Customer Reviews

My Hero

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This one of Tom Holt's better books, and very good. The plot concerns a writer and her um characters. If you have ever wondered what happens to characters when the writer knocks off for the day, here is one man's idea of their habits. It gets a little more complicated than that though... Jane Armitage, the writer of a fantasy series, is contacted by an unfortunate western writer who has been stuck in his books for 30 years. He begs for her help and the assitance of her hero. She sends him off to help and unwittingly helps set in motion the end of the world. This is very funny and invades several clssic works of literature, but many of Tom Holt's stock incidental characters seem to have gone missing. Danny Bennet does not make an appearance, nor does the bounty hunter.

Holt came up with an interesting concept in "My Hero" (fictional characters having an independent existence). But, he fails in its execution. To get his characters from their problem state over to a satisfactory conclusion, he has them popping from Reality into various works of Fiction (I'm capitalizing those words because Reality and Fiction are dimensions of the universe in the book). There's no problem with that. Unfortunately, instead of choosing the fictional works in some kind of logical, chain-of-event type of manner, he seems to just pop them into the various plots at random. Now, that wouldn't be too bad in a fairly short book. But, my copy (part of his Mightier Than the Sword: Contains Who's Afraid of Beowulf? and My Hero (The Second Tom Holt, Omnibus)) is 325 pages long. That's just too long for, as another reviewer said in a more positive review, "in-one-door-and-out-the-other chase scenes." After a while, it just becomes boring. Even the length might have been mitigated if he spent the time with some meaty material. But, understandably, this is a Tom Holt book, and that's just not what he does. Instead, he spends the time making fun of the various foibles of authorship and the publishing industry. Again, that just can't support 325 pages of text. So, unfortunately, I have to rate this book at a Bad 2 stars out of 5.

Authors sometimes say that their characters take on lives of their own. I know the experience of getting lost in a book - I imagine that happens to authors too.

Now make the two literally true and put them together: the character come to life and the living person turned into fiction. Starting there, Holt does a good job of keeping the reader amused. The book reminds me of some older comedies, the ones with in-one-door-and-out-the-other chase scenes. It's like that, but with lots more people and doors that connect whole worlds.

Good silly fun - I enjoyed this one a lot.