Ye Gods! - Tom Holt

   1992; 296 pages.  New Author? :No.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Mythology; Satire.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    It’s not easy being the son of a Roman god.  And the head honcho, no less, Jupiter himself.  Just ask Jason Derry. 

 

    Oh, it certainly has some benefits.  You’re a physical masterpiece: you can run at super speeds, dodge flying bullets, and beat the daylight out of any human foolish enough to get into a fight with you.

 

    There are limits however.  Jason’s mom is a mortal, which makes him only a half-god.  Full-blooded deities are more powerful than him, and probably smarter as well.  That means he’s susceptible to being manipulated by the gods, if they so choose.

 

    And Jason has a sneaking suspicion that they are so choosing.

 

What’s To Like...

    Ye Gods! is a clever blend of several Greek mythological tales (Jason & the Golden Fleece, Prometheus) and the modern-day quantum physics concept of multiverses.  If you have an infinite number of parallel universes, at least one of them will still be inhabited by the ancient gods and heroes.  The tale is told via 14 chapters covering 296 pages, with a plethora of fabulous footnotes added that would make Terry Pratchett proud.

 

    It was fun to watch Tom Holt add twists to the classical Greco-Roman myths.  Jason still procures the Golden Fleece, but it’s a minor part of this story.  The gods weren’t mad at Prometheus for giving Fire to humans; it was his second gift to us that got him chained to the rock, with an eagle sent daily to peck out his liver.  The second gift was . . . well, revealing that would be a spoiler.

 

    I’m a lifelong mythology lover, so Ye Gods! was a literary delight for me.  Eleven of the Romanized deities play parts here, plus a twelfth one that I had never heard of.  I was sure that last one was something Tom Holt had dreamed up, and then surprised when I found a Wikipedia page about him.  I’d tell you the god’s name, but that too would a spoiler.

 

    Tom Holt is a British novelist, thus the book is written in English, not American.  So for us Yanks, there were some odd spellings (cheque, sulphur, dialled) and weird words (shufti, git, biro), but I’ve gotten familiar with most of these.  The author also works lots of trivia-worthy items into the text, such as Perry Mason, Burger King, Mithraism, Vivaldi, and one of my heroes, Aleister Crowley.  Late in the story, we get to watch an episode of an alternate-universe TV Game Show called God’s My Witness.  That was exciting.

 

    The ending is vintage Tom Holt: unforeseen yet absurdly logical.  Jason (and the reader) finally get to the bottom of the godly skullduggery, and for perhaps the first time in his life, our hero is introduced to the concept of free will.

 

Excerpts...

    ”Virgil,” he said, “can I ask you something?”

    “Be my guest,” said the Mantuan.

    “If you had a little voice in the back of your head,” said Jason, “that kept telling you to . . . no, suggesting that you do things that you really don’t want to do, because they’re dangerous and you don’t understand why they need doing anyway, how would you react?”

    “I’d have a lobotomy,” Virgil replied unhesitatingly.  “Nothing worse than a chatty brain, I always say.”  (pg. 99)

 

   “Bad King Atreus looked out

    On the slopes of Pindus

    Lightning came and rubbed him out,

    Blowing him to cinders.

    Atreus, the silly sod,

    Came to Jove’s attention.

    People who offend a god

    Don’t collect their pension.”  (pg. 242)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Nobble (v.) : to try to influence or thwart someone by underhanded or unfair means.  (British, slang)

Others: Chiropody (n.); Simpulum (n.); Profiteroles (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.1*/5, based on 210 ratings and 26 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.71*/5, based on 1,299 ratings and 40 reviews.

 

“Just because you’re omniscient doesn’t mean you don’t forget the occasional birthday.”  (pg. 157)

    There’s not a lot of profanity in Ye Gods!  I counted just 10 instances in the first 20%, all of the either the scatological or eschatological variety.  Later on, a couple of stronger cusswords crop up, including one f-bomb.

 

    There were only a couple typos: a missing comma, hopped/hoped, and two different spellings of a character’s last name: Bennett/Bennet.

