More Book Reviews - Jerry Della Femina, Tom Holt and Phil Janes
Book reviews from 1997
Expecting Someone Taller
fantasy/humourous
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This book at Amazon (UK) Expecting Someone Taller
This book at Amazon (Deutschland) Expecting Someone Taller
This book at Amazon (Canada) Expecting Someone Taller
This book at Amazon (USA) Expecting Someone Taller
It's for sure that Malcolm didn't intended to run over the poor badger,
but there you are. Imagine his surprise when the Badger turns out to be
Inglof, one of the last Giants. Before Inglof enter the stadium called
definetly-quite-dead-and-not-moving-at-all he, very much reluctantly,
makes Malcolm the ruler of the world.
Malcolm didn't expect this at all, at least not from a badger, or at least not from a dying badger...
Life is never going to be the same for Malcolm who was used to quite living, now he's one of the most popular beings in the world, that is, the Gods don't think his the right bloke for the job, so they try to convince him to put his responsibilities on someone more suitable. This was Tom Holt's debut in the comic fantasy genre. Many Gods, Norns, Dwarves, Valkyries, Giants involved and one gets to learn that the Wagner didn't have much right about the story of the Tarnhelm.
I read this book over the easter-holiday and I can assure you that it was a very nice way to spend the evenings, not as good as plain sex, but still much fun.
Malcolm didn't expect this at all, at least not from a badger, or at least not from a dying badger...
Life is never going to be the same for Malcolm who was used to quite living, now he's one of the most popular beings in the world, that is, the Gods don't think his the right bloke for the job, so they try to convince him to put his responsibilities on someone more suitable. This was Tom Holt's debut in the comic fantasy genre. Many Gods, Norns, Dwarves, Valkyries, Giants involved and one gets to learn that the Wagner didn't have much right about the story of the Tarnhelm.
I read this book over the easter-holiday and I can assure you that it was a very nice way to spend the evenings, not as good as plain sex, but still much fun.
| Read my other reviews of Tom Holt's books: My review of Djinn Rummy My review of Who's Afraid of Beowulf? My review of My Hero More information: |
My Hero
fantasy/humourous
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Jane, the famous fantasy-writer, starts to get funny dreams; an author appears in her dreams and tells her that he has been trapped inside his own books for 36 years and need help to get out of there. Well, of course she feel the urge to help out a fellow author...
And then it all starts, an amazing hunt through all kinds of famous books, and it's bound to be many complications; Piglet getting taken as hostage, Dracula finds himself being taken to hospital to get bloodinjections, Hamlet trying to get out of character and find another role, and other hilarious incidents.
The tempo is very hectic and I had a hard time trying to put the book away, and it occured to me that it was certainly a bad move to start to read this book the week before an exam, well, the only thing to do was to finish the book before the exam as well. Four and a half piglets out of five for this great novel.
And then it all starts, an amazing hunt through all kinds of famous books, and it's bound to be many complications; Piglet getting taken as hostage, Dracula finds himself being taken to hospital to get bloodinjections, Hamlet trying to get out of character and find another role, and other hilarious incidents.
The tempo is very hectic and I had a hard time trying to put the book away, and it occured to me that it was certainly a bad move to start to read this book the week before an exam, well, the only thing to do was to finish the book before the exam as well. Four and a half piglets out of five for this great novel.
| Read my other reviews of Tom Holt's books: My review of Djinn Rummy My review of Expecting Someone Taller My review of Who's Afraid of Beowulf? More information: |
From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Habor (Frontline Dispatches from the Advertising War)
biography/humourous
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This is the story of how advertising was done in the 50's-60's in the USA.
It's not a wellwritten book, it got a touch of a novel written by an arbitrary high-school kid. But it's quite fun to read, dispite the spelling
errors and the jumping back and forth in the stories.
He tells amusing stories about accounts he got/lost or simply just didn't got in touch with. The drawback is that this book was written 1969 and the author assumes many times that the reader has heard of the agencies and persons mentioned, well, perhaps they were known at that time, but when I read this book in Sweden 1997, I don't really know who they are. But, on the other hand, it's not important at all to know who they are, one just carries on reading and ignores all such comments.
I don't think you'll ever stumble on this book, but if you do, it's at least well worth the 5 SKR I spent (half-an-english-pound).
Update 2012: Just saw that apparently this book was the inspiration for the popular tv-series "Mad Men", hence they have reprinted the book! See links above to get it at Amazon.
He tells amusing stories about accounts he got/lost or simply just didn't got in touch with. The drawback is that this book was written 1969 and the author assumes many times that the reader has heard of the agencies and persons mentioned, well, perhaps they were known at that time, but when I read this book in Sweden 1997, I don't really know who they are. But, on the other hand, it's not important at all to know who they are, one just carries on reading and ignores all such comments.
I don't think you'll ever stumble on this book, but if you do, it's at least well worth the 5 SKR I spent (half-an-english-pound).
Update 2012: Just saw that apparently this book was the inspiration for the popular tv-series "Mad Men", hence they have reprinted the book! See links above to get it at Amazon.
The Galaxy Game
science fiction/humourous
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This is the first book in The Galaxy Game-triology, you don't have to read the other two to appreciate this book, since they are almost free-standing. Dick, sorry (he looks like a Dick to me), Richard Curtis is building a
spaceship that will take the first earthlings to where no man (or woman)
had gone before. Such an important mission requires the most skilled and
intelligent astronauts that are specially trained to work together under
tough circumstances. To bad that the crew consists of a bunch of idiots.
Under the command of Curtis, heh! just kidding, under the command of the
humanlike computer named Arnold BUILT by Curtis (sounds much better already?), a computer that are programmed to obey any of the crews wishes, a computer that fast and efficient calculate ways to get out of complications the easiest way. Well, in a perfect world it would be like that, now it's more like: if Arnold is in the right mood and only if he's sure that the crew later will regret it, he is obeying. Hal was a friendly pocket-calculator compared to Arnold.
Well, anyway, they are trapped inside this ship for two weeks, and are going to be the first humans to meet intelligent life from outer space. That's the plot...almost. I had heard very little of Phil Janes when I started reading this book. Something tells me that I will hear a lot more about him later on, this book is a great amusement, Curtis is the most clumsy and inefficient leader and one can't help but feeling a bit sorry for him. Get away from reality for a while and read this book and realize that your life could be so much worse, and that you're not completly controlled by artificial life like Arnold..yet.
| Reviews of books written in a similar style: My review of Douglas Adams's The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy My review of Terry Jones's Douglas Adam's Starship Titanic My review of Grant Naylor's Red Dwarf |
Djinn Rummy
fantasy/humourous
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A genuine genie gets into a lot of trouble when it get's realeased by Jane, a woman that only was trying to commit suicide by eating far to many asprins than any doctor with a degree would recommend. Imagine her surprise when out of the bottle a little genie named Kiss pops out and she suddenly gets three wishes. Imagine Kiss surprise when Jane's first wish is that she wishes twelve million more wishes. Learn more about how genies work, and that there are more of them around than you think. And that not all of them are good...some are even bad. This book is a great one by Tom Holt, not his best but it certainly will make you laugh. Hmm...funny that I always says something like this about every book I read...let's change: Don't read this book..ever! But read all other of Tom Holt's books and then let's see if you can resist reading this as well.
| Read my other reviews of Tom Holt's books: My review of Who's Afraid of Beowulf? My review of Expecting Someone Taller My review of My Hero More information: |
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