The legendary English humorist Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975), known to readers as P. G., wrote about 100 books in a career that spanned much of the 20th century. His output included 71 novels, 24 collections of short stories, 42 plays, three memoirs, and a lot more. But his work lives in memory largely due to his novels and stories about the witless Bertie Wooster and his sagacious butler, Jeeves. The 24 Jeeves and Wooster books, four of them published posthumously, appeared from 1916 to 2016. Many were bestsellers. So, it’s no surprise that imitators would come out of the woodwork. And what appears to be the latest of these is an American actor named Tom Alan Robbins who is now six books deep into a series of steampunk novels he calls the Twits Chronicles.
This is not a story about technology. It’s all for laughs.
Twits Abroad is the third book in the series. It’s subtitled “A Steampunk Distraction,” categorizing the novel as a species of science fiction that imagines a world in which steam-driven technology and lighter-than-air travel dominate because electricity has not come into use. But as science fiction (or, as I would prefer, fantasy), Twits Abroad fails utterly. The technology is entirely superfluous to the story. But as humor, the book does work. It’s funny at times. Sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. But for anyone weaned on the Jeeves and Wooster stories, it’s hard to take.
Twits Abroad: A Steampunk Distraction (Twits Chronicles #3) by Tom Alan Robbins (2022) 154 pages ★★★☆☆
Is this a comedy of errors? There are errors galore, in any case.
“Twits,” it turns out, is the name of a London men’s club. And the story’s narrator and protagonist, Cyril Chippington-Smythe, is a member. Somehow, never explained, Chippington-Smythe has become the world’s richest man. However, it’s clear that he must have inherited the fortune. Because he’s clueless about . . . well, just about everything. When he acts on his own initiative, he invariably screws up. Only when he turns to his faithful servant, Bentley, for advice, does he manage to muddle into solving the problems he’s gotten himself into. But—get this—Bentley “is a steam-powered domestic with a stately dome and an air of moral certainty that will brook no opposition.” Although nowhere does Robbins explain exactly how steam might power a robot.
Chippington-Smythe’s current challenge is to avoid the clutches of his domineering Aunt Hypatia. The old battleax is attempting to force him into marrying a wealthy young woman named Euphonia Gumboot. And, if anything, she’s more clueless than he, which is saying a lot. So, in a vain attempt to avoid his aunt and her charge, Chippington-Smythe contrives to slip away to New York in one of the Smythe Corporation’s mighty dirigibles. Except that Aunt Hypatia has gotten wind of the plan and forced her way onto the blimp with her charge in tow.
The cast of this comedy of errors, if that’s what it is, includes two other twits as well as Aunt Hypatia’s husband, Uncle Hugo, who has designs on closing a business deal with Chippington-Smythe. One of the others is Cheswick Wickford-Davies (Binky to his familiars). Binky “is as much a responsibility as a friend. He has an unfortunate tendency to put his foot in it.” And we also see “C. Langford-Cheeseworth, a habitué of the club, lounging by a window and twirling his jeweled monocle.” They’ve all joined Chippington-Smythe and Bentley on the dirigible. Predictably, antics ensue.
About the author
Tom Alan Robbins is an American actor who has appeared in nine Broadway shows including “The Lion King” as well as a number of popular TV series. He is also the author of six entries in the Twits Chronicles to date. Robbins was born in Canton, Ohio, in 1954 and earned a BFA from the Juilliard School. For what it’s worth, there is no other personal information about him on Wikipedia, or for that matter anywhere else on the web that Anthropic’s Claude could find.
For related reading
I’ve reviewed just one of the novels by P. G. Wodehouse, on which the Twits Chronicles are modeled. It’s The Code of the Woosters – Jeeves & Wooster #7 (From P. G. Wodehouse, a classic comic novel that’s still funny today).
You might also be interested in My 10 favorite funny novels or Top 10 great popular novels.
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