Clara’s Verdict
Frankie Boyle is not for everyone, and A Short History of the Apocalypse is emphatically not for everyone either. Co-written with Charlie Skelton and narrated by Boyle himself across nearly fourteen hours, this is a satirical long-form assault on the billionaire dystopia that Boyle has been describing on television, in podcasts, and in live shows for the better part of a decade – except here he has somewhere upward of five hundred pages to develop the argument, and he uses every single one of them. If you arrived expecting a conventional novel with a plot, recognisable characters, and some form of resolution, you will be bewildered and quite possibly offended. If you came for darkly comic futurology delivered by someone who appears to have given up all hope for civilisation and finds that condition simultaneously appalling and rather funny, this is precisely what you need and have been waiting for.
About the Audiobook
The conceit is elegantly simple: the book presents itself as a practical survival guide for the coming apocalypse, structured around the debriefing of Alonso Lampe – a time traveller and, we are told, a ‘bon vivant from the late 21st Century.’ Through Alonso, Boyle and Skelton address questions that most lifestyle guides have neglected: how to join a militia, what life is actually like in a billionaire’s bunker, the etiquette of the thunderdome, tips on cannibalism, the social architecture of re-education camps, and the prospects for post-societal dating. Real figures from contemporary public life make appearances, and their fates are described with visible relish.
This is not a novel in any traditional sense. It functions as a series of densely interlocking skits and is best approached as such – as one reviewer correctly observed, it rewards being “dipped in and out of in darkest moments” rather than consumed in marathon sittings. The cumulative effect, however, is more coherent and more purposeful than the format might suggest.
It is worth being explicit about what this book is not: it is not a political manifesto, it is not a comedy special in written form, and it is not a quick satirical romp. It is a sustained, carefully constructed, frequently very funny and occasionally very bleak extended meditation on the direction of travel of the species. Readers who come to it expecting Boyle’s stand-up transposed to prose will find something stranger and, ultimately, more ambitious.
The Narration
Boyle reading his own material is the only sensible arrangement, and the performance confirms it. His delivery is dry, precise, and utterly committed to the bit throughout – there is no sense at any point of winking at the audience, softening an edge, or stepping back from the premise. The rhythm of this writing is his rhythm; no other narrator could deliver these sentences with the right measure of casual horror and genuine comic timing. At nearly fourteen hours, the density of the material makes it better suited to shorter sessions than sustained binges – the ideas need room to settle.
The audiobook format suits this material in ways that the print version does not, or at least does not equally. Boyle’s delivery transforms passages that on the page might read as merely clever into something that hits with the force of stand-up – the timing, the weight of pauses, the specific quality of his deadpan are all essential to how the jokes land. This is a case where the performance is genuinely part of the work rather than merely a reproduction of it.
What Readers Say
With a rating of 4.1 from 87 reviews, response has been warm from Boyle’s existing audience. “Gloriously indulgent scabrous futurology,” wrote one listener, who prescribed it to be “dipped in and out of in darkest moments” – advice I’d second unreservedly. “Really funny,” said another, citing specifically the fate of a prominent tech billionaire. One reader suggested taking your time with it and found it rewarded patience generously. The most arresting review came from someone who had been reading it to their children at bedtime and found them demanding a sequel – an outcome Boyle would presumably find both gratifying and somewhat alarming.
Who Should Listen?
For devoted Boyle listeners who want the full uncompressed version of what he has been doing in shorter forms for years. For admirers of Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, or the late great Charlie Brooker who enjoy their dystopias meticulously detailed and entirely humourless about themselves. For anyone who has followed Frankie Boyle’s New World Order and wanted those closing monologues extended into something much longer and considerably darker. Emphatically not for listeners who require a clear narrative arc, a protagonist to identify with, or to feel better about the species when they switch off. You have been fairly warned.
Those familiar with Adam Curtis’s documentaries – particularly HyperNormalisation – will recognise the intellectual territory, though the register is entirely different. If you want to spend nearly fourteen hours in the company of someone who has thought very hard about where this is all going and has conclusions that are funny, horrifying, and entirely coherent, this is the book you have been waiting for without quite knowing it.
Listen to A Short History of the Apocalypse on Audible UK – also available on Kobo, Scribd, and Storytel.