 

    A word to the wise: don't be surprised if you get a third of the way through the book and suddenly realize you have no idea what the main storyline is.  This is trademark Tom Holt, and rest assured that the main plot thread will eventually reveal itself.  In the meantime, just enjoy being entertained by the author’s wit, storytelling, and the antics of a bunch of Roman gods.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point, a “CND symbol” is referenced, and I had never heard of such a thing.  This stymied me, but luckily Wikipedia is the fount of all knowledge.  “CND” refers to a British activist group called the “Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament”, and its symbol is what we ex-hippies call “the peace symbol”.  Peace on!

Paint Your Dragon - Tom Holt

   1996; 312 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Mythopoeic Fantasy; Humorous Fantasy; Satire.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Saint George and the Dragon.

 

    Everybody knows the legend.  On one hand we have the hero, clad in shining armor and wielding a gleaming sword.  On the other hand, we have the beast, covered in impregnable scales, sporting claws that can slash through anything, and breathing white-hot fire.  Sometimes there’s also a princess that needs rescuing, sometimes not.  Sometimes the dragon is hoarding ill-gotten jewels, sometimes not.

 

    It’s the classic case of Good vs. Evil, and in order to be a heroic saga, Evil must, at least on the surface, objectively be the heavy favorite.  It’s five times the size of our puny knight, and its weapons and body-plating should easily carry the day.

 

    But of course, it doesn’t.  Against all odds, the knight wins, not because he’s faster or more powerful than the dragon, but because he’s nobler and purer and whatnot.  In short, because he is the embodiment of Good.  So says the tale, and hey, the winners get to write the legends.

 

    But what if the dragon was actually the good guy …er… beast?  What if the knight wins because he cheats?  And what if that only comes to light centuries later?

 

    There’s only one thing to do:  Arrange a rematch.

 

What’s To Like...

    Paint Your Dragon is another cleverly-contrived mythopoeic novel by Tom Holt in which he blurs the Good-vs-Evil aspect from a famous historical myth and creates an entertaining reevaluation of the story.  Holt wrote about 20 of these in the 1987-2002 timespan, I’ve read about half of those, and I’ve yet to be disappointed by any of them.

 

    The tale has the usual structure for his books in this genre: we follow multiple and widely-disparate storylines which keep us wondering if and how he’s ever going to coherently tie them together.  Here the main storyline is of course St. George and the Dragon, but a talented sculptress is then added to liven things up.  Then other plotlines arise: a “time-marketer” in England who will sell you extra time at an exorbitant price; a busload of demons heading to Nashville for a much-needed vacation; sixteen statues in Italy (including Michelangelo’s “David”); and a speck of dust which somehow acts as the puppet-master in all the mayhem.

 

    The tale is set for the most part in England (Birmingham gets major billing), with brief excursions to Italy and Mongolia.  As always, there is an abundance of Tom Holt's wit and zaniness to keep you entertained.  Some of the characters die, but death here is a rather temporary thing.  Body-snatching abounds, of both the animate and inanimate kinds.  You’ll learn how to go forward and backward in time (Holt’s physics is easier to grasp than Quantum physics), how many angels can dance of the head of a pin (hint: it depends on what dance they’re doing), and why you don’t see dragons nowadays.

 

    The book is written in English, not American, so besides the usual spelling differences, you meet pillocks with holdalls; and keep shtum so you don’t get nutted.  People can be dozy or cozzy and things can be naff.  You’re expected to know who Alf Garnett is, greet others with “Wotcher!”, cry out “Strewth!” if you're surprised, and keep studying this strange language for yonks.

 

    The story has a typical Tom Holt ending: he somehow manages to deftly tie up all those plotlines, and wraps things up in an unpredictable manner.  Like the rest of Tom Holt’s mythopoeic tales, this is a standalone novel, with no sequel needed.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Meretricious (adj.) : apparently attractive but having in reality no value or integrity.

Others: Parthenogenetically (adv.); Banjax (n.); Myrmidon (n.); and many others.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 20 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.76*/5, based on 615 ratings and 23 reviews.

 

Things that Sound Dirty but Aren’t…

    “Please, can I put my clothes back on now, Miss Frobisher?  I’m going blue.” (loc. 3478)

 

Excerpts...

