A Hero? Only In Your Dreams! (In Your Dreams - Tom Holt)

Member Name: English Lady

Product:	In Your Dreams - Tom Holt
Date:	18/10/04 (115 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: well written, humourous, thought provoking

Disadvantages: Not as Knicker Wettingly Hilarious as it's predecessor.

Here it is! The sequel I’ve been waiting for! “In Your Dreams” landed on our doorstep only a matter of days after it’s release at the bargain price of £9.09 from Amazon and that included the delivery! Sorry, I’ve gone exclamation mark mad but I do love a bargain! And as the RRP is £12.99 for this, the latest book from the pen (or more likely the keyboard) of Tom Holt I feel vindicated in getting excited over my purchase! (So be told!)

Right so tearing open the little cardboard package my eager husband and I were greeted with a, well what looked like a posh, stylish novel. In a very rich cream colour the cover had just one stark little black stick figure with a thought bubble coming from his over sized head upon it. Then on top of that was the Authors name in MASSIVE dark and plain print with the title huddled self consciously below it.

If you’ve read of any of Holt’s earlier work you will know that this is not the norm, although The Portable Door (The first book in this series) had a similar look all the ones that came before had very busy front covers with typical comic fantasy illustrations upon them. You know the type of thing that graces the front cover of Pratchett and Rankin books that seems the norm for all fantasy books that fall down on the humorous side of the fence. This looks radically different.

Right so enough of the cosmetics lets get down to the real flesh and bones of the review.

Paul Carpenter works for HG Wells, a seemingly respectable company to work for, even if you might not know exactly what they cater in. As it turns out they deal in magic. Love potions, dragon killing, dowsing for mineral deposits and other such whimsical activities are taken on daily in what seems to be a normal office environment. Dare to stay after work hours and you’ll notice the distinct lack of humans and the plethora of Goblins around the place though.

Paul has not been working with the company long and already he has managed to save the rightful director from living the rest of his life as a stapler and found the love of his life, the rather dull, annoying and abrasive Sophie. Paul is an average Joe, No sorry Joe, Paul aspires to being average. He is fairly dumb, very lazy and has no motivation whatsoever yet somehow he ends up in the Pest control department of HG Wells .

Pest control here involves slaying dragons and disposing of any mythical beast that is making a nuisance of itself around humans. Ricky Wurmtoter, the resident Hero is off on a top secret mission and this leaves Paul and the rather Dwarfish Benny Shumway to keep things ticking over in his absence.

I don’t have to tell you that a fiendish plan comes to light and Paul is the only man standing in the way of world domination do I? No I didn’t think I’d have to. It’s fairly obvious isn’t it? It is the Queen of the Fey’s turn to play the bad guy (or gal in this case) and she can get into your dreams.

Oh Yes and Sophie Isn’t around. She is at the Hollywood branch and Paul finds his fickle heart (or another important organ of his male anatomy at least) gravitating to the new receptionist Melze, Paul’s childhood sweetheart.


Well I had high expectations of this book as I thoroughly enjoyed “The Portable Door.” I was happy to see Tom Holts new and improved writing style continue throughout this book. I really feel he has grown up and matured as an author and where his older books like “Falling Sideways” were just an amalgam of ideas thrown together with a loose beginning, middle and an end this new series of tales seem much more flowing and a lot easier to follow.

However I was a little let down by Paul. His character was a bit dumb but loveable in the first book, in this second episode he gets to be a bit of a damp squib, I found myself mentally screaming at him to wake up and smell the damn coffee but he just seemed to carry on bumbling. I think you’re supposed to feel somewhat dissatisfied with him but as he is the main character of the book, and in fact its narrator I think it is a little dangerous to be making him so damn annoying.

The new characters introduced however are priceless. Benny Shumway as the down to earth, common sensed Dwarf is the perfect character to show up Paul’s inadequacies. Mrs Tanners Mum also has gone from strength to strength, in fact she has gone from a rather scary goblin to a loveable rogue. Monika, Paul’s company car is so much more than an obvious rip off of KnightRiders Kit, Her German outbursts making me giggle out loud every time.


Talking of giggling out loud, I didn’t do as much of it reading “In Your Dreams” as I did with “The Portable Door” but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The sequel is a different book really, much more serious and more plot intensive than the first but still funny but more in a deep down inner chortle of recognition kind of way than a slapstick guffaw out loud way. A lot of clever ideas are wedged in there too. I made far more “Ahhhhh now that’s clever!” Exclamations and “So that’s what he was leading to!” was said several times in the later chapters of the saga.


Everyone loves a Hero and “In your Dreams” is a study of a common old garden Hero, coming at the whole Heroing business from a completely new angle. Pratchett did it with his aging Cohen The Barbarian and the Silver Horde and Now Tom Holt is doing it with his young, dumb and full of…self doubt character, Paul Carpenter.

It is written in a flowing, easily accessible way. There are no massive long over pontificated words (I doubt you’d find pontificated in there anywhere!) and the sentences and paragraphs are generally short and punchy. It is an easy read but it does challenge you enough to keep you guessing at the plot line but it is not so complex as to give you a headache!

If you’ve read “The Portable Door” I will unequivocally recommend “In Your Dreams” to you. If you’ve read one of Tom Holt’s earlier works and found it unpalatable then I would say give him another try and read the two titles I just mentioned as his style has improved massively. Lastly if you are a Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Piers Anthony or a Robert Rankin fan then I think you will love “In Your Dreams” and it’s Predecessor.


I for one cannot wait for the third episode in this Magical soap opera. Hurry up Mr Holt, get writing! I want to see what happens next!


In your dreams is published by Orbit Books and is available in hardback only at the moment.

ISBN : (hardback)1841491594

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