, and Spanish Inquisitions, it's all very silly nonsense. They seem dangerously cuckoo to me. Carlton couldn't make head or tail of it, but it seemed from the tape that the audience laughed, and as far as he could tell it was genuine, not canned, laughter." - p 147
There's some confusion at this point. It's Really who's found the evidence but, given the 10 minute memory rule, Really had already forgotten what it was evidence of. Carlton laughed at him but his laughter cd only be canned so it didn't matter. Only the Dumb Technology can even remember anything anymore.
"It was the Washing Machine. Puffing and blowing towards them.
""So, suddenly I'm chopped liver? Hours I spend keeping an eye out for you and now I'm not needed on the voyage."
""You can't come in here," said Alex. "It's only for humans."
""What am I supposed to stay behind and feed the bugs?"
""Bugs?" said Alex. "How many are there?"
""If you hurry, there'll be less," said Carlton." - p 171
There's even a little math humor. It's not quite in the same league as Paradigm Shift Knuckle Sandwich & other examples of P.N.T. (Perverse Number Theory) (wch all 21st century people were required to read until the word "Blue" appeared) but it's in the same ballpark:
"I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of comedy, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
"FAREWELL TO FERMAT, CARLTON'S LAST THEOREM"
The proof is in the pudding.
"Levity. Laughing matter. The cosmic joke. Brilliant, isn't it?
"Levity. Expanding the Universe. So simple. We're all moving at the speed of laughter.
"Time. Timing. The secret of comedy is.
"We are the only point in the present in the entire visible Universe. In every direction we are looking backwards in time. Want to see the past? It's above your head." - p 205
When I bought this bk for very cheap I didn't notice at 1st that most of the pages were torn out & that what little was left was mostly blacked out. I was so engrossed in Idle's excellent writing that I didn't notice that the pages went from 4 to 7 to 19 to 67 to 86 to 93 to 146 to 147 to 171 to 198 to 205. Sure, I found the plot hard to follow but I just thought Idle was being absurd. He's so good at that. So, if my review seems a bit discombobulated to you that's why. To recapitulate:
"I lecture on insignificance. I'm a micropaleontologist. You may be unaware of the study labeled micropaleontology (occasionally microanthropology), which was the first really brand-new science of the Double Ages (the second millennium). It is my job to study the evolutionary implications of the last ten minutes."
"You try it with any comedians you can think of, and I tell you it works. Carlton, this smart little tintellectual, is on to something real here. Just look for the distinguishing characteristics: the White Face is the controlling neurotic and the Red Nose is the rude, rough Pan. The White Face compels your respect; the Red Nose begs for it. The Red Nose smiles and nods and winks, and wants your love; the White Face rejects it. He never smiles; he is always deadly serious. Never more so than when doing comedy.
""Men," says Carlton, "Have two major organs, the brain and the penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.""
""Do you have a criminal record?"
"Good heavens, I had no idea one was still required."
"BRITISH JOKE ABOUT ENTERING AUSTRALIA"
"Men were by no means the only victims of this hijack by the harpies and perhaps they had it coming anyway. There was a lot of bullshit bleating about it at the time, as men found themselves, perhaps for the first time, vulnerable to particularly public forms of female revenge. Women, it seemed, could hardly wait to get laid to lay pen to paper, saving semen-stained souvenirs to offer as evidence for the courtroom or the studio, it didn't matter which, since both were on television now. Sharon reveals all. Naked pictures of the girl who fucked the country. Read the book of the blow job."
"Words were the key. Words. Of course! The censored electronic gibberish was in an old-fashioned word-based key. It was a government computer. They were using the new Dumb Technology. To try and outsmart very smart computers some agencies were resorting to stupidity. Simple, almost childish passwords were substituted for lengthy equations. How do you baffle a computer which can speed through several multibillion-number combinations? Simple, you use a word like "cat." You're going under its intelligence threshold. It cannot factor you to be so dumb. It was like comedy he thought."