    He [Dragon George Cody] it was who first justified the clearances by saying that the knights stood for good and the dragons stood for evil, and, in his own terms, he was right.  The knights were, after all, soldiers of the Church, ultimately searching for the Grail, and the dragons were getting in the way and, by deviously getting killed and eaten by the locals, giving aid and comfort to the hostile tribesmen.  Besides, George pointed out, dragons burn towns and demand princesses as ransom.

    The dragons, referring to the Siege of Jerusalem, the Sack of Constantinople and a thousand years of dynastic marriages, said, Look who’s talking.  But rarely twice.  (loc. 866)

 

    There’s an urban folk-myth that says that every time a child says he doesn’t believe in dragons, somewhere a dragon dies.  This is unlikely, because if it was true, we’d spend half our lives shovelling thirty-foot corpses out of the highways with dumper trucks and the smell would be intolerable.  Slightly more credible is the quaint folk-theorem that says that the higher up and away you go, the less rigid and hidebound the rules become; it’s something to do with relativity, and it limps by for the simple reason that it’s far more trouble than it’s worth to disprove it.  (loc. 4984)

 

You can get paranoid, thinking too hard about coincidences.  (loc. 2472 )

    The quibbles are few and nitpicky.  There is some cussing - 16 instances in the first 20% - but a lot of time the made-up cussword “shopfloor” is substituted, as in “What the shopfloor!?”.

 

    Some reviewers complained that following all those plotlines got confusing.  There’s some merit to this, but if you've read any of Tom Holt's novels before, you're aware that this is his usual style, and you don’t open the book when you’re dead tired.

 

    Finally, if you were hoping for a tie-in to the musical and/or film, Paint Your Wagon, ANAICT, there is none.  Then again, I’ve never watched either version of PYW, so what do I know.

  

    8 Stars.  Paint Your Dragon is another great piece of story-retelling by Tom Holt.  It entertained me throughout and also raises some interesting questions about – beyond the telling of St. George and the Dragon – how blindly you should trust those "winners" in history who then purport to write an objective account of the matter.   More to follow concerning that in a bit, via a review of my first book by Noam Chomsky.

Valhalla - Tom Holt

    2000; 261 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Mythopoeia; Humorous Fantasy; Absurdism; Satire.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Valhalla!  A great hall located in mighty Asgard, administered by Odin, and every Viking warrior’s idea of paradise.  If you die in combat, the Valkyries will personally escort you there to spend the rest of your eternal existence in utter bliss.  But what exactly do dead heroes do to pass the time there?

    Well, Valhalla is a drinking hall, so that’s one activity.  And since the Norsemen there have been fighting all their lives, that’s also what they probably consider to be a fun time.

    But lately Viking warriors dying in battles are few and far between.  So The Valhalla Group Incorporated (they’re a business now) has branched out.  If one has enough money and the right connections, even common folk like you and me can enter Valhalla.  Odin will even tailor an afterlife to suit your fancy, at least to the best of his understanding of the modern way of life.

    For instance, if you've been a cocktail waitress all of your life, you might end up as a serving wench in Valhalla.  For eternity.  Catering to Viking customers with some very outdated ideas about the role of women.

    Or if you loved to play simulated war games with your buddies on weekends (think “paintball” or Civil War reenactments), you could find yourself doing the same sort of thing in Valhalla.  Except with real weapons and ammunition and getting blown to bits every day, then reincarnated every night.

    For eternity.

What’s To Like...

    Valhalla is one of Tom Holt’s mythopoeic stories, and those happen to be my favorite subgenre of his works.  I’ve read his hilarious takes on the Holy Grail myth (Grailblazers, reviewed here) and the Flying Dutchman (Flying Dutch, reviewed here) and found both of those to be quite entertaining.  Valhalla measures up nicely as well.

    As with any Tom Holt offering, there are multiple storylines to follow, meaning readers need to stay on their toes to keep up with all the zaniness going on.  I noted five storylines in Valhalla.  They are:

1.) Carol finds herself wenching in the mead hall, and doesn’t want to do that for eternity.

