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Tom Holt, born Thomas Charles Louis Holt in 1961 is a British author best known for writing a series of fantasy and science fiction novels with a touch of humor. He was born to Hazel Holt, who was himself a famous novelist known for the Sheila Malory series. Born in London, he went to Westminster School before proceeding to Wadham College, Oxford, and finally the College of Law, London. Tom Holt was an early bloomer and by the age of thirteen had already written his first literary work “Poems by Holt”. He would start writing his unique brand of comic science fiction while he was still a student at Oxford. His literary titles include mythopoeic novels themed on literature, history, and mythology that are developed in a sort of parody or comical fashion. Writing as KJ Parker and under his real name Tom Holt, he has also written several historical novels including a collaboration on the unauthorized biography of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Even as he claims that he was a student of Greek agriculture at Wadham College, he asserts that he used most of the time in college playing billiards. Nonetheless, his passions soon led him into the law where he soon qualified as a taxes and death solicitor. He lives in Chard, Somerset and is married.
His foray into novel writing was probably an effort to find an escape from the legal career pit he found himself in. It was during his practice as a solicitor that he published the Lucia series of novels that were sequels to the “Lucia” and “Mapp” novels by EF Benson. However, he hit his stride with third novel, which was the first foray into the parodic mythopoeic fiction that he has been writing to this day and the genre he is best known for. His signature in the writing of his novel is the juxtaposition of the fantastic with the mundane, that he perfected in the novel “Expecting Someone Taller”. By 1995, Tom Holt had 15 titles to his name that gave him enough income to finally allow him to quit his job and become a professional writer. Since then he has become one of the most prolific of authors, publishing between two and four books a year, making the likes Honore Balzac seem like JD Salinger struggling with writers of block. Critics have often compared his works to Terry Pratchettt though that is probably because they both happen to be British authors with humor in their writing rather than stylistic or thematic similarities. Nonetheless, some of his titles have a canny resemblance to those of Pratchettt and the fact that they both love to include orcs and goblins in their work makes a good argument for just how similar they are. However, Tom’s work unlike that of his contemporary is set on Earth rather than on the fictional world of a turtle’s back in space.
Tom Holt’s many comic fantasy fiction titles that sometimes border on science fiction generally tend to focus on rapid innovations in technology and the increasing despair at the human condition. His 1993 title “Here Comes the Sun” which is one of his most science fiction like is set in an alternate Cosmos, where the residents need to intervene constantly in keeping their sun moving with Steampunk technology. While it may sound all geeky, Holt makes it all humorous and interesting by caricaturing it with civil servant attitudes and British industry inefficiency. Most of the other titles in his comic science fiction such as “Someone Like Me” and “Blonde Bombshell” are more humorous and adopt tones similar to fantasies. For instance, he uses dog like aliens as the antagonists in the latter novel. Using AI, he makes great use of satire directed at Microsoft Windows and Computers in delivering a highly engaging narrative. For the most part Holt’s female protagonists are super competent steamrollers who act alongside nerdy male protagonists with little social sense. Nonetheless, despite being very cynical of love, portraying it as a disease or an annoyance, the theme is a very dominant component in almost all of his novels. Many of his novels take the mythology from different cultures and incorporate them into a modern setting. His novels while capable of being read as standalones, have several recurring characters including Kurt Lundqvist and Danny Bennett the conspiracy theorist.
Tom Holt’s first novel “Expecting Someone Taller” is a combination of fantasy and comedy and is a great novel for any fan of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams. Based on genuine characters and real events of the Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Tom Holt’s first novel is an adrenaline-charged book. Malcom Fisher the lead character learns that he is the new owner of the mantel of Siegfried that gives him access to the Tarnhel, the teleporting and shape shifting charm. However, his inheritance also comes with massive riches flowing from the Nibelung’s Ring, which is ultimately cursed after he kills a badger with his car. Being the ordinary Joe fondly known as Only Malcolm, is he prepared to take the reins of ruling the world. Waiting in the wings to dupe the witless protagonist of his newfound mythical possessions and mystical powers is Wotan and his cunning comrades.
“Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?” Is a mixture of Norse Mythology and PG Wodehouse that follows the adventures of Hildy and her Viking companions that confront certain dark powers. Hildy Frederiksen is an archeologist who was always interested in making a major discovery of the Viking era. When she gets wind of a Viking burial ship, she knows that no opportunity could be bigger, and immediately gets to work. But what she did not expect is that the dead Vikings would rise from the dead leaving her horribly rattled. A millennium past, King Rolf and his band of merry men had been engaged in a battle with one of the most powerful of Sorcerer kings, which he decisively won. However, he had lost sight of his enemy during the battle and so to prevent the evil king from ever disturbing his lands, he had done a King Arthur upon his death. He had put himself and his warriors in an enchanted sleep such that they could always wake up and deal with the Sorcerer King, destroying him if he ever reappeared. Hildy finds herself the bewildered and dazed guide to a bickering band of Norse warriors and their unflappable king, who are heading south to London where they have learned the sorcerer king resides.
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Thank you for this it is a great help. Love the commentary and falling in awe of Tom Holt after years of avoiding his books. I thought that compared to Pratchet and Sharp he would call to the wayside. So happy I began with the first book. Here’s to many frightful fun packed hours of reading.