"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
"LAST WORDS OF OSCAR WILDE"
"He thinks he almost finds some evidence with one of the guys on a very weird show called Monty Python's Flying Circus. I've seen the tapes, and boy, does it suck. It's strange rather than funny. Five Limeys and a Yank. No girls; they did drag. Typical Brits. They're never happier than when dressing up as women. What is it with them?
"It's a stupid show, as I say, and Carlton found it totally puzzling. Heads come off or pop open in demented animations, sheep drop on people's heads for no reason whatsoever, Vikings sing love songs to pressed meat, weird men dressed as old ladies squeak in silly voices, there are dead parrots, and Spanish Inquisitions, it's all very silly nonsense. They seem dangerously cuckoo to me. Carlton couldn't make head or tail of it, but it seemed from the tape that the audience laughed, and as far as he could tell it was genuine, not canned, laughter."
"It was the Washing Machine. Puffing and blowing towards them.
""So, suddenly I'm chopped liver? Hours I spend keeping an eye out for you and now I'm not needed on the voyage."
""You can't come in here," said Alex. "It's only for humans."
""What am I supposed to stay behind and feed the bugs?"
""Bugs?" said Alex. "How many are there?"
""If you hurry, there'll be less," said Carlton."
"I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of comedy, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
"FAREWELL TO FERMAT, CARLTON'S LAST THEOREM"
"Levity. Laughing matter. The cosmic joke. Brilliant, isn't it?
"Levity. Expanding the Universe. So simple. We're all moving at the speed of laughter.
"Time. Timing. The secret of comedy is.
"We are the only point in the present in the entire visible Universe. In every direction we are looking backwards in time. Want to see the past? It's above your head."
That's it. No need to read the bk. Hope I haven't spoiled the pudding for you.
August 22, 2013
Crosby and Hope would be proud. Mr. Idle wrote an entertaining science fiction comedy story. nothing phenomenal, mind you, but still it was a fun read with some intrigue, humor, satire, action, and even romance (infused with a little hot sex).
the premise itself is interesting. a scholar from the far future is telling about something he's uncovered from his past which is still our future. he tells the story of the person or *ahem* "tin man" who created the work he's discovered and in so doing tells the tale of an itinerant comedy duo attempting to find work and make a circuit round the solar system. they unwittingly stumble smack into the middle of someone else's much bigger agenda and the story takes flight.
interspersed with the tale of the duo and the tale of the scholar telling the tale Idle carefully hides in plain sight a little theory on comedy. the "tin man" formulates this as the story progresses and eventually discovers the secret to life, the universe, and comedy. in fact, having said that, Idle either pays homage, steals gloriously, or makes feeble attempts at channeling other works of sci fi humor like Hitchhiker's. it added nothing but spice to the story. Idle mentions Monty Python once or twice and even makes a cameo himself in his own book. and the "tin man" and scholar continuously ruminate on irony.
a good decent book but not profound. fun. entertaining. refreshing. even very dark in places- especially the end. wow.
nicely done, Mr. Idle.
the premise itself is interesting. a scholar from the far future is telling about something he's uncovered from his past which is still our future. he tells the story of the person or *ahem* "tin man" who created the work he's discovered and in so doing tells the tale of an itinerant comedy duo attempting to find work and make a circuit round the solar system. they unwittingly stumble smack into the middle of someone else's much bigger agenda and the story takes flight.
interspersed with the tale of the duo and the tale of the scholar telling the tale Idle carefully hides in plain sight a little theory on comedy. the "tin man" formulates this as the story progresses and eventually discovers the secret to life, the universe, and comedy. in fact, having said that, Idle either pays homage, steals gloriously, or makes feeble attempts at channeling other works of sci fi humor like Hitchhiker's. it added nothing but spice to the story. Idle mentions Monty Python once or twice and even makes a cameo himself in his own book. and the "tin man" and scholar continuously ruminate on irony.
a good decent book but not profound. fun. entertaining. refreshing. even very dark in places- especially the end. wow.
nicely done, Mr. Idle.
