The Management Style of the Supreme Beings
by Tom Holt (Orbit, 2017); audiobook read by Ray Sawyer (ISIS, 2017)
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
by Tom Holt; audiobook read by Ray Sawyer (ISIS, 2007)
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.
Who Wants to be the Prince of Darkness?
by Michael Boatman (Angry Robot, 2016)
From the blurb — which promises comedic fantasy with demons, angels and reality tv — one might expect Michael Boatman to have served up an American Tom Holt novel. Unfortunately, whatever humour (and plot) he envisaged has not transposed well from author to book.
Time Bandits
dir. Terry Gilliam (1981)
Gilliam’s impressive cinematography (on only $5,000,000) is wasted on an overlong, distended historical fantasy that tries to reel in both adults and children but leaves both groups unsatisfied. The Python-esque humour seems forced and the plot piecemeal in predating Bill & Ted.
The Good, The Bad and The Smug
by Tom Holt (Orbit, 2015)
Just when you thought it was safe to look back through the doughnut, Tom Holt points the funny-bone at a world entirely different from ours… except for its nonsensical bits; those are, perhaps more than ever, damningly familiar and ticklish of fancy.