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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slow start, but very enjoyable!!, March 21, 2004
I automatically give any book extra points for laugh-out-loud moments, and although there aren't that many in this book, they ARE present, esp with Mr. Tanner's mum around.Paul Carpenter is having a bad day. Well, it's his first day of work at J.W Wells & co as a junior clerk, along with Sophie, a woman with all the [looks], as the books' cover tells you. Nevertheless,when Paul and Sophie forget the company's rule of leaving the building by 5:30p.m., they discover that things are not all they expected. The building's owned by goblins, for one thing. And when one of the senior partners sets them to cleaning out and categorizing all the odd items in the basement (they find Scarlett o'Hara's birth certificate and the map to King Solomon's mines, among other things) Paul finds things getting weirder and weirder. For one thing, he meets the mother of one of the senior partners. Mr Tanner's mum is a highly engaging character. Tom Holt is oft compared to Terry Pratchett, but since his novel is actually set in England, I found his characters using a lot more English slang than discworld characters would. Although this can be slightly uncomfortable at first, you soon get used to it as the story takes you on a log-ride of a plot, with slow moments, sudden twists and turns, and a final splash of a climax before you climb out of the story. Paul seemed unutterably wimpy at first, even annoying sometimes, but about halfway through the book, I started feeling sorry for him, and then rooting for him, and he finally did grow a backbone and I was cheering for him all the way. Read The Portable Door if you're looking for a light-hearted fantasy novel about 'The Corporation' and two clueless junior clerks in England. I enjoyed this book a lot more than I expected I would.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Another amusing story from Holt, May 9, 2005
Maybe you think your boss is an ogre - you haven't seen anything.
Paul and Sophie meet at a job interview, commiserating over the steady stream of handsome, well-dressed, competent-looking people interviewing ahead of them. They both know that, if added together, they might total a whole personality (but not a very interesting one). They are both surprised to meet each other again on starting day at the new job. They are surprised again at the mind-numbing boredom of the apparently senseless tasks they are given, but even more suprised at the weirdness that starts to emerge as they sort and file. Was that really a love letter from Sophie to Paul in the archives - dated 100 years ago?
That's where the story really starts, and Holt steers it along an amusing route in his trademark form: the hero never quite knowing what's going on, in and out the mysterious doorways, and increasing strangeness right to the end. This time Holt adds a comical attempt at romance between two people who seem to like the idea, but don't quite know how to go about it. (That anarcho-socialist ceramics performance artist doesn't help anything.)
This is a good one, but I think Holt put a lot more book around the story than it really needed. Yes, we see from the start that Paul and Sophie are both the Novacaine of social sensation. Yes, we are tantalized by the gathering clues that all is not what it seemed. I think all that could have been established in a bit les than 175 pages, though, and the next 200+ pages were only a bit more tightly-packed.
If you're the kind who gets testy when Pratchett's next book is later than you want, Holt might help you get by. He has a lot of the same slanted view of the world, and a lot of the same funny/fantasy story line. Holt has written some very good stories, and this is a good one. I have to admit, though, that readers new to Holt might get a better first impression by reading another title first.
//wiredweird
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comic Workplace Fantasy, January 9, 2007
This is the first of three books in the Paul Carpenter series by Tom Holt. The other two are 'In Your Dreams' and 'Earth, Air, Fire, and Custard.' I accidentally read the third book first and so thought that I wouldn't enjoy the first book very much, but I was wrong. I consider Tom Holt's writings to be the real world comparison of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Basically, it may be helpful to read them in a certain order, but in the end, it doesn't matter because they are all just as good on their own since both authors are a comic genius. While Pratchett deals with a made-up world on the back of a turtle, Holt deals with 'our' world. The Carpenter series is based around office life, with a bit of magic mixed in. Extremely funny, even if you have never worked in an office. I also love the art on the front of Holt's books, so simplistic, but precisely dead-on as to what the story is about. For those who have never read Holt before, pick up one of his books and give it a try!
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