December 9, 2011
"The are two types of comedian," states Carlton in the preface to his dissertation, "both deriving from the circus., which I shall call the White Face and the Red Nose. Almost all comedians fall into one or the other of these two simple archetypes. In the circus, the White Face is the controlling clown with the deathly pale masklike face who never takes a pie; the Red Nose is the subversive clown with the yellow and red makeup who takes all the pies and the pratfalls and the buckets of water and the banana skins. The White Face represents the mind, reminding humanity of the constant mocking presence of death; the Red Nose represents the body, reminding mankind of its constant embarrassing vulgarities.
Alex Muscroft and Lewis Ashby are a comedy double-act working the outer reaches of the solar system, known as the Road to Mars. They are accompanied by their robot Carlton, who is writing a thesis called De Rerum Comoedia (Concerning Comedy), although he doesn’t understand irony or what makes a joke funny. After Alex's big mouth blows their chances of a long engagement on a solar cruise liner, and leads to the cancellation of all the other gigs they had booked, they decide to head straight for the bright lights of Mars, but find themselves caught up in a some rather dangerous events.
Alex Muscroft and Lewis Ashby are a comedy double-act working the outer reaches of the solar system, known as the Road to Mars. They are accompanied by their robot Carlton, who is writing a thesis called De Rerum Comoedia (Concerning Comedy), although he doesn’t understand irony or what makes a joke funny. After Alex's big mouth blows their chances of a long engagement on a solar cruise liner, and leads to the cancellation of all the other gigs they had booked, they decide to head straight for the bright lights of Mars, but find themselves caught up in a some rather dangerous events.
September 1, 2019
I'm a little surprised I'd never heard of this before - it's very funny and clever, it's got serious things to say about comedy, and it's actually decently plotted. Yeah, the characters are bit stereotypical, but it's comedy. Much better than half a dozen Adams knock-offs I've read over the years.
September 10, 2023
This book was all over the place. At first I was intrigued by the concept of a robot trying to understand comedy. However, the story goes in so many different directions and the narrative gets disrupted far too much. It's trying to be science fiction, mediocre at best. It's trying to include a noir storyline, which gets pretty convoluted. And, of course, it's trying to be a showbiz comedy, it just wasn't that funny.
I lost interest quickly and am disappointed because I really enjoy Idle's work on screen. I will say my favorite parts were told from the viewpoint of the robot, Carlton. I really wish that he was, in fact, the main character, which is what I had hoped for in the beginning.
I lost interest quickly and am disappointed because I really enjoy Idle's work on screen. I will say my favorite parts were told from the viewpoint of the robot, Carlton. I really wish that he was, in fact, the main character, which is what I had hoped for in the beginning.
June 10, 2009
The Road to Mars was truly funny -- well written with an extremely clever premise. There were even occasional moments of absolute brilliance, and I laughed out loud many times. However, what sunk this book were the two extremely graphic sex scenes. We're talking blush-and-cringe-and-look-away-in-embarrassment graphic. Not sexy. Not funny. They didn't in any way enhance the book, and I found it disappointing that Idle engaged in such trashy, self-indulgent writing. It's too bad, because the book was hilarious.
July 10, 2011
Naja - jemand der sehr gute Sketche schreibt, dessen Talent ist dadurch noch nicht zwangsläufig dazu befähigt, einen ganzen komischen Roman zu tragen.
Die Reise zum Mars ist eine sehr simple Abenteuer SF-Story gespickt mit ein paar wenigen wirklich guten Ideen wie z.B. ein Android, der eine Dissertation über den menschlichen Humor verfasst, oder der Abschleppdienst für Menschen, die ihre Kunden aus jeder Situation herausholen und am Bestimmungsort abgeben (funktioniert vor allem gut bei Betrunkenen...;-).
Wie oben schon gesagt ein paar gute Ideen aber eine sehr mittelmäßige Story.
Die Reise zum Mars ist eine sehr simple Abenteuer SF-Story gespickt mit ein paar wenigen wirklich guten Ideen wie z.B. ein Android, der eine Dissertation über den menschlichen Humor verfasst, oder der Abschleppdienst für Menschen, die ihre Kunden aus jeder Situation herausholen und am Bestimmungsort abgeben (funktioniert vor allem gut bei Betrunkenen...;-).
