Knights of Madness

'Following on from his comic-fantasy anthologies The Wizards of Odd and The Flying Sorcerers, Peter Haining presents a third collection of oddities, now with a somewhat wider scope. Besides funny fantasy and SF, these 24 stories include absurdism, allegory, historical tomfoolery and even offbeat crime fiction. They range from inevitable names like Terry Pratchett--here with an SF riff on the old mystery of why or how the chicken crossed the road--to unlikely ones like L. Frank Baum of Oz fame, who contributes a wholly uncomic murder story. Jerome K Jerome spoofs SF's utopian socialist futures, Robert Bloch introduces a Tuxedo of Invisibility into the lowlife world of Damon Runyon, Ray Bradbury is exuberantly funny about low-budget SF/horror movies, Peter Beagle explores the embarrassments of being a lady werewolf's boyfriend, Mark Twain deliberately paints his daft mediaeval-romance plot into a corner, John Kendrick Bangs invents a new and silly Munchausen adventure and Gene Wolfe actually lives up to his splendid title "How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion". It's a wildly eclectic mix, whose famous names also include Woody Allen, GK Chesterton, Philip K Dick, Mervyn Peake, Spike Milligan, AA Milne, Peter Sellers and James Thurber. Everyone has different views on what's funny and what isn't, and some of Haining's choices seem eccentric--but most readers should find enough chuckles in this plump anthology to make it well worth the price of admission.' - David Langford, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW