Customer Reviews

Dead Funny: Tom Holt

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I'm glad to see thse two books back in print, even if they're now printed in one book. (UK readers may see the same two books collected as "Dead Funny," with a different cover but the same ISBN.) They're two of Holt's best, dating back to the early 1990s.

In the first half, "Flying Dutch," Holt traces Cornelius Vandervecker from the fifteen-hundreds on, sailing forever across the loneliest wastes of the seven seas. Yes, Cornelius is the Flying Dutchman. No, he's no myth. And no, he's not exactly cursed - well, not as such. It's more of a blessing, really, if you allow blessings of the mixed sort.

There was an incident involving an alchemist, a hasty retreat from a suddenly-unfriendly shore, and an untested elixir of eternal life. And alcohol, lots of alochol. (Well, everything around Vandervecker seems to involve alcohol.) That elixir just happened to work, but has a teeny little side effect - a personal pong that would knock a buzzard off a dungwagon. On the whole, it's a good idea to put a few thousand miles between the crew and anyone with a normal sense of smell. There's that alchemist, though, who's still trying to fix that little problem. There's also Danny Bennett, an enthusiastic journalist with a nose for news, and whatever else it is that surrounds the Flying Dutchman. And there's also this little matter of Vandervecker's long-term investments - I mean, very long term, with compound interest.

The second half reprints "Faust Among Equals." In it, the Devil's lien against Faust's soul resulted in repossession long since. But the Devil has moved on, and a new consortium is handling the business. They're the modern devils - they're demonic management consultants, bean-counters who've mastered accursed accounting, and lawyers. No, no special kind of lawyer, just the usual. During the management reorg, Faust escapes. He and Helen of Troy have settled down to shear-it-yourself sheep farm in Australia, with only occasional disruptions of the world's technological infrastrucutre. This one blemish on their otherwise spotless record isn't good for hell'snew corporate image, so they take on a bounty hunter ("acquisition consultant") to wipe out that blemish. Or to wipe out Faust, they don't much care. He does, though, and the chase is on.

Both of these are Holt at his best, with chases across continents, across centuries, and sometimes across planes of being. His characters are caricatures, living exaggerations of painfully familiar people. They're great good fun.

//wiredweird

I've been searching for modern fiction that is the perfect escape into fantasy for over a decade, but I always go back to my old favorites like Kafka or Tolstoy. Tom Holt is on par with the great authors of history. He takes subjects of complete impossibility and makes them seem feasible. If you want to exercise your imagination while having a good laugh, this book is for you.

Unfortunately, "The First Tom Holt Omnibus" contains a mismatched set of stories. The first one, Flying Dutch, is very good. But, the second one, Faust Among Equals is merely OK. I'm rating this Omnibus at the truncated average of the two books: an OK 3 stars out of 5. Below are my individual reviews for each of the books:

- Flying Dutch: "Flying Dutch" is the first of Tom Holt's books that I've read. I'm pretty impressed. His writing is very much in the style of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (clever dialog and storylines that nicely interconnect). Most of the book exudes the care Holt took to mesh everything together. Unfortunately, the last quarter of the book feels a bit rushed: people don't stay in character, a main storyline and character appear without earlier preparation, and a sort of "then a miracle occurs" tie-up. But, the book is written well enough that this "lesser writing" is still acceptable and the book as a whole is clever, interesting, and fun to read. So, overall, I recommend it and rate it at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5.

- Faust Among Equals: Tom Holt's "Faust Among Equals" is the 2nd of his books that I've read (Flying Dutch being the first). Unlike "Flying Dutch", this one lacks most of the cleverness and all of the intertwined storylines that made that other book so good. What we're left with here is merely a somewhat clever idea (Faust escapes) and a lot of haphazard activities that wend their way to an eventual close. Because of this, the best I can rate it is only an OK 3 stars out of 5. It's good for filling up some spare time. So, get it from the library and save some money.

Well, around about page 95 you begin to think it might potentially be somewhat amusing. However, your hopes are dashed by page 105 and you're checking to see how many pages are left. Some amusing bits. Some clever gags. A large number of genuine words. A good bit of puzzling whether you've accidentally skipped a page or two. (This makes no sense; How did they get here? Did I miss a page? No, apparently not. Hmmm. ) A good book for summer reading since the breeze generated by your brain spinning in a vain attempt to discern the plot is substantial. His later works don't seem quite so disjointed, but a good editor could easily have cut the volume down by half and greatly improved it.

All in all, the book leads me to believe that I may have potential as a bestselling author. If you have nothing to read except the telephone directory, by all means buy a copy. Although, I'd first be tempted to try reading Homer in the original Greek and I don't even speak the language.