Customer Reviews

Here Comes the Sun

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I bought this book on impulse to give a new (to me) author a chance, and, boy, am I glad I did! Tom Holt writes intelligent humor that skewers all the most sacred notions you've ever held or heard of, and will leave you wanting the rest of his work. I will have to get everything else he's written, which seems to be something of a challenge, actually, but worth it. If you like Douglas Adams, you'll love this. Even if you don't like Douglas Adams, you may still like this.

I still like Holt, but he's starting to wane. This is mainly because he is moving away from the Wodehouse/Benson situational type of humor to the Pratchett one-liner & pun type. No, that's not quite the description either. What Holt has been missing in these last few books is a simple coherency of plot. The plot is there, but rather than following one or two characters (Wodehouse tends to follow only one, the viewpoint character), Holt has taken to Douglas Adams-ing and going from direct narration by an omniscient and wise-cracking author to a maniac movement between three or four viewpoint characters. Is it funny? Yes, but the funny is a quick, brisk kind rather than the slow build-up.

_Here Comes the Sun_ is mainly a sendup of beauracracy. What if the universe were actually one big machine, that required drivers and mechanics for the sun, regional planners for weather, an idiot administration (there is, of course, no other kind of administration, so I guess that's an oxymoron), and the long- suffering support staff. Well, I can imagine it, and I think my imagination would cast it as a horor novel rather than as a comedy. I think _Here Comes the Sun_ worked better than the even-more maniacal _Overtime_, but I'd like to pass Holt some virtual valium and hope for a book more like _Goatsong_ the next time around.