2.) Her dad, Lin, an agent for the gods, pulls strings to rescue her.

3.) Howard plays real war games each day, every day, whether he wants to or not.  He dies a lot.

4.) Attila the Hun and other famous war leaders watch paint dry.

5.) Vinnie miraculously escapes death in disaster-after-disaster, no matter how long the odds.

     Tom Holt is a British author, so Valhalla is written in English, not American.  You’ll travel on the M5, put on armour, be sceptical, get a flat tyre, become stroppy, put up with cissies, wear pyjamas, and use sellotape.

    I’m a history buff, so I was happy to see the Battle of Chalons cited; it was the turning point for Attila’s invasion of Europe.  Ditto for the nods to Mithraism, Henrik Ibsen, and Robert the Bruce’s spider.  My present residence of Arizona gets mentioned twice, and I recall the Tesco’s stores from my visits to England, but had to look up  what “The Two Ronnies” is.  The “anti-thanaton displacement beam” may not be real, but it is way-kewl.

    At 261 pages, the book is relatively short, and the 15 chapters average out to about 17 pages/chapter.  There’s a fair amount of cussing, but that’s about it for R-rated stuff.  Valhalla is a standalone novel, and not part of any series.

Kewlest New Word (and all of them are Britishisms)...

Mug’s game (n., phrase) : a profitless or futile activity.

Others :  Breeze block (n.); Faffed (v.); Penguin biscuit (n.) .

Excerpts...

    It was bathtime; culture shock registering 10.9 on the Richter scale.  Not that old Attila had never got wet.  Far from it.  He could remember days and nights of unspeakable discomfort as the caravan trudged and squelched through snow and driving rain, the water streaming down the inside of his saturated clothes.  He’d always put up with it – no choice in the matter – but it stuck in his memory as one of the most wretched things he’d ever experienced.  Here, for some bizarre reason, they got wet on purpose; these people, with their amazing watertight roofs, had even built a special room just for getting wet in.  Perverts, the lot of them.  (loc. 1667)

    “You hear the voice of Ronald McDonald inside your mind?”

    “All the time.  Actually, he confuses me sometimes.  I remember once, we were besieging this castle in Normandy and nobody could understand why I kept ordering the artillerymen to bombard the walls with sesame seeds and dill pickle.  Still, he’s a bit more lively than the speaking clock.”  (loc. 3358)

Kindle Details...

    Valhalla currently sells for $5.99 at Amazon, which is the price for most of Tom Holt’s e-books there.  You can find a couple going for $4.99, and his half-dozen or so most-recent e-books sell for $9.99.  Most, if not all, of Tom Holt’s novels are now available in Kindle format, which is a great thing, since finding them in the local used-book stores here in Arizona is a rare occurrence.

Your worst nightmare, if you’re a god: humanus ex machina.  (loc. 4560)

    The ending is adequate and twisty, but not compelling.  All the disparate story threads mentioned above are deftly brought together and tied up, but to me things seemed rushed (it’s all done in a single chapter), and a case of humanus ex machina.

    Still, Tom Holt novels are always steeped in absurdism, so this sort of ending should be expected, and might even be deliberate.  I’ve seen Amazon and Goodreads reviewers express difficulty in following the storylines in Tom Holt books, but that’s the essence of the absurd.

    I tend to think Tom Holt books are an acquired taste.  They’re difficult to read at first, but once you get the hang of them, they’re delightful satires..

    8 Stars.  If you end up reading Valhalla, like it, and want more of the same motif, I highly recommend Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips (reviewed here).

Djinn Rummy - Tom Holt

    1995; 277 pages.  Full Title:  “Djinn Rummy; A Work of Comic Genies”.  New Author? : Not by a long shot.  Genre : Mythopoeia; Humorous Fantasy; Spoof.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

    “In an aspirin bottle, nobody can hear you scream.” (pg. 231)

    Ah, but after he’s been freed from that glass prison, it seems like everyone, especially his liberator, Jane, would just as soon have the genie, Kiss, shut up.  Indeed, despite now being entitled to three wishes (with some “fine print” limitations), Jane seems to be a tad bit disappointed by the turn of events, as she was looking to end it all with an overdose of aspirin pills.

