2003 comic fantasy. Paul Carpenter applies for a job as a "junior
clerk" at J. W. Wells, not knowing just what it is that they do; but
it seems to be something really quite strange. He'd chuck it in if he
hadn't fallen for his fellow junior clerk…
I've never really understood why Tom Holt's novels are classed as
"comedy", unless it's of the "have to laugh because otherwise you'll
start crying" variety.
Paul is a fairly typical Holt hero: aimless, fairly useless, utterly
unable to cope with the idea of Girls never mind the reality. In spite
of himself, he finds himself talking with Sophie, beginning with
mutual contempt and gradually progressing to something warmer.
Even so, the book has a fairly slow start, since the reader knows that
there's going to be fantasy and mystery involved, while Paul is just
ploughing through a more-than-usually tedious office job. If anything
I found him a little too pathetic to be really interesting; there were
times when I really didn't care what happened to him, as long as
something happened.
The titular portable door, which allows the user to step through to
any place of his choice, is curiously underdefined; some of the
warnings associated with it turn out to be complete red herrings, and
it sometimes feels like an all-purpose plot-wrangling device. The love
potion ("fall in love forever with the first person of the right sex
you see on waking") is another matter, and is treated with the utter
horror that it deserves.
There are plenty of inexplicable events that lead the reader to
speculate about just what might be going on and how they could fit
together, particularly in a sequence where the company's vault is
catalogued; the eventual revelation was unsatisfying to me, a bit like
a crime novel where all the weirdness is explained away with "a
lunatic did it". With a slow start as well, it's really only the
middle section that shines, which is a shame, since the underlying
ideas are excellent.
Recommended nonetheless, especially if you find Holt's usual written
view of the world (which isn't that of the man himself; he's much more
cynical in person) a refreshing change from a steady stream of happy
endings that wrap everything up neatly.
Followed by In Your Dreams.
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