2017;
369 pages. New Author? : No. Genre : Humorous Fantasy; Satire; Christmas. Overall Rating : 8*/10.
It must be great to be a god. You live forever. You have your own world to oversee. You get to do things like perform
miracles for your adoring little humans, monitor the whereabouts of every
sparrow in your domain, and count the hairs on everybody’s head. And you get to do this forever.
But what if all that god-work gets old?
Can a Supreme Being just up and retire?
Take off with his son and go fishing on some faraway world like Sinteraan,
where even the smallest fish are ninety feet long and weigh a quarter of a ton?
It must be okay since he’s a god and
everyone knows that gods can’t make mistakes, can they? The humans will be well taken care of; just sell the terrestrial franchise to some other venture capitalist deities, and they can
run the world as they see fit. Oh, and there’s
no need to tell any prospective buyer about that one old, elusive, primeval
thunder god who’s living somewhere up around the North Pole. Nobody believes in him anymore, anyway.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
What’s To Like...
The overall storyline of The Management Style of the Supreme Beings is
readily apparent: Earth finds itself under new spiritual ownership, the rules of
conduct have changed, and whatcha gonna do about it? The fun is trying to figure out how the
various subplots will somehow merge into a plausible ending.
Dad and Jay retire and go fishing.
Jersey (a
grave robber) and Lucy (a heavenly emergency helpline receptionist)
meet up on Earth. So do their Flipside
counterparts, Bernie and Jenny. Kevin,
Dad’s less-favored “other” son, eschews the fishing invitation and journeys to
Earth to figure out his destiny. And nobody
know who that north pole Merry Prankster is, where he’s at, or what he’s up to.
Tom Holt is London-born, hence the book is written in English, not
American. Thus you may be a cissy
munching on a Weetabix
(I had to Wiki that), or have a coloured chequebook. There are some great-but-really-obscure references, such
as Nigella Lawson, and the Lawrence Oates’s farewell Antarctic quote: ”I’m going
outside now. I may be gone for some
time.” And I liked the nods
to the not-so-obscure Vivaldi and Salvador Dali watches. The pseudo-cussword “usdamn” was clever; so were the
mathematical thweeps
and sningies.
There are a bunch of otherworldly creatures
to meet and cope with. They might even outnumber the human characters, and
include everything from Archangels to Flipsiders,
from goblins to Martians, and from the squishies to the inscrutable Dao
Wei-qiang, who will lend you money at unbelievable interest rates.
The mayhem and wit are as always superbly entertaining, but beneath all the hijinks Tom Holt poses a
subtle theological question: What would
happen if issues like right/wrong and heaven/hell were phased out of our lives? Would we be better off or worse? Happier or sadder?
The
ending is done in the usual Tom Holt manner.
All the subplots are deftly brought together and tied
up. It may not be the most exciting ending ever, but that's okay, it's extremely clever.
Kewlest New Word. . .
Pulled a face (v.,
phrase) : showed a feeling such as dislike or disgust by contorting one’s
face.
Others: Serried (adj.).
Excerpts...
“It’s called an
eclipse.”
“A what?”
“It’s a natural
phenomenon,” Lucy said. “It happens from
time to time when the Earth’s orbit round the sun happens to coincide-“
“No, no, you
stupid child, you’ve got it all wrong.
The sun orbits round the Earth.
Everybody knows that.”
Lucy sighed, but
not into the mouthpiece. “Silly me,” she
said. “Yes, of course it does. What you’re experiencing is a minor
exhibition of divine displeasure, caused by someone in your community
committing one or more abominations unto the Lord. You can fix it yourself quite easily by
sacrificing a goat and rooting out the evildoers among you.” (pg. 40)
“You have the
right to remain silent, but anything you do say will be taken down in analog
form and cynically twisted to mean what we want it to. You have a right to an attorney, but trust
me, you’re in enough trouble already without getting involved with one of those
bloodsuckers. Now, please indicate that
you understand what I’ve just told you by saying the word guilty.”
“Huh?”
“Close enough.” (pg. 214)
Bother, he thought, or a monosyllable to that effect. (pg. 319)
The Management Style of the Supreme Beings contains a small amount of cussing; this is normal for a Tom Holt book. It’s not overdone and I thought it fit in
well with the tone of the story. You should also know that is a religious satire; if you’re a
thin-skinned Trinitarian, you probably should give this book a pass.
This is Tom Holt’s 34th (if
I counted correctly) Humorous Fantasy novel. I think it is a solid effort and a fresh
departure from his previous four books, which were all YouSpace-themed. We shall see if this is the start
of another subseries.
8 Stars.
I'm claiming The
Management Style of the Supreme Beings as my 2019 "Christmas read". Full disclosure: I didn't know the guy with the flying reindeer was in the book when I borrowed it from my local library. I got it mostly because I'm a huge Tom Holt fan.
No comments:
Post a Comment