Customer Reviews

Open Sesame

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Yes, you'll find plenty of groanable wordplay in Holt's "Open Sesame." The pun-phobic might give it a pass on that account. For the rest of us, it's an enjoyable romp between the world where storybooks are true and our own Reality.

Let's just start with Ali Baba and the forty thieves, as told by a thief - told over and over, as many times as the book has been read, with the same dreary end every time. It turns out that, once he puts his mind to it, a character can take some control of his role, and even bribe the border guards between Reality and all the rest. Given all of storybook fiction, Holt has plenty of material to work with, including a magic ring that lets you talk to the household gadgetry, a fairy Godfather who grants wishes you can't refuse, the (or a) Tooth Fairy, the story's storyteller, an assortment of thieves (theirs and ours), and multiple personalities for most of them as they commute between worlds. There's lots more, too, to a point that I found a bit much. It's possible that Holt found the multiple characters and story lines a bit much too, since the last part of the narrative broke up into a mob of vignettes flying in close formation.

But c'mon, this is just fun, and picking its nits is snarkiness that I don't find fun. Holt's writing might appeal to people impatient for Pratchett's next, and deserves a larger following in the US. Even his lesser writings have great moments - whether or not they are sustained.

-- wiredweird