Armageddon Books in Order

The Armageddon books take Rankin’s fondness for end‑of‑the‑world jokes and aim it straight at religion, television and time travel. Set mostly around the year 2050, they imagine a future where Earth is just another channel in a sprawling galactic TV network, and ratings‑driven producers want a spectacular finale.

In Armageddon: The Musical, theological warfare, nuclear leftovers and a wildly commercialised culture all swirl together as the soap opera 'The Earthers' struggles to hold viewers. Elvis Presley – or at least someone suspiciously like him – is sent on a time‑hopping mission dubbed the Presliad, accompanied by Barry, a sentient Brussels sprout who handles the time travel and most of the sarcasm.

They are joined, opposed and occasionally betrayed by a rotating cast that includes mystic charlatan Hugo Rune, Rambo Bloodaxe, Deathblade Eric and a host of characters who think they’re starring in different genres entirely. Behind them lurk alien TV executives who regard prophets and plagues as useful tools for boosting viewing figures.

They Came and Ate Us cranks the chaos up another notch with demonic horrors seeping from computer screens and a conspiracy that ties human behaviour to interstellar programming decisions. The Suburban Book of the Dead moves the action to a money‑free utopia called Eden and a suburb called Presley City, where Rex Mundi discovers that even paradise can be rebooted in preparation for yet another version of the apocalypse.

Across the trilogy you get running jokes about sacred sprouts, mock‑biblical language, riffs on classic science‑fiction and a surprisingly warm streak underneath the blasphemy. The books are loosely connected to Rankin’s wider universe – characters such as Rune and Barry reappear elsewhere – but you can read them as a self‑contained, gloriously irreverent tour of every end‑times cliché you can think of.

If you like your eschatology with musical numbers, talking vegetables and a knowing wink to the reader, this is the corner of Rankin’s work to start with.