2005;
410 pages. New Author? : No. Genre : Contemporary
Fantasy; Humor. Overall Rating : 7½*/10.
The title is wrong. Custard has not replaced Water as one of the four elements; it has been added as
the fifth element after someone invented it.
Paul
Carpenter doesn’t care about that. He
just wants to have a normal life. One
without goblins and one where he doesn’t make a fool of himself around
women. And maybe not getting killed as often. Yeah, that would be nice too.
But
Custard has some very interesting elemental properties. And Paul’s destiny is hopelessly intertwined
with it. Confused? We hope so.
What’s To Like...
As usual, we’re treated to Tom Holt’s wonderful
wit, scrumptious similes, and madcap storylines. As usual, the mayhem threatens to overwhelm
the plot, and indeed, I wasn’t sure what the main storyline was until about 40%
of the way through the book. But the
pacing is fast and there are no slow spots.
Your mind may be in a daze, but you're never bored.
The book is written in “English” (as opposed to “American”), which is always a
treat for me. At its core, Earth, Air, Fire and Custard is a romance, but
fortunately for us male readers, it’s covered up with guy things like action, fighting,
time-travel, dimension-travel (think “Inception”), and talking appliances.
You will learn about the stuff legends are made
of, such as Audumla, the Great Cow of Heaven, and how Utgarth-Loke stole her
from the gods. If you're a scientist-type, you can witness the clinical research into how many angels can
dance on the head of a pin. I truly appreciated the way the scientific method was used to determine this.
The
ending is good, clearing up all the plotlines effectively, even though it
required a long, tell-not-show explanation
of the temporal anomalies. Wikipedia
lists four more J.W. Wells-related stories after this one, but I kinda suspect
Paul won’t be in them.
Kewlest New Words. . .
Bolshy (adj.) : Deliberately
combative; uncooperative. Naff (adj.)
: Stupid; lame. Yomp
(v.) : To walk or trek
laboriously. Stroppy
(adj.) : (see ‘bolshy’). Lilo (n.) : An inflatable air mattress. These
are all “Britishisms”.
Excerpts...
“It’s Paul,” he said. “Just to let you know I’m not feeling well,
so I won’t be coming in today.”
He could picture
the stormy crease of her eyebrows.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I died.”
Pause. “You don’t sound very dead to me.”
“I sort of got
better,” Paul admitted. “But it’s only
temporary. Sooner or later I’ll have a
relapse and then that’ll be it, kerboom, finito. So really, there’s not a lot of point me
coming in, is there?”
Christine wasn’t
the sharpest serpent’s tooth in the kindergarten, but she could spot a
rhetorical question when she heard one.
“Have you got a doctor’s note?” (pg. 86)
"Of course, it’s
easy with hindsight. But I wasn’t
around, in fact I was fast asleep; and back then, thirteen centuries ago,
nobody’d heard of time travel or alternative realities or trans-dimensional
shift. Instead, they had gods; and if a
bloke turns up who looks like a god and acts like a god and starts jacking
acroprops under the Sun and unscrewing the stars, you aren’t inclined to ask
for any ID. Not if you’re sensible." (pg. 356)
Could a Swiss cow possibly
have created the universe? (pg.
306)
Earth, Air, Fire and Custard is the
third book in Holt's “Paul Carpenter” trilogy, which in turn is a subset of seven books featuring the J.W. Wells Magic Corporation. I read the first book of the trilogy (The Portable Door), but not the second (In Your Dreams).
There is a 2-page backstory at the start of this book, but I hesitate to
call it a standalone novel. To fully enjoy it, you need to be already familiar with things like the Portable Door, and the
eternally-fighting knights from the first book, which I was. But there were also a lot of references to Fey
characters from the second book that I was clueless about, and that detracted from the fun to a certain extent.
In
the hands of an amateur writer, EAF&C could’ve
easily been a complete book-wreck, and no doubt a lot of readers will give up
somewhere in the first 180 pages of unexplained craziness. But things start falling into place after
that, and Tom Holt’s writing skills guide you happily to the end of the
tale.
7½ Stars. Add one star if you’ve read both of the other
books in this trilogy. Subtract one star
if you haven’t read either one. And no
matter what, do not make this your very first Tom Holt book.
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