Tag: Tom Holt

The Portable Door (2023)

The Portable Door

dir. Jeffrey Walker (Stan, 2023)

Film poster: “The Portable Door” dir. Jeffrey Walker (Stan, 2023)

A remarkably lush feature-length adaptation of the eponymous novel (though Benjamin Speed’s score is a little too overt in pushing the quirky fantasy angle). Leon Ford’s screenplay captures the spirit. Patrick Gibson and Sophie Wilde turn their everyman characters into genuine protagonists.

An Orc on the Wild Side

An Orc on the Wild Side

by Tom Holt (Orbit, 2019); audiobook read by Ray Sawyer (Isis, 2019)

Holt_Orc Wild Side

The satirical fantasy setting and plethora of characters (none them especially purposeful) constitute an ambitious attempt at osmotic, jigsaw-puzzle storytelling. The execution no doubt comes off better in written form, where Holt’s non-stop, at times throwaway drollery isn’t subjected to read-aloud precision.

 

 

The Management Style of the Supreme Beings

The Management Style of the Supreme Beings

by Tom Holt (Orbit, 2017); audiobook read by Ray Sawyer (ISIS, 2017)

Holt_Management Style

Tom Holt returns to comedic fantasy with irreverent vengeance, not so much attacking religion as reducing it to absurdity. When Dad and Jay sell the Earth to deities running a different business model (pay per sin), only Santa remains to offer resistance.

 

 

Barking

Barking

by Tom Holt; audiobook read by Ray Sawyer (ISIS, 2007)

Holt_Barking

Do werewolves and vampires truly exist? Of course they do, says Tom Holt; they’re working as lawyers. Even though Sawyer’s delivery is spot-on, the audiobook drags a little, undone by an inability to keep pace with Holt’s fast, funny and simile-strewn prose.

 

 

Olympiad

Olympiad

by Tom Holt (Little, Brown, 2000)

Holt_Olympiad

Nobody reading Tom Holt’s historical novels could doubt that he is K J Parker. A scholar of Ancient Greek history, Holt peppered his Olympic Games origin story with gritty realism and a profoundly resigned appreciation of the nemesis inherent in human nature.

 

 

The Devil You Know

The Devil You Know

by K J Parker (Tor, 2016)

Parker_The Devil You Know

A single-sitting novella in which Parker adds a devilish twist to the Faust legend: the demon representing the Prince of Lies has an appreciation for the arts; the man selling his soul is a great philosopher but an irrepressible liar and cheat.

 

Downfall of the Gods

Downfall of the Gods

by K J Parker (Subterranean, 2016)

Parker_Downfall of the Gods

Parker knows a cynical thing or two about human nature, and in this droll fantasy novella exposes the gods as being equally prone to self-destruction. Told from a divine perspective, her quest narrative follows its own succulent logic through several unexpected turns.

 

Derelict Space Sheep