Customer Reviews

Falling Sideways

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Tom Holt is a master of the humorous novel (especially science fiction or fantasy). This book is no exception.

The book follows the a young man who fell in love with a witch depicted in a painting at a local art museum when he was a young boy. Having a decent job in computers and no romantic interests to spend his money on, he frivolously buys a lock of hair reported to be from the witch in the painting. Then the strangeness begins.

First he is approached by another art collector in a local pub. Then, in need of a bathroom, he exits his train at an unfamiliar stop and sees Honest John's House of Clones. But surely cloning isn't possible, or even legal.

Well, armed with his genetic sample, the young man sets in motion events of cosmic proportions. Lies and coverups follow fast and furiously. He, and the reader, are stuck trying to figure out just what the real story is. Was he genetically designed just to clone the witch? Is he the son of God? Who are all of these people who look alike? What is with the bags of sugar? And are the frogs really in charge? These and many more questions are eventually answered amidst a fast-paced story liberally seasoned with intelligent witticisms.

If you are a Tom Holt fan, you will want to read this one. If you are new to Tom Holt, this is an excellent book.

In Falling Sideways, Tom Holt has returned to storytelling. He is good at random quipping, but I felt that some of the books he cranked out in recent years- Overtime, Faust Among Equals, and Grailblazers- were long on random quips and short on plot. Falling Sideways is a good yarn- it almost develops like a creepy mystery at the beginning. The funny bits are in service of the plot,and not as fast and furious as in some of the earlier books, which might disappoint some, but I found a relief. The book is perhaps not quite as satisfying as Expecting Someone Taller or Who's Afraid of Beowolf? but does suggest that Holt is past his lazy phase or whatever that was, and bodes well for the future.

This book would be great if you didn't absolutely despise every single character.
This book would be funny if it wasn't trying so hard.
This story would be entertaining if someone wasn't always coming in with the long winded explanations.

In fact, if it wasn't such a quick read, it might've found itself flying down the elevator shaft with a good riddance tossed in after it. Rather, if you find this book used for 50c, give it a go. It has some good one liners and is mildly amusing when it isn't being intensely irritating. It sure isn't worth the $10 I shelled out for it.

I am a big fan of the late Douglas Adams, and have enjoyed the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy" as well as his Dirk Gently books, mostly because of his crazily funny sense of dry humor and wit. The big difference between those books and this one by Tom Holt (and I won't generalize my comments to Holt, since I've only read this book of his, but likely won't read the others because of this one) is that Adams balanced the silliness with entertaining dialog and description, whereas Holt uses a sledgehammer to bang you over the head, line after line, paragraph after paragraph, with the same kind of silliness that Adams used less liberally to greater effect.

I give it two stars, rather than one, because it is clearly an homage to Adams (with references sprinkled about to Hitchhikers text which, I assume and hope, are there for the sake of mimicry rather than plagiarism), and hey, I can appreciate a good tribute.

I was originally drawn to this book because of the rather odd frog on the cover, which is good, because there are a lot of amphibious life forms within, hehe. I was really not expecting the fast-paced, frantic, free-wheeling and fun read that this book turned out to be! From the first page, to the last, you are never sure what is going to happen next, who is who for sure, or what the eventual outcome of all this madness is going to be. It's an absolute joy. I haven't been this entertained by a humourous science fiction or fantasy novel since the works of Douglas Adams, or the b-movie cycle by Craig Shaw Gardner. Now I have to get the rest of Tom Holt's books!

Falling Sideways in an interesting experiment in writing comic urban fantasy, unfortunately while the theory is sound, Tom Hold can't manage to drive the point home.

I've read a couple of other Tom Hold and, unlike other books from the author, Falling Sideways is rather funny and have some hilarious moments but it the more you get into it you start to see the rather coarse seems that attempt to hold the plot together, but eventually fail miserably.

If you're up for a few laughs, Falling Sideways is better then most other Tom Holt's works - but don't expect it to hold a candle to the masters of the genre.

I know - with a stellar review title like that, how can you refuse? :)
given the level of strangeness and meandering-ness of this book, i have to include a brief "summary" of what this book is about (SPOILER!) so do not read the last paragraph of this review if you want to be completely surprised

The book opens with an introduction to David Perkins - your average 30-something computer geek - well, maybe a softer / meeker version of your average 30-something computer geek ... the story is set in london (although, honestly it took me several pages to get to that point ... before i got there i was trying to figure out why the writing was sounding so funny ...) - as he admires a painting of Phillippa Levens (aka giving it the creepy staredown)

I think I liked this book as much as I did because I could follow the thought-train that David was on - although, sometimes the direction his thoughts took him was somewhat unexpected, but the result was hilarity. David's inner monologue, as well as that of the other characters', is what gives the book its meander-route and long-winded-ness - this usually was not a problem until about a 100 pages in - at that point my eyes just started to glaze over, but I fought through it (mainly, I skimmed the pages until the inner monologues and going-nowhere-fast explanations stopped and I got the gist of it all). so that's the tough part, can you get through the first 100-150 pages? if so, then you are in for a treat because the book takes a cray-cray turn and the action gets action-y! anyway, enough of my vague talk, here's where the SPOILER bit starts!

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ultimately, this book is about love
Honest John is actually related to David
David is actually an amphibian "from" another planet with the ability to make people believe whatever
Phillipa is actually a clone and is also actually Phillipa 3rd removed (that will make sense to you later)
lastly, the book really makes you want to go visit British Columbia - although you are left wondering if BC is really BC ...

This book was recommended to me because I love Christopher Mooore, Carl Hiaasen & Douglas Adams. It was strange, but not in an interesting or even amusing way. It was just bizarre. I'm not even sure why I finished reading it.