    But Jane is persuaded to stick it out for at least a few days longer, since her first wish is to have an infinite number of wishes, which, frankly, will clear up a number of problems in her life.  And since Kiss is a Force 12 genie, which is an uber-powerful sort, when he says “your wish is my command”, there’s not much he can’t do.

    Like remodel Jane’s apartment.  Or wash the dishes.  Or whip up something fancy for dinner.  And in his spare time, perhaps he can even save the world from being destroyed by another Force 12 genie.

What’s To Like...

    Djinn Rummy is one of Tom Holt’s earlier novels (#10 out of – to date – 33 of them), and from the Mythopoeia stage of his career.  Being a fan of mythology, these happen to be my favorite books by the author, and a couple others from this sub-genre are reviewed here and here.

    The author again employs his trademark storytelling format.  He invents a whole new spin on the Aladdin “genie-in-a-lamp” story, and mixes in copious amounts of his wit and zaniness.  He examines the consequences of what would be my first wish upon encountering a genie – to have a zillion more wishes, and also comes up with a clever rationalization for why omnipotent genies don’t destroy the world.

    As always, there are multiple plotlines running concurrently through the tale.  Among them are: Kiss & Jane, Kiss vs. Philly, Asaf & Neville, Kevin the Frog, Armageddon, and Asaf and the Dragon King.  In the hands of a lesser writer, this would turn out to be contrived and confusing, but Tom Holt brings them all together nicely for a boffo ending, and order is restored in the Universe.

    The requisite flying rug plays a pivotal part, and weird critters abound.  My favorites were the carnivorous telepathic vegetable intelligences.  Let’s just say you’ll think twice before calling anyone a “pansy” again.

    The only R-rated stuff is some cuss words strewn among the crazy goings-on, and I thought it fit in well.  Tom Holt is British, and I was lucky enough to find a “UK version” of Djinn Rummy at my local used-book store, meaning it was written in English, not American.  There was also a smattering of French, a brief cameo by Druids, and the fascinating British expression, “Bob’s your uncle!”  All these are plusses for me.

Kewlest New Word...

Bonzer (adj.) : excellent; first-rate.  (an Aussieism)

Others :  sarny (n.); bludge (v.); jip (n.); doddle (n.); recidivist (n.).

Excerpts...

    A plague of locusts.  The phrase trips easily off the tongue.  But consider this.  The average locust needs a certain amount of food each day, or it dies.  Nine hundred million locusts, gathered together in one spot awaiting distribution in plague form, need nine hundred million times that amount.  Neglect to provide nine hundred million packed lunches, and before very long you’ll have a plague of nine hundred million dead locusts, untidy, but no real long-term threat to humanity.  (pg. 111)

    There is a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation of how genies manage to transport themselves from one side of the earth to the other apparently instantaneously; it’s something to do with trans-dimensional shift error, and it is in fact wrong.  The truth is that genies have this facility simply because Mother Nature knows better than to try and argue with beings who only partially exist and who have all the malevolent persistence and susceptibility to logical argument of the average two-year-old.  Let them get on with it, she says; and if they suddenly find themselves stuck in a rift between opposing realities, then ha bloody ha.  (pg. 228)

“Well, stuff me for a kookaburra’s uncle.”  (pg. 158)

    There aren’t really any quibbles to speak of.  At one point a character named Justin becomes “Julian” for a page or two, but I blame that gaffe on the publishing company, not the author.  And some of the threads are tied up rather loosely, but hey, at least they were knitted together.  Just you try keeping things together when the Earth is 90% underwater, one of the protagonists can’t swim, and Romance is only halfway up in the air due to Cupid-turned-hitman.

    Overall, Tom Holt once again delivers exactly what I was looking for – a light, enjoyable read without any slow spots, bizarre characters to meet, and a plethora of plot threads to keep me wondering how he was going to prevent the storyline from getting out of control.

    8½ Stars.  Subtract ½ star if myths aren't your cup of tea.