Wie oben schon gesagt ein paar gute Ideen aber eine sehr mittelmäßige Story.
July 28, 2011
It's not a *bad* book and maybe I should give it 3 stars instead of 2, except I had much higher hopes given the author. There are definitely some funny parts, and there are also interesting serious parts, but the book kind of felt as if the author didn't know if he was writing comedy or serious science fiction. It's bits of many things, and no one thing consistently, and therefore ultimately left me mostly unsatisfied on all counts.
May 14, 2007
Great book! Bought it without it's cover jacket at Goodwill guessing it was a satirical look at the politics of Mars Exploration. Ended up loving it for an entirely different reason. This book does it's best to define comedy and what makes us laugh, while at the same time telling a pillow-hugging story about a futuristic space adventure.
July 31, 2018
I expected it to be funny, and it was. I didn't expect the action or mystery elements of the story. There were a lot of pleasant surprises to it. Some aspects of the tale work better than others, but when it is good, it is really good.
May 21, 2007
All I have to say is HEHEHEHEHE.
June 26, 2007
This is a great sci-fi novel written by Monty Pythons Eric Idle. It's very well written.
November 6, 2007
This is just a funny book. Anyone who likes that dry Brit homour should pick it up.
Plus Eric Idle signed my copy, so it's even better.
Plus Eric Idle signed my copy, so it's even better.
August 12, 2016
Lightweight, but very enjoyable.
June 1, 2024
Loved the book
It was surprisingly good. I had a very hard time putting it down. It was a great book from start to finish except I never did find out how Carlton did as a comic lol to
It was surprisingly good. I had a very hard time putting it down. It was a great book from start to finish except I never did find out how Carlton did as a comic lol to
May 3, 2025
i have a crush on carlton the bowie looking robot. i think i’m in love with him and his handsome face.
June 11, 2025
A bit of fun. Lightet than a Hitchhikers guide, it combines a light story with thrills and humour. A good light read, for anyone who enjoys a little Sci-fi, without the doom and emptiness.
November 12, 2025
Bonkers plot mixing showbiz, thriller and sci-fi.
January 23, 2025
Hilariously rude satire.
April 30, 2025
Not really my cup of tea. Aimed mostly at guys somehow.
November 16, 2008
Carlton é um andróide, modelo Bowie 4.5, que vive no futuro e que, talvez por trabalhar para dois comediantes, elegeu como objectivo da sua vida a escrita de um tratado sobre a comédia, senão mesmo sobre o riso, qual Henry Bergson, cujo livro nunca li mas cujo fantasma me assombrou, ano após ano nos escaparates da feira do livro, naquele sítio dos livros baratos que te sentes sempre tentado a comprar para depois nunca mais leres. Mas não é uma imitação daquela máquina andrógina, robot que parodia pessoa que parodia robot, chamada Ziggy Stardust, que tinha tanto de assustador que escreveu uma das músicas mais assustadoramente belas de todos os tempos, chamada space oddity e que parece que estava cheia de significados ocultos homossexuais (não sei quê, não sei quê, major Tom. pois...). Não, trata-se mesmo do "deus jovem branco e de cabelos de ouro, um dandi trágico, um cruzamento entre uma pívia e um sonho húmido". Carlton trabalha para dois comediantes, Alex e Lewis ou, se preferirmos, Muscroft e Ashby. Estes comediantes são perfeitamente catalogados no livro como o cara branca e o nariz encarnado, imagem muito feliz com que o autor nos consegue fazer entender instantaneamente as personalidades dos dois. Se calhar é porque não é uma imagem mas sim uma descrição factual do que os dois são. Mesmo assim, recapitulemos: O cara branca é o palhaço austero, alto e magro, que faz sempre a papel de sério e que tenta fazer o seu número, invariavelmente destruído pelo nariz encarnado, baixo, gordo, anárquico, que humilha sempre o outro enquanto lhe baixa as calças. Enfim, o gajo das tartes. Se calhar fazia-se aqui um paralelo interessante com a vida real. Ou melhor, um exercício de imaginação: quem são os gajos das tartes das nossas vidas? Aqueles que subvertem constantemente tudo o que os outros fazem, mascarando com humor um mega ressabiamento contra todos aqueles que, modestamente ou não, vão fazendo pela vida? Alex e Lewis são autores de vaudeville cómico, comediantes de serviço de um paquete de super luxo chamado Pincess Di que faz a ronda pela galáxia, ronda essa chamada o caminho para Marte. Depois disto, bem, é