Ben Elton - The First Casualty

r3nu4l

Ok, I have recently finished the First Casualty by Ben Elton. Can't stand his stand-up act, loved his writing in Blackadder and the young ones and loved this book.

Now the thing is that Ben has written 10 books and from what I've read on another forum he seems a bit hit and miss. Some of his books are meant to be pretty ropy indeed! The First Casualty was well written, well researched and well crafted as a story and there was very little humour in it, and even at that most of the humour that was there was sardonic and bleak.

Has anyone read any of his other books? Did you like them? What ones are good, in your opinion and what ones are bad?

Earthhorse

Dang! You know, I was going to post telling you what Elton books I'd read and how I'd rate them, but just browsing through his books on Amazon I honestly can't remember which one's which.

I'm pretty sure I've read Starch and This Other Eden. Neither of them were terribly good. They were okay, fine to pass some time away, but not very funny, and his characters can be a little irritating at times as he tends to streatch them into caricatures after a time.

I think I'd tried reading Gridlock too but gave up on it when it seemed to be more of the same.

More recently I read Dead Famous which I would recommend. It's basically a send up of 'Big Brother' with a murder mystery tied in to boot. The confined environment of a TV studio and the ongoing murder plot server Elton well. His other books (that I've read) tend to be BIG IDEA books and end up a little sprawling and messy.

To give you some idea of my taste I loved Elton's writing on Blackadder (the original four series anyway), loved his stand up at the time (so not his recent revival) and hated The Thin Blue Line.

r3nu4l

Earthhorse wrote:

...hated The Thin Blue Line.

Yes, I too detested the thin blue line, comedy by numbers really. Insert painfully obvious gag here, use plastic stage prop for double entendre there...tiresome!

It seems as though Elton enjoys exploring his writing and themes, which is great but I think that any first-time author who wasn't already a household name wouldn't have had some of those books published.

That said, I still recommend the First casualty to anyone, good read.

helles belles

eh i tried to read high society. couldnt get through it!

Eoin

Earthhorse wrote:

Dang! You know, I was going to post telling you what Elton books I'd read and how I'd rate them, but just browsing through his books on Amazon I honestly can't remember which one's which.

I'm pretty sure I've read Starch and This Other Eden. Neither of them were terribly good. They were okay, fine to pass some time away, but not very funny, and his characters can be a little irritating at times as he tends to streatch them into caricatures after a time.

I think I'd tried reading Gridlock too but gave up on it when it seemed to be more of the same.

You pretty much nailed it there - the three books you mentioned are as formulaic as you can get.

Big corporation / fat cats causing global warming and looking after their own interests versus minority of some description who try to stop them. It's exactly the same in all three books, so I haven't been inclined to try any others.

tHE vAGGABOND

None of his books are joyce or anything, but they are good 'fun' reads. What I would call plane or holiday reading!

I read the First Casualty over holidays last christmas, and I must say I loved it. I thought it was really good. I could not put it down, and read it in a couple of days.

dead famous is quite funny - taking the piss out of the whole reality TV thing [and god do I hate bloody reality tv]

I have also read Post Mortem, High Society and Blast from the Past - and I enjoyed them all. None of them will be on my list of best books ever or anything, but enjoyable reads.

Stark was the last of his books I read, and was not amazingly impressed at all tbh.