Author: Tom Holt
Publisher: Orbit Books
Publish Date: February 2, 2011
Rate: 4 stars
"Angry; he was furious. A lifetime of rational thought. A lifetime dedicated to the twin goals of reasonable, logical explanation and doing as little work as possible, and now he discovered that there was magic in the world. It was insulting. It was how Columbus would have felt if he'd sailed two days beyond the Azores and found himself falling off the edge."
Polly is a real estate solicitor. She is also losing her mind. Someone keeps drinking her coffee. And talking to her clients. And doing her job. And when she goes to the dry cleaner's to pick up her dress for the party, it's not there. Not the dress - the dry cleaner's. Don is Polly's brother who dedicate his life in making tunes and work as little as possible. And now he has to find Polly's dress or Polly wont let him live in peace. But when he found it, he also found other things as well, and get tangled up in the middle of chaos involving strange pencil sharpener, mysterious dry cleaner, a man without past, missing coffee, chickens (lots of chickens) and a pig.
I was so enthusiastic when I found this ARC in NetGalley, I was practically jumping around. Tom Holt is one of my favorite authors; okay, I have lots of favorite authors but Tom Holt is my champ in Humor SF/Fantasy. He has been a master in combining fantasy with reality for years; not in Harry Potter way, or any other fantasy story way, but in his own way. Approach without expecting anything but laugh is the best way to start reading Tom Holt’s books. Plunge into the world that Holt created is like walking to your office in a mundane day and found a unicorn inside your cubicle but instead of being cute and awesome and tell you that you have a destiny to fulfill, the unicorn scold at you for staring at him too long. He combines the cynical of human regarding fantasy and anything unusual with a quirky magical stuff unlike any other had even presented before and stashes a heavy dose of sarcasm and British slang. LOVE IT!
It was a bit hard to give the usual review. You know the drill, characters, plot, setting, etc. For me the characters were funny and quirky and sometimes can be annoying. They weren't lovable in the way you might love characters that so-you. But you might love them because of their quirkiness. The plot is even more difficult to explain because half way through the book while you've met several characters, you might still unable to see the connection and sometimes in the middle of reading you felt lost because the sequence kinda jumping around. But when you finally able to see the connection, you'll understand the story and you might shout 'Ah! so that's why!'. Well, at least I did that.
While reading this book, I smirked, chuckled, and laughed even in the middle of the train (which resulted with some people stared at me as if I'm losing my mind). It's not the mind-blowing-so-touching-it-almost-rip-your-heart-out story. It's a funny story that will make you laugh; for me its a refreshing detour from the usual The Chosen One or Fullfil Your Destiny's kinda fantasy. Although I must say not everyone will be able to see the fun side of Tom Holt's book. Only those who enjoyed sarcasm and able to understand British slang.
*****
Because I love Tom Holt so much, I contacted Orbit Books and they kindly agreed to giveaway copies of Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Sausages by Tom Holt for dear fellow readers. Now you can experience the fun and quirky world of Tom Holt in printed copy!
How to enter?
1. You must be a follower to enter! submit your entries
2. One entry per person per household.
3. Read our giveaway policy before you enter it!
Extra entries:
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This giveaway end on midnight Jan 31, GMT
Lynossa
ps: I forgot to tell you this important thing! How stupid am I! The prize will be one copy for international follower and one copy for US follower. Cheers!
15 comments:
I'd love to read this. Your first two paragraphs had me in tears (laughing)
Thanks for the giveaway.
Ha this book sounds hilarious! I loved what you said about the Unicorn. lol It reminds me of some of the early books in the Xanth Series by Piers Anthony. Thanks for the giveaway...i hope I win!
Following you on GFC!
Oddly enough I've heard a lot about the author, but never read anything by him - so what better opportunity than entering this giveaway, 'cause the premise of the book sounds really fun!
danaan at gmx dot at
Sounds like an awesome and fun read!!!
I've read lots of Tom Holt, but find it difficult to search out his books in the US. Getting this would really make my week!
Karen C. Evans
This book sounds wacky and fun, I'd love to read it. I'll take all the wacky and fun I can cram into my life! :-)
One of my favorite books last year was Libba Bray's Going Bovine. It was crazy. It was hilarious. Since then I have been on the look out for for hilarious, strange and good fun reads. I hope I get to read this because it seems this will fir the bill.
~Isamlq (Ph)
Hi,
This sounds like a cool book. Keeping all my digits crossed for the giveaway win! ;-)
never heard of this book and its kind of plot. I think I would like to read this kind of book with such interesting plot.thanks for having this giveaway!!.Because here in our country I bet this book's not yet in the bookstores.;))hope to win
I've got the chance to read a few other books by Tom Holt, and they're really wacky:) The author is really in a genre of his own.
I had to stop reading Tom Holt a few years ago because I had read all the books by him I could get my hands on, and I get very impatient waiting for a new bok to come out.
I thought if I stopped reading his work for a few years, when I started up again I would have a few books to get through with no waiting.
This looks like the perfect book to jump right back into the crazy work of Tom Holt.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
This sounds like great fun not maybe not a good choice for reading in public!
Everytime I saw the cover, it reminds me to one book, Animal Farm - George Orwell. But then your review reveal something different.
I always enjoy book which can make us laugh. This is the first time I heard about the author. I hope I can read this book.
Thanks for sharing the review.
I'm laughing! Love the books and I really need and extra dose of laughs, so I think this would be a nice reading!
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