The Beginning of This, The End of That - Part 1: The End - James Matteson

   2012; 366 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Mythopoeia, Dimension-Hopping, Fantasy Alt History.  Overall Rating : 4*/10.

    Well, it’s been a bit of a jolt for Alysa and Ewan; they’ve fallen through a hole from the 21^st century to some sort of 7^th-century Alternate Universe, where gods and legends both big and small, seem to be running the show.

    The good news is, they’re mostly Greek and Norse deities, and if you know your mythology, you’ll realize that humans were on pretty good footing with those kinds of immortals.  Still, one has to wonder why Fate has brought Alysa and Ewan here, and whether they’ll ever get back home again.

    And then there’s the aliens from outer space.

What’s To Like...

    The Beginning of This, The End of That is an ambitious debut effort by James Matteson.  Per his Amazon blurb, his primary focus is on the role of “story” (read: myths and legends) in society, and you will find all kinds of tales mashed together here.  There were the Norse and Greek myths and gods, of course; but you can also see traces of Alice Through The Looking Glass, The Last of the Mohicans, and perhaps a trace of the Old Testament.  One of the Gnostic greats, Marcion, shows up; and even Mithra gets some ink.  Those are plusses for me.

     The writing style is straightforward, and if you like chants and poems in your stories, you’ll be tickled pink here.  The underlying storyline concept is original, and I liked that Alysa and Ewan had very different outlooks on life and very different natures.  The world-building is ambitious, with the reader being treated to locales such as Frigga’s grove, the White City, and Tartarus (the Underworld).  I wouldn’t say the Matteson's universe drew me into it, but it was adequate for the tale.

    Alas, it’s all downhill from here; both the writing mechanics and the storytelling are weak, and I can see why other readers failed to make it through the book.

    Mechanics.  There were a lot of typos, and that became a distraction.  The author claims to have written over 100 technical documents, yet doesn’t know the difference between “lightning” and “lightening”?  C’mon now.  I’ll look past affect/effect errors, and even hanger/hangar, but when the name of one of the characters goes from Beor to Boer, and it isn’t caught, that’s just poor editing.

    Then there’s the “big word syndrome”: piceous, atramentous, apetalous, hathoritic, pantokratic, and a slew of others.  They felt clunky and ill-fitting, as did the apparent need to give the Latin technical name for every piece of flora and fauna.  Happily, the BWS tapered off once the story got rolling.

    Storytelling.  It frequently loses its focus, and that makes for a number of slow spots.  A kidnapping by pirates becomes a treatise on business ethics.  Five professors give us a discourse on truth.  And if I want to hear a Sunday sermon, I’ll go to church.

Kewlest New Word…

Oppugn (v.) : to call into question the truth or validity of something.

Others : too many to list.

Excerpts...

    “If you are not tinkeards,” asked their host, “why then have you come to the White City?”

    “We are here looking for a poet,” Ewan offered.  Gunhild looked at him, disgusted.

    “Well, that should be easy,” said Goggigwr, “there are very few poets left in the city.”

    “Why is that?” Alysa questioned.

    “They have no employers,” he responded.  “If they don’t become musicians, college professors, or take religious orders, they can find no paying work.”  (loc. 3196)

   “So, since we parted at the Temple of the Golden Toad, what has happened to you?”

    “Nothing too exotic,” Ewan said, looking down the path after Frigga.  “We were lost at sea, rescued by pirates, washed ashore on the island of Aig, traveled to Spyral Castle, escaped from Hades over the Bifrost bridge.”  (loc. 6421)

Kindle Details...

    The Beginning of This, The End of That, Part 1: The End presently sells for $9.99 at Amazon, which seems quite steep to me.  The implied sequel has apparently not been written yet, and Amazon carries no other books by James Matteson.

 “What is the point of magic if it is not the force the gods themselves to do your will?”  (loc. 5082)

    I tried to reconcile the author’s stated purpose for this book – examining the role of story in society – with the storyline, and  I finally decided that the choice of genre doomed it from the start.  At first glance, fantasy would seem to be an excellent format for showcasing myths.  But the problem is the readers of fantasy want an entertaining tale, not a literary exegesis.  And the latter is what you get, particularly if you take the time to read the “commentator notes”.

