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.
The Eight Reindeer of the Apocalypse
by Tom Holt (Orbit, 2023)
A return to form and a return to office-political satire (supernatural law firms buggering everything up in the finely honed pursuit of self-interest). Holt’s prose rollicks along at a line-by-line, page-by-page level, fizzing by even while his characters wade through treacled cynicism.
An Orc on the Wild Side
by Tom Holt (Orbit, 2019); audiobook read by Ray Sawyer (Isis, 2019)
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
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.
Olympiad
by Tom Holt (Little, Brown, 2000)
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.
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.
The Devil You Know
by K J Parker (Tor, 2016)
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
by K J Parker (Subterranean, 2016)
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.
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.