a confusão total, ou não tivesse este livro saído da cabeça de alguém que passou os anos 70, sim, 70, não foi engano, a derreter o cérebro com ácido. E por grande que seja a tentação de descrever a história do livro, sei perfeitamente que o indescritível não se descreve. Lê-se, apenas. Penso que agora, perto do fim, poderia dizer que o autor foi um dos Monthy Python. (...pausa para prestar o culto devoto dos culturalmente correctos...), mas isso para mim não tem significado, uma vez que não me encontro entre os seguidoras dessa religião. Apenas gosto deles, mas não escrevo tratados de devoção infinita ao seu talento. Por uma razão simples. Era tudo das drogas. Ninguém reparou que a partir do momento em que deixaram de se drogar acabou a criatividade. Ninguém acha estranho que em todas as profissões o apogeu venha com a experiência e que no mundo do espectáculo o apogeu venha no princípio? É a droga, é... Pois é. Acabo apenas com o verdadeiro herói deste livro, Carlton, sobre o qual estou eu a escrever o meu. E com o seu tratado: De Rerum Comoedia, um discurso sobro o humor. A comédia pode ser apreendida ou é um exclusivo do ser humano. Este é um livro muito bom e ainda por cima desconhecido.
July 4, 2017
I wanted to like this, I really did. A novel by Eric Idle! Why had I not heard of this before? Turns out there's a pretty good reason...
As an uncountably large number of people have said before me, writing a novel isn't like writing a short story/play/sketch/humorous song/book review/recipe (please delete as appropriate). It requires some of the same skills (constructing lovely sentences/writing cracking dialogue/being funny/being funny and rhyming/being able to type/being able to measure ingredients) but makes additional demands on top of them. In particular, the successful novelist must create characters who keep our attention for the duration of the work and a plot which is sufficiently complex to last perhaps hundreds of pages. They must be able to maintain a sense of pace, both in choosing the actions which occur and in revealing information to the reader. Most difficult of all, they must be able to create an arc, i.e. to vary the pace in such a way that the reader feels that they've gone somewhere worthwhile and had an interesting journey in the process. (This is why I rate J.K. Rowling: some of her sentences are howlingly bad, but she makes her stories unfold in a way that is wonderfully compelling.)
So Mr. Idle (was there every a less appropriate name?) isn't very good at this. There are some characters, one of whom is particularly interesting (a robot that looks like David Bowie and is trying to uderstand the nature of comedy) and there's a plot which lurches about the place without ever feeling like it's fully there. There are funny moments and sad ones. There are mysteries which get revealed. There is danger and there is rescue from danger. But the sum total of all these doesn't quite resemble a novel, but rather a cardboard box with lots of bits of novel in it.
There's still stuff to enjoy here (some of the bits are quite good). Most importantly, the novel is interspersed with the robot's (i.e. Idle's) thoughts about what comedy is, and even if you don't agree with him, it's pleasant reading. But that's about it.
One important caveat: if you know anything about physics, please leave it outside when you enter. There are some seriously misguided ideas about how the universe works in here.
As an uncountably large number of people have said before me, writing a novel isn't like writing a short story/play/sketch/humorous song/book review/recipe (please delete as appropriate). It requires some of the same skills (constructing lovely sentences/writing cracking dialogue/being funny/being funny and rhyming/being able to type/being able to measure ingredients) but makes additional demands on top of them. In particular, the successful novelist must create characters who keep our attention for the duration of the work and a plot which is sufficiently complex to last perhaps hundreds of pages. They must be able to maintain a sense of pace, both in choosing the actions which occur and in revealing information to the reader. Most difficult of all, they must be able to create an arc, i.e. to vary the pace in such a way that the reader feels that they've gone somewhere worthwhile and had an interesting journey in the process. (This is why I rate J.K. Rowling: some of her sentences are howlingly bad, but she makes her stories unfold in a way that is wonderfully compelling.)
