Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Armageddon: The Musical | 1990 | Robert Rankin | Buy |
| 2 | They Came and Ate Us | 1991 | Robert Rankin | Buy |
| 3 | They Came and Ate Us: Armageddon II: The B-Movie | 1991 | Robert Rankin | N/A |
| 4 | The Suburban Book of the Dead | 1992 | Robert Rankin | Buy |
| 5 | The Suburban Book of the Dead: Armageddon III: The Remake | 1992 | Robert Rankin | N/A |
The Armageddon series takes the end of the world and filters it through Robert Rankin’s comic sensibility. Armageddon: The Musical (1990) posits that Earth’s apocalypse is actually a television program being watched by aliens for entertainment. They Came and Ate Us treats the follow-up as a B-movie, and The Suburban Book of the Dead reimagines it as a remake.
The meta-fictional framing — apocalypse as entertainment product — allows Rankin to satirize media culture, religion, and science fiction conventions while maintaining the absurdist comedy that defines his work.