Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Sausages: Early Review

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages

-       Tom Holt

Publisher: UK - Orbit Books – Released 2^nd February 2011

I recieved an e-Arc via netgalley & Hachette Books

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.
And then there are the chickens who think they are people. Something strange is definitely going on - and it's going to take more than a magical ring to sort it out.

All those little annoyances when working in an office – coffee disappearing, people swearing they’d spoken to you earlier when you know they haven’t - have a perfectly logical explanation which Tom Holt explores in his latest novel. Polly, a real estate solicitor and her musician brother get caught up in events that don’t seem to make any sense but are somehow fascinating, amusing and relatable. Regular people are put into odd positions and then there are the chickens who think they are people...or are they people who think they are chickens...? Somehow Tom Holt manages to put the ordinary in extra-ordinary and keeps the plot humming along with amusing scenes and a central mystery that I just had to know what was happening.

The last Tom Holt book I read (May Contain Traces of Magic) didn’t click with me but right from the first page of Life, I wanted to know what happened next and how all the various strands would come together. This is Tom Holt very much on top of his game telling a very British story. I’m never sure how well this type of humour translates but by the end I was sorry to have finished as I had been entertained by a coherent and fascinating story. If you like a little humour in your trans-dimensional mysteries then this is the book for you.

Recommended for fans of Terry Prachett and Robert Rankin. 8.5 out of 10

May Contain Traces of Magic Review

May Contain Traces of Magic

- Tom Holt

Publisher: UK – Orbit

There are all kinds of products. The good ones. The bad ones. The ones that stay in the garage mouldering for years until your garden gnome makes a home out of them. Most are harmless if handled properly, even if they do contain traces of peanuts. But some are not. Not the ones that contain traces of magic. Chris Popham wasn't paying enough attention when he talked to his SatNav. Sure, she gave him directions, never backtalked him, and always led him to his next spot on the map with perfect accuracy. She was the best thing in his life. So was it really his fault that he didn't start paying attention when she talked to him? In his defence, that was her job. But when 'Take the next right' turned into 'Excuse me,' that was when the real trouble started. Because sometimes a SatNav isn't a SatNav. Sometimes it's an imprisoned soul trapped inside a metal box that will do anything it can to get free. And some products you just can't return.

Tom Holt has written in the these area of comic fantasy for years and he’s one of those authors that I occasionally find myself picking up in order to read something slightly different. The last few books he’s written has combined a boring, normal job in a world where magic can happen, your boss can be a goblin and at any point you might be trapped in a repeating loop. This books follows a similar theme with the ‘hero’ Chris a salesman trying to flog rubbish magical items to real magic shops. (I use the inverted marks over hero as Tom Holt’s heroes tend to be less heroic than just lazy, useless or just plain ordinary. It’s this ordinariness that tends to make Holt’s book sparkle as anyone can relate to the boring office job with repetitive tasks. This time though something was a little lacking for me. Some of the observations were spot on, while a lot failed to hit the mark for me. What kept me reading was the intriguing stop involving continual demon attacks and how Chris was involved. However when I got to end of teh novel, a lot still failed to add up for me. The Sat Nav bit seemed interesting at first but that plot point fizzled out and didn’t really go anywhere. While the ending was sweet, the separate points didn’t make a complete picture and I felt slightly cheated that the plot was a bit incoherent. Overall, this was a different read but not one I’ll remember in a few weeks.

Recommended for fans of Terry Prachett and KE Mills – but I’d read Tom Holt’s The Portable Door first. No real relation to the characters here but it was a better book! 5 out of 10