Book Review: Overtime

Quick Stats
Genre - Humourous fantasy
Length - ~310p
Author - Tom Holt

Overview
Time travel. Fantasy. Investments. Missing kings, tax evasions, singing wandering bards, inter-time concerts, badly negotiated contracts, lust-at-first-sight that the MC realises is Very Bad, an intensely unique universe... This is about the best I can do to sum up Holt's Overtime. It's twisty, it's convoluted, and it's a fun romp through a wacky world where nothing and no-one is as it seems.

Belatedly, I found a good summary of this story in the fantasy encyclopedia I got for Christmas: Richard Lionheart's Blondel seeks for him in all the wrong centuries. :)

First Impressions
First impressions were good, actually. The book gets off to a very promising start, involving a somewhat comic situation with a dead body in an aeroplane, of all things. The tone is light-hearted and quick-witted, and you get all squiggly thinking about the sheer fun the book promises.

High Points
Well, it certainly has its amusing moments. The twists of the plot are fresh and surprising, it's funny, clever, and very, very different.

Low Points
Sadly, the second half of the book is a little lacking. It's a fun read, no doubt about it, but the overarching plot lacks a sense of consistency and coherency. I get the main point of the plot, but I'm still left with the question -- Why?? And what did that particular subplot have to do with the price of fish? Not to mention the fact that the final chapter wraps things up in a less-than-satisfactory manner...

Rating
Eh. I'd say a bus book: it's funny and useful for when you have nothing better to do and don't mind laughing a little in public. Not something for dedicated pocket-reading, though :)