    This is all a shame, because the basic premise of The Beginning of This, The End of That is nothing short of fantastic.  But the execution of that premise disappoints.  I don’t know what the author’s approach was in writing this book, but I get the feeling that some beta readers and a decent editor would’ve significantly improved things.

    One last thing.  Although the story ends at a logical place, it is obvious, even from the title (“Part 1”), that a sequel was planned.  It’s been almost four years since TBoT,TEoT-Part1:TE was published; it seems safe to assume a sequel will not be forthcoming.  Which means there really isn’t much point in reading Book One.

    4 Stars.  Add 1 Star if a sequel should ever be published; add another 1 Star if this book undergoes some major rewriting.  The storyline is so fascinatingly engaging that if it ever got more emphasis than the technical considerations, this could be the start of a fine series.

Faust Among Equals - Tom Holt

   1994; 292 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Mythopoeia; Humorous Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

    “Lucky” George Faustus has done something unprecedented.  He’s escaped from Hell.  They want him back, but because of his deal with the minions there, they can’t touch him.

    Ah, but the Devil’s in the details.  He may be off limits to the fiendish hordes, but there’s nothing stopping them from posting a reward and letting bounty hunters do their work for them.

    Kurt “Mad Dog” Lundqvist is the best bounty hunter ever.  He does it for the money, he does it for the thrill of the chase, and he does it cuz he’s mean.  And once he decides to go after George, there is going to be Hell to pay.

What’s To Like...

    Faust Among Equals is Tom Holt’s light-hearted musings on what might have happened to the character in German legends after his soul has been confined to Hell.  This is not to be confused with Goethe’s (version of) Faust, who has a happier fate.

    It has the usual Holt zaniness, as Lundqvist chases George hither, thither, and yon.  Along the way, we meet a host of secondary characters.  Some are famous – Sitting Bull, “Lenny” da Vinci, Helen of Troy, Don Juan.  Some are not – Links Jotapian, the three Spectral Warriors, and Larry & Mike.  The latter are a hoot.  Well actually, they’re more of a squawk.

    The chase is global, including the Australian Outback, which also figured significantly in a recent book I read (the review is here).  But the geographical highlight is a Theme Park called EuroBosch, designed and built by one Hieronymus “Ronnie” Bosch.  Hey, I’d pay good money to gain entry into that amusement park.

    The characters aren’t deep, but they are certainly interesting.  For all his ruthlessness, I kind of warmed up to Lundqvist.  He doesn’t have access to magic like George does, so he has to rely on his own wits and meanness.  I inherently root for the underdog.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Boffin (n.)  :  a person engaged in scientific or technical research.  (a Britishism)

Excerpts...

    Engineers are like mountain-climbers; not in the sense of having bushy beards and no toes because of frostbite, but because the one thing they really can’t resist is a challenge.  Ask an engineer to change the washer on a leaking tap and he’ll tell you to get lost.  Show him a design for making water roll uphill without pressure and drive a flywheel and ask him if he thinks it might work, and before you know it he’s reaching for his Vernier calipers and his slide rule, and all you’ve got to do is decide whether you want the flywheel in pale fawn or avocado.  (pg. 189)

    “You do realize,” she said huffily, “that this is a gun I’m-“

    “Yeah,” Lundqvist sighed, “sure.  To be precise, it’s a .25 Bauer, chrome finish, early seventies at a guess, pearl grips and machine engraving on the rear of the slide.  I imagine you chose it to go with your earrings.”

    Helen was impressed.  “You can tell all that from feeling it in your ear?”

    “Lady,” Lundqvist replied with dignity, “I’ve had more pieces shoved up my ear than you’ve had men.  The difference is, I can tell them apart in the dark.”

    “Pig.”  (pg. 278)

 Idiots rush in where demons fear to tread.  (pg.  254)

    For all of its plusses – good writing, humor, thrills and spills, Faust Among Equals lacks one critical thing – a compelling plotline.  At its heart, FAE is really just a book-long chase.  Now I admit, if I have to read a 300-page chase, I want the author to be Tom Holt.  But without a good story to accompany it, you can’t really call it a masterpiece.  Remember the old Steve McQueen movie, Bullitt?  With that fantastic chase scene up and down the hills of San Francisco.  But what was the movie’s plotline?  Yeah, I don’t remember either.