So Mr. Idle (was there every a less appropriate name?) isn't very good at this. There are some characters, one of whom is particularly interesting (a robot that looks like David Bowie and is trying to uderstand the nature of comedy) and there's a plot which lurches about the place without ever feeling like it's fully there. There are funny moments and sad ones. There are mysteries which get revealed. There is danger and there is rescue from danger. But the sum total of all these doesn't quite resemble a novel, but rather a cardboard box with lots of bits of novel in it.
There's still stuff to enjoy here (some of the bits are quite good). Most importantly, the novel is interspersed with the robot's (i.e. Idle's) thoughts about what comedy is, and even if you don't agree with him, it's pleasant reading. But that's about it.
One important caveat: if you know anything about physics, please leave it outside when you enter. There are some seriously misguided ideas about how the universe works in here.
September 27, 2014
Musings on comedy wrapped up in a tangled plot concerning two comedians, their android, some flat female characters, spaceships, and political extremists. All in all, mostly inoffensive and forgettable. Mr. Idle, I expected better from you. You get 1.5 stars because I didn't hate it and the plot speeds up at the end. I have the sneaking suspicion you just wanted to provide your personal insights about comedy and humor but figured you needed to pad it out with a quick-paced scifi fiction (plus to make it marketable). Aside from the analytical android Carlton, who is a crucial component, the science-fiction, outer space setting feels unnecessary and forced. For the most part the characters feel flat and forced. Regrettably, so does the humor- it just wasn't a very funny book. It reminds me of "Starship Titantic," a book written by Terry Jones (another Monty Python member) based on a game written by Douglas Adams. I barely remember a single thing about "Starship Titanic," so there you go.
Also, while I am fully aware the entire book is a JOKE, the revolutionary Nobel-winning-theory-of-everything really killed my parrot, so to speak. I'm even going to have to insert a spoiler to rant properly. Ahem. Anyway, shame on you, Mr. Idle, but I expect a dose of actual humor, perhaps Holy Grail or Life of Brian, will set me straight again.
Also, while I am fully aware the entire book is a JOKE, the revolutionary Nobel-winning-theory-of-everything really killed my parrot, so to speak. I'm even going to have to insert a spoiler to rant properly. Ahem. Anyway, shame on you, Mr. Idle, but I expect a dose of actual humor, perhaps Holy Grail or Life of Brian, will set me straight again.
November 24, 2016
I never knew that Monty Python member Eric Idle wrote novels, and indeed, he's only done two. This is the second one, and I picked it up at the council library solely because his name was on the cover. He's a charismatic, talented performer, and I've always admired his work since I first noticed the Pythons in my early adolescence, so I thought I'd give it a go. Unfortunately, he's no novelist. The action in the plot is a mess, he's not good at description, he can't create tension, there's some erotica in the middle of it that has no narrative purpose, and the humour is sketchy at best. With The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams set the bar quite high for comedy in space. In the same vein, Mr Idle attempts the anthropomorphic robot (instead of being depressed, it's a lively manservant), cosmic philosophy (instead of the meaning of life, the robot is searching for the meaning of comedy), the famous celebrity (instead of being an outlaw with two heads, she's an überentertainer that everybody worships), the bemused Earthling (instead of one, he's got two, in the form of comedy team of Alex and Lewis). There are other parallels, but I won't list them all here. I like Eric Idle, so I don't like giving his book a poor review, but it reads like a first draft that needs quite a bit of editing. Anyway, there was some humour, more wry and ironic than laugh-out-loud, and the characters were interesting enough to keep me reading to the neatly bow-tied end. So I will give it a passing grade of 3/5, recommend it only to Idle fans and I wouldn't even mind if he had another attempt at a novel. I'd read it.
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