The First Tom Holt Omnibus: Flying Dutch & Faust Among Equals (Tom Holt Omnibus) (Paperback)

by Tom Holt (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Praise for Tom Holt: 'Uniquely twisted ... cracking gags' Rob Grant, THE GUARDIAN, 'Frantically wacky and wilfully confusing ... gratifyingly clever and very amusing' MAIL ON SUNDAY, 'Frothy, fast and funny' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY, 'Dazzling' TIME OUT, 'Wildly imaginative' NEW SCIENTIST

Product Description

This omnibus contains two of Tom Holt's best-loved stories. In Flying Dutch, we learn of the amazing problems drinking can get you into. One little swig from the wrong bottle, and you go from being an ordinary Dutch sea captain to an unhappy immortal, drifting around the world with your similarly immortal crew, suffering from peculiarly whiffy side effects. Little does Cornelius Vanderdecker, the Flying Dutchman, suspect that a chance encounter in an English pub might just lead to the end of his cursed life, one way or another. In Faust Among Equals, the management buy-out of Hell wasn’t going quite as planned. For a start, there had been that nasty business with the perjurers, and then came the news that the Most Wanted Man in History had escaped, and all just as the plans for the new theme park, Eurobosch, were underway. But Kurt “Mad Dog”Lundqvist, the foremost bounty hunter of all time, is on the case, and he can usually be relied on to get his man—even when that man is Lucky George Faustus.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 570 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841490253
• ISBN-13: 978-1841490250
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.7 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #330,389 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #5 in

  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > ( H ) > Holt, Tom

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nuggets from the golden age of Holt, November 1, 2006

By	wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars finally...good modern fiction, December 3, 2008

By	Christine (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Only slightly amusing, November 30, 2008

By	Just Bob again (USA somewhere) - See all my reviews

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.