Subject: Review of Tom Holt's _Ye Gods!_

From: [email-masked] (Ken Cox)
Date: 06 Oct 93 02:14:34 GMT

YE GODS!
Tom Holt
A review by Ken Cox

Tom Holt has carved a small niche in the humorous fantasy market with
his books placing mythological or legendary characters in a modern
setting -- Germanic myth and the Ring cycle in _Expecting Someone
Taller_, Viking legend in _Who's Afraid of Beowulf_, and the Flying
Dutchman in _Flying Dutch_.  _Ye Gods!_ is Holt's look at classical
myth.

Welcome to a world where the primordial gods Cronus and Rhea had a
brother.  Where the gods play dice -- well, more like Monopoly -- with
the universe.  Where Platonic Forms -- Autumn and Fear and Efficiency
and Indigestion and Venezuela -- walk the earth.  And where Prometheus
was punished not so much for giving mankind fire, as for giving them
the _other_ thing.

Enter Jason Derry, Hero, the son of Jupiter (king of the universe)
and Phyllis Derry (suburban housewife).  Jason is leading the normal
life of a Hero -- recovering golden fleeces, slaying the odd gorgon
or dragon, winning wars single-handedly -- when he meets Prometheus,
who tells him what's really going on.  Then things get interesting....

_Ye Gods!_ is worth reading simply for the one-liners.  As usual, Holt
is at his funniest when describing the interactions of the mythical
figures with the real world.  In terms of humorous content, I would
_Ye Gods!_ slightly above _Beowulf_ but definitely below _Expecting_
and _Flying_.  However, the plot is a bit weak and incoherent at times.
Several plot lines are left hanging at the end, which always irritates
me.  On technical grounds, it is probably the weakest of the novels.

%T Ye Gods!
%A Tom Holt
%I St. Martin's Press
%C New York
%D 1992
%G ISBN 0-312-08927-9
%P 296pp
%O hardcover, US$19.95; first published in Great Britain by Orbit Books

Ken Cox
[email-masked]