    Don’t get me wrong, Faust Among Equals was still an entertaining read.  But when I think back on my favorite Tom Holt books, this isn’t going to jump to the forefront.

    7 Stars.  Add 1 star if you think storylines just get in the way of the exciting parts of a book.  Add another ½ star if you actually do remember the plotline to Bullitt.

Grailblazers - Tom Holt

    1994; 265 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Mythopoeia; Humorous Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    The knights of the Grail have lost their way.  They’ve abandoned their quest for mundane jobs like delivering pizzas and cleaning windows.  That can happen over the course of fifteen centuries.  They need a new leader to re-energize them.

    Prince Boamund has been wakened from his enchanted sleep to lead the knights in search of the Holy Grail.  His leadership qualities may be lacking (there is a reason people call him “Snotty”), but at least he enthusiastically accepts his role.

     Now if only the other knights would get with the program.

   
What’s To Like...
    The characters are every bit as funny as their Monty Python counterparts, but without the slapstick routines.  It works quite well.  The plotline is better defined than the other Tom Holt books I’ve read, but you still have his trademark unexpected scene-shifts, bizarre twists, and unexplained new characters popping up.  But not to fear, everything gets tied together nicely at the end.   

    The book centers around (obviously) the Quest for the Holy Grail, but other legends are worked in as well.  You’ll learn what happened to Atlantis, and see a totally new side of Santa Claus (aka Klaus von Weinacht).  You do not want to mess with Radulf, he of the red nose.

    There are kewl dwarves, mad queens, and mysterious hermits and timekeepers.  If Unicorns are more your speed, you can find them here too, out among the kangaroos.

    Grailblazers is a-chock with chuckles, and as always, Tom Holt’s witty writing will keep you turning the pages.

Kewlest New Word...

    Soi-disant : self-styled, self-proclaimed, so-called.  (French)

Kindle Details...

    I bought Grailblazers for $2.99 at Amazon, but it has since been raised to $4.99, which is still a good buy.  On 04 September, more than 2 dozen of Tom Holt's books became available for the Kindle, priced in the $5.99-$9.99 range.  Given that the few used paperbacks of his that I’ve come across are usually around $7, the Kindle pricing is rather attractive.

Excerpts...

    There was a note in Turquine’s voice that Bedevere had never heard before, in all the years they’d known each other.  Fear.  Say what you liked about old Turkey, he never seemed to get the wind up.  If you asked him what the word fear meant, he’d probably think for a bit and say it was German for four.  (loc. 3247 )

    A shadowy figure with a knife in its mouth dropped from a tree.  Unfortunately, it had mistimed its descent.  There was a thump; and when the shadowy figure came round, there were two men standing over it solicitously.

    “Are you all right?” asked Simon Magus.
    “I’th cut my mouf on this thucking dagger,” the assailant replied.  “Thod it.”
    “You should be more careful, then shouldn’t you?” Simon Magus replied.  “Here.”  He gave the assailant a handkerchief.
    “Thankth.”  He wiped his face, spat out a tooth and crawled away into the bushes.  (loc. 4831)

“Boamund was – and is – the perfect knight.  Brave, honest and stupid.”  (loc. 5351)

    Grailblazers is the fourth Tom Holt book I’ve read.  It is one of his earlier efforts (1994), but has just as much humor and zaniness as his newer material.  The main difference seems to be that his 1990’s books are usually spoofs of various myths, while in the 2000 novels (from which my three previously-read Tom Holt come), he builds his own worlds.  So a new genre has been added to my vocabulary : Mythopoeia.

    My standard Tom Holt closing comment bears repeating – if you like authors like Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, and Robert Rankin, you’ll enjoy Tom Holt.  And now, if you own a Kindle, you don’t have to go scouring the used-book stores or do a special-order (pricey, because his books are imports) at Barnes & Noble to read his books